Sunday, April 13, 2008

Celine Dion - Taking Chances World Tour @ Malaysia (Set 2)

Here are more pictures from Celine Dion's Taking Chances World Tour, at Stadium Merdeka in KL. Photos were taken with a Canon G9, no flash, free-hand (no tripod), 5 rows from the stage, full-manual, on ISO 200, 1/50s to 1/60s and F2.8 to F3.2 in most part.

Celine also belted out Heart's Alone ... Her biggest French (and cross-over) hit, Pour que tu m'aimes encore which she sang at all her concerts. Then she moved to familiar numbers like, Think Twice, and My Love.

I was really surprised and excited when she paid tribute to the legendary Freddy Mercury and Queen, by singing ... a brief interlude of We Will Rock You, followed by The Show Must Go On. Her back-up band then did a medley of Sex Machine / Soul Man / Lady Marmalade / Respect / I Got the Feelin. And she came back to finish off with ... It's a Man's World , That's Just the Woman in Me , and Love Can Move Mountains.


Celine's ensemble included 4 guitarists, a drummer and a percussionist (or was it 2 drummers!?) as well as a pianist and violinist.
And, the backup singers and dancers did a really good job in entertaining us whilst Celine was having a couple of quick breaks, when she (surprisingly) did not change outfits. But hey... I wasn't complaining. Her vocals were AWESOME all night, and she didn't miss a beat, despite having been ill recently.


Her encore of River Deep, Mountain High didn't go down quite very well with the crowd, who had no idea it was a historically very interesting song from 1966. The first recording was by Ike & Tina Turner. The song compared a woman's love to the love that a child feels for a doll, or a puppy feels for his master. Tina Turner promises to "love [her man] just the way I loved that rag doll", and to love her man just like the puppy he had as a child did. Other covers included Harry Nilsson, Deep Purple, with my favourite cover having been done by Erasure (on their brilliant 'Innocents' album) as well as Celine Dion's studio version in her Falling into You album.


After the stage had gone dark, the crowd started chanting, "My Heart Will Go On", "Encore...." ... And, she obliged! Celine Dion returned in a beautiful flowing yellow dress, and did a 2nd encore ... Titanic's theme song, the mega hit, My Heart Will Go On.


At 10:30pm, Celine said good night to Kuala Lumpur ...


The 10,000 strong crowd leaving after an incredible vocal performance by one of the greatest acts of our generation, Celine Dion ... Bravo!

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Aw~I was crying as I read your posts on Celine Dion. I didn't get the chance to go but I felt like I was personally there when I was looking closely at all the pictures you took. Being such a big of her, I really wish that someday I could be sitting with other fans, and enjoy every second of her remarkable performance. SHE LOOKED GREAT!! I love her in that flattering cream dress :> Anyway, all the pictures were nicely taken :) And thanks for sharing your experience with us, who couldn't able to make it :>

Ciki said...

gr8 voice .. but she looks so jaded...

Julian Si said...

My pleasure, glad that the pictures are OK :-)

Lee Chien said...

i'm so envy.......

and really great pics!!! you bring us there!!!

Anonymous said...

OMG what a wonderful pictures!!!!!!

Please do post more!

I am DYING! WOW!

thank you!

Anonymous said...

I'm a Japanese fan of Celine Dion reached at your blog through Japanes fan site run by Juka-san. http://www.zyuka.com/index.html
WOW, Pictures you took are all great! I just visited Shanghai stadium concert on 11th and I aslo took some photos. Mine are however not as good as yours being seated at row 14, a bit too far. I was thrilled to look at yours very much. In Japan, I guess you understand photo shooting as well as taping are strictly controled and I felt a sense of guilty a bit when I took some in Shanghai at first. Of course I enjoyed the show and I can really imagine how you felt. Mostly the two shows were same but one thing, that was Celine dressed yellow cloth in encore. She did not change costume in Shanghai maybe due to the temparature. In Japan, the stage set and performance were totally different, as for this I'll post later on.
Thanks.

celinewong said...

Hey Julian,

Thanks so much for the pix..can i copy and show in my blog? hehe i'll give credit to you though. btw, how did u manage to take such good pix? I mean didn't the tix stated that no cameras allowed? BTW, how much was ur tix..? 5th row from stage must be VIP tix..u got it for free or did u paid for it?? hehehe

i love Celine's performance so much too..and yea..there's not a half key dat she sings off key! she's simple THE BEST diva OF ALL !!!!!!!!!! no Asian singers that I know can sing as good as she did. i wish i went to her vegas show... :( when is her next 1....................... she looked incredible in vegas show..so many diff types of dresses :)

Julian Si said...

Wow, Juka-san has a really good Celine Dion fan-site!
Thanks for the nice comments on my photos, glad you liked them.
Yes, I can imagine in Japan it'd be very strict with NO PHOTOGRAPHY! They didn't restrict me in the VVIP section at Malaysia :-)
When you post your photos, do let me know where they are!

---

Celine, feel free to copy and show. Just put down that they are from Juliansi.blogspot.com
No problem at all! Glad you like the pix. Haha.. Can't buy the VVIP tickets :-) it was a gift.
Yup, they did state clearly NO CAMERAS, but I walked in with mine, no problem at all.

Gonzo said...

Hi Julian,
Thanks for the response to my comments (Anonymous, a Japanese fan ). I've signed up with my HN Gonzo. Thanks also for visiting Juka-san's website. She is a great fan of Celine going to all four shows in Japan last month.
I originally planned to enjoy Beijing concert and purchased ticket through Celine Dion fan club. The ticket I bought was surprisingly Row 1 at the middle!
I was almost dying when the show was found to be cancelled. Then I changed my mind to visit Shanghai instead. KL show was also one of my alternatives, but the schedule did not fit me. Oh Celine performed Think Twice. I wanted to hear that in Shanghai as this was not performed in Japan.

celinewong said...

eeeeee.. how did you get the VVIP tix as a gift?! Are you from the press? Pls explain urself..hhehehehhehehe :)

Julian Si said...

GONZO - Hi from Malaysia! Glad to hear that you liked my photos, and you even signed up with Blogger I see!
So sorry to hear you missed out being in the MOST-VIP-of-seats at Beijing :-( That's unlucky. But I am glad you still managed to watch her Shanghai gig.

CELINEWONG - Haha, nope I am not the press. Just a regular Blogger. But I have very nice friends!! Lucky me I guess ..

Ps. If there are any other photos from the concert you want me to post, I would be more then glad to. Just let me know!

Gonzo said...

Hi Julian,
This is Gonzo again from Tokyo. If you have more photos I'd be pleased to look at. Please post more.
BTW, the camera you used for taking Celine is CANON G9 you mentioned, isn't it? I can never imagine that one is not a single-lens reflex camera. I was so shocked with the performance of G9 that must be toooo good!

Julian Si said...

OK, I will try to post more :-)

Haha.. it was all shot with a Canon G9, on full-manual. Here's my little beauty ...

http://juliansi.blogspot.com/2008/03/canon-e18-error-lens-stuck-on-g9.html

Yup, the performance can be rather good, especially when shooting under low light at ISO200.

Glad you like the pics again!