After more than seven years, Mandopop King Jay Chou made his long-awaited homecoming at the Taipei Dome with his four-night Carnival World Tour.
Not only did Jay thrill fans performing more than 30 songs in three-and-a-half hours, the concert, which kicked off on Dec 5, also featured a number of A-list guest performers like Mayday, Ah Mei, Power Station and retired Taiwanese diva Jody Chiang, who made an appearance in not one, but two shows.
Many of Jay’s celeb pals were also spotted lending their support in the audience, such as his personal trainer and popular live streamer Liu Genghong, ’90s hiphop group LA Boyz’s Jeffrey Huang as well as heartthrob Greg Hsu, who wore black-rimmed glasses reminiscent of his look in the Jay’s ‘Class 3-2’ music video when he was 13.
When Jay performed ‘All the Way North’, the theme song from 2005 movie Initial D, the camera panned to Hong Kong star Edison Chen, who was with his wife, Chinese supermodel Qin Shupei, in the VIP section.
Edison, who co-starred in the film with Jay, playfully made the wheel steering gesture to the camera.
Among the highlights of the concert were Jay’s interactions with his pals.
Singer Ella Chen, who was at the Dec 7 show, shared that she was hit with a wave of nostalgia when listening to Jay perform ‘Tropical Rainforest’ as it was the first song he wrote for her band S.H.E 22 years ago.
When host Ken Lim told Ella that she hasn’t aged at all, the sassy star pointed to Jay and said: “Yeah, but you have!” leaving him dumbfounded.
Jay’s famous friends were also picked to duet with him during the song request segment.
Mavis Fan belted out ‘Dark Humour’, and Jimmy Lin’s nine-year-old son, Jenson, who is a huge Jay Chou fan and was spotted at two shows, sang ‘Rice Field’.
Though he got a little help from dad, who whispered the lyrics to him, Jenson was so out of tune and beat that Jay told his pianist to “follow [the boy’s] key”.
But perhaps the most memorable was former NBA star Jeremy Lin’s very monotonous attempt at singing ‘Sunny Day’ on Dec 6.
After a few lines, he had trouble reading the lyrics and Jay had to step in and take over, drawing laughter from the audience.
A netizen, who shared a video of Jeremy singing, joked that he looked like an introvert who was being forced to sing at karaoke.
Can’t say we disagree.