1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Charmaine Sheh went to the ticket gate to queue up very early, and there were only three people in front of her.

They waited for about forty minutes, until half past six, when ticket checking finally began.

After she entered the concert hall, she found that there were quite a few people sitting in the first row, all of them were the stars who had just come in.

With a nervous mood, Charmaine Sheh walked to the middle seat of the second row and sat down. In front of her was Anita Mui.

Sitting on Anita Mui's left was Leslie Cheung, and on her right was Ching Ha Lam. They were chatting and laughing at the moment, and did not stop the conversation because of Charmaine Sheh's arrival.

Since the topic they were talking about was related to today's concert, there was nothing to be shy about.

"I haven't listened to Zhou Yan's concert for a long time." Anita Mui sighed.

Zhang Guorong laughed and said, "He doesn't have many concerts to begin with, so even if you want to go, you can't."

“Concert halls still have limitations and can accommodate too few people.”

"If it's in a gymnasium, it can accommodate more people, but the effect will be worse."

Lin Qingxia smiled and said, "This is my first time to attend his concert in person."

"I will definitely not disappoint you. Zhou Yan's concert is very special. It is more popular than those classical music, and more traditional than pop music." Anita Mui said.

"Well, that's why he is so popular. I think the direction he has taken in recent years is very good. Giving the songs to pop singers can greatly increase the popularity of the songs." Zhang Guorong said.

"I think this is not his active strategy, but a passive one. Every time after a song comes out, others ask him to sing for them." Anita Mui smiled and pointed at her nose and said, "For example, me."

Anita Mui sang two songs by Zhou Yan, one is "Stay with Me" and the other is "If Love Has Destiny". The former is the soundtrack that Zhou Yan put in the movie "Letter from Heaven", and the latter is the one she heard them perform live at Zhou Yan's home with Li Bihua.

These two pieces of music were passively released by Zhou Yan and turned into songs.

Nowadays, these two songs have become Anita Mui's classic songs and are in the top tier among all her songs.

Moreover, these two songs were also covered by Japan's Shizuka Kudo, and are very well-known in Japan.

Charmaine Sheh was sitting in the back and didn't deliberately eavesdrop on their conversation, but she could hear everything they said clearly.

Speaking of which, Charmaine Sheh is also an old fan of Zhou Yan.

In Hong Kong, for most of Zhou Yan’s fans, their entry into the music world can be divided into several important stages.

The first stage was when "The Young Pianist Who Wants to Fly" was released in Hong Kong. The movie achieved very good results in Hong Kong, and the music in it also caused a great response in Hong Kong. Many people got to know Zhou Yan, a treasure director and treasure musician, because of this movie.

However, "The Young Pianist Who Wants to Fly" did not make Zhou Yan's face well-known to the public. Although he appeared in the movie's easter eggs, he did not leave a deep impression on people.

The second stage was the release of "Green Snake". Although this movie did not get good box office in Hong Kong, it made many audiences know Zhou Yan, who played Xu Xian, and Zhou Yan also won the Best Newcomer Award for this movie.

The third stage should be when "The Sixth Sense" was released. At that time, not only did the movie do well at the box office in Hong Kong, but there were also many news related to Zhou Yan at the same time.

He always appears in media reports and has become a well-known figure.

The fourth stage is this year. Zhou Yan won the Berlin Film Festival Special Jury Award and the Oscar for Best Original Score consecutively. In addition, the remake of "The Sixth Sense" became a global hit, which greatly increased Zhou Yan's popularity in Hong Kong.

Charmaine Sheh knew Zhou Yan before these four stages. She went to see Raise the Red Lantern before The Young Piano Boy Who Wants to Fly was released.

In the movie, the scene of Chen Feipu half-sitting on the window sill and playing the flute left a deep impression on her.

However, Zhou Yan was not famous at all at that time, and Charmaine Sheh did not find any information about him. She only knew that his name was Zhou Yan.

Later, Zhou Yan went to Hong Kong to film "Green Snake" and had a scandal with Zhang Manyu. Only then did she see news about Zhou Yan again.

After that, she slowly began to pay attention to Zhou Yan.

Whether it is Zhou Yan's music or movies, she has always been following them.

Anita Mui and the others were chatting about things related to Zhou Yan, and she listened with great interest. However, as more and more people came, they stopped talking about it.

The musicians of the orchestra also went on stage and found seats to sit down. Although the light on the stage was dim, Charmaine Sheh was sitting in the front row and could see clearly.

Twenty minutes later, the lights in the concert hall suddenly dimmed.

The hall, which was originally a little noisy, immediately became quiet because everyone knew that the concert was about to begin.

About ten seconds later, the lights on the stage came on, and the performers who had already taken their seats appeared in front of the audience.

Seeing the performers, the audience applauded.

The applause had just become a little smaller when Zhou Yan and conductor Yue Lin walked onto the stage from the side, and the applause became even more tearful.

When they reached the center of the stage, Zhou Yan and Yue Lin bowed towards the audience.

Then Yue Lin walked to his seat and stood, and Zhou Yan said into the microphone, "Good evening, everyone. I am Zhou Yan."

A simple greeting once again brought warm applause.

Zhou Yan looked at the audience, smiled, and continued, "After a few years, the Piano Youth Orchestra has come to Hong Kong again. The last time we came to Hong Kong, the Piano Youth Orchestra had only been established for a short time and had relatively little performance experience. We would also like to thank the Hong Kong music fans for their tolerance and support, which gave us great encouragement. The orchestra's success today is naturally inseparable from you all."

"Hong Kong is the first stop of this piano boy world tour concert, and today is also the first concert in Hong Kong. Speaking of which, I am a little nervous..."

When the audience heard Zhou Yan say that he was nervous, they couldn't help but laugh.

Zhou Yan has seen all kinds of big scenes. If he said he was nervous, who would believe him?

"Because time is tight, in order to present more performances to everyone, I will not say more. I hope the following performances can bring everyone a wonderful night."

After saying that, Zhou Yan walked into the orchestra and prepared to start playing.

The opening songs of today's performance are all oriental in style, and the people on the stage are all members of the folk music band.

The first piece is "Memories of the Forbidden City", which is a must in every concert. This piece is often used as the opening piece because of its grand beginning.

Following closely behind are "The Great Wall", "The Distant Journey", "Drinking the Yangtze River Water Together" and "Journey to the West Fantasy".

The audience are very familiar with the first few songs, only the last one, "Journey to the West Fantasy", is a little unfamiliar to everyone.

However, when the song reached the middle part, some people still recognized that this song had appeared in "A Chinese Odyssey".

Although the box office performance of "A Chinese Odyssey" was not ideal, this was only relative to the investment in the film. The two parts of the film still earned tens of millions of dollars at the box office, and many people have seen it.

Of course, only a small part of "Journey to the West Fantasy" was used in "A Chinese Odyssey", and no one has heard the rest of it.

This piece of music is very long, but it has a good rhythm and is exciting enough, so the audience thinks it is quite nice.

Zhou Yan's current concert programs are arranged in this way. Most of them are widely circulated pieces, but they are also mixed with some pieces that have a higher threshold for appreciation, higher technical difficulty, and higher artistic content.

To put it simply, it's the kind of song that even if the audience doesn't understand it, they will still give a thumbs up and say it's awesome after listening to it.

On the folk music side, there is "Journey to the West Fantasy", and on the Western music side, there are songs like "Eternal Night" and "Flowing Wind".

At 9:10, the concert's regular time was over.

What followed was the thank-you and encore performances. Zhou Yan was very considerate this time and came back fourteen times and played six songs.

After the fourteenth thank you, Zhou Yan never came up again. The audience listened for seven or eight minutes of encore before reluctantly starting to leave. By this time, it was already past ten o'clock.

The entire concert, in total, lasted more than three hours.

Despite such a long time, the audience did not feel tired at all, and many people even felt that the time was too short.

Of course, today's performance has not yet ended, because as usual, the orchestra will go outside to perform free shows for the audience who did not buy tickets.

At this time, the smart audience has rushed out quickly, wanting to get outside before other audiences and occupy a favorable position.

Charmaine Sheh was the smarter one. She was at the front when the tickets were checked and when the show ended.

But when she walked out of the center's gate, she found that many people had gathered in front of the makeshift stage.

The square at the entrance of the center is not small, and two or three thousand people standing there would not feel crowded, but at this time the square feels like it is almost full.

Especially near the stage, there is basically no gap at all.

There were originally many seats in front of the stage, but at this time it was impossible to tell who was standing and who was sitting.

Charmaine Sheh was a little dumbfounded. Where could there be a good position for her now?

She wanted to get into the middle but there was no way because the security personnel had already set up a cord and no one could enter that level.

There was no other way, she could only find a place at the back where there were fewer people and stand there, waiting for Zhou Yan and the orchestra to appear.

After a while, when the audience in the concert hall came out, Charmaine Sheh began to be glad that she came out early, because the people who came out later could only squeeze to the side of the road, which was very far away from the stage, and those who were a little shorter could not see anything.

When Anita Mui and the others came out, they were also shocked by the scene before them.

There is almost no open space in front of the entire cultural center.

"Tsk, this scale is almost like a concert." Zhang Guorong said with a smile.

"Of course it's not as big as a stadium, but it can definitely hold five or six thousand people."

"With so many people not being able to buy tickets, I feel like Zhou Yan and his team won't have any problems selling tickets if they add ten more shows in Hong Kong."

"There are only more than 20,000 tickets for ten shows, so they will definitely sell out."

It doesn't take 20,000 people to digest more than 20,000 tickets, because many people buy tickets repeatedly, and some fans can come to every show.

If on average each person watches two shows, only 10,000 people would be needed to get those tickets.

And now there are at least five thousand people at the entrance of the center.

Anita Mui had actually planned to wait at the door for a while, but when she saw so many people, she gave up the idea. There were simply too many people, and if they stayed there they would only cause trouble.

She turned to Lin Qingxia and the others and said, "Let's go back."

"Yeah, there are too many people." Lin Qingxia nodded.

Others also expressed their desire to go back.

Anita Mui looked around and asked curiously, "Where's Xiaoxian?"

"I don't know. I was just behind him."

"Do you want me to go in and look for it?" Leslie Cheung said.

Anita Mui grabbed him and said, "Forget it. She's an adult and she won't get lost. Let's go first."

After hearing what Anita Mui said, Zhang Guorong nodded and said nothing more.

Then they went back home. …

After about ten minutes, at half past ten, Zhou Yan came out with some band members.

The makeshift stage was not particularly large, so it was certainly impossible for Zhou Yan to bring out all the members of the band.

As soon as they appeared, thunderous cheers broke out at the scene.

There were only about 2,000 people in the concert hall, and everyone was relatively restrained inside, so the noise was nowhere near as loud as it is now.

The scene no longer felt like a concert, but more like a music festival, with people everywhere.

Originally, only a few police officers came to help maintain order, but later they found that there were too many people here, so they had to increase manpower. Now there are at least dozens of police officers on the scene.

But even so, it was still difficult to maintain order at the scene.

This was mainly because there was no advance deployment and there was some organizational panic. The police did not expect that so many people would gather today.

There is another key issue. The cultural center is close to the dock, and the flow of people is actually quite large. The noise at the entrance of the center has already attracted the attention of people at the dock, and some are rushing here.

Ma Dongfang and his friends were quite excited when they saw the huge crowds in the audience. They had attended many concerts before, but this was the first time they had seen such a lively crowd as today.

As soon as he came out, four words emerged in Ma Dongfang's mind - packed with people.

Fortunately, there were people maintaining order on the scene, otherwise there would have been chaos.

Zhou Yan walked onto the makeshift stage and took some photos with the microphone. The sound equipment on the stage was pretty good. Beyond the small square was the shore. Standing on the stage, he could still feel the wind blowing from the harbor.

However, the sound from the speakers was not affected too much and was still relatively clear.

Outdoor performances are complicated and the auditory enjoyment is completely different from that in a concert hall.

But the audience on site was even more enthusiastic than inside, and the main focus was on the atmosphere.

After patting the microphone, Zhou Yan smiled and said, "I didn't expect that so many people didn't get tickets."

After hearing what Zhou Yan said, the people in the audience started to clamor.

“Tickets are too hard to buy.”

"Hold more games. Four games are not enough."

"One hundred more games will be enough."

"Let's go to the gym and open it."

……

Listening to the audience's complaints, Zhou Yan said with regret, "Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, I also want to stay a little longer, but the schedule has been arranged. After the four shows in Hong Kong, we will go to Taiwan and then to the United States... But don't worry, I will probably come again this year."

When the audience heard that Zhou Yan would come again this year, they howled with joy.

"keep your word."

“I must come this year.”

"We'll be waiting for you in Xiangjiang."

……

"Thank you for your support, and thank you to the security personnel on site for your hard work. Next, let's not waste any more time and start the performance directly. The first song is the folk music version of "Guanghan Palace". I hope everyone will like it."

After Zhou Yan finished speaking, the audience burst into applause and cheers.

When Zhou Yan raised the bamboo flute in his hand, the scene gradually became quiet.

After all, we are outdoors, there are so many people, and people are constantly walking towards this side, so it is impossible to be completely quiet.

But since the performance was already outdoors, Zhou Yan didn't care about these things anymore.

Everyone has heard the song "Guanghan Palace" because it is included in "Yu Lin Ling", but no one has heard the folk music version yet, so it is a new experience for the audience.

It’s a pity that today is the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month and there is no moon at the moment, otherwise the artistic conception would be even better.

After "Guanghan Palace", Zhou Yan played "Nightingale" and "Yearning Across Time and Space".

After these three pieces were played, today's free extra performance was supposed to be over. Zhou Yan had only prepared three pieces of music.

But there are too many people here today, and if it ends like this, Zhou Yan would feel a little sorry for them.

At this time, Zhou Yan said into the microphone, "Normally, there is no song request session at my concerts, but today I will make an exception and let you choose the program to be performed later. Next, I will randomly select audience members and let you request songs."

As soon as Zhou Yan said this, the atmosphere at the scene reached its climax. Many audience members immediately raised their hands, and some of them kept jumping on the spot, wanting Zhou Yan to see them.

The voices of “choose me” were heard one after another at the scene.

In order to avoid causing confusion, Zhou Yan did not throw things for selection, but directly called out names. He chose a young boy in the front position.

"That handsome guy in the blue shirt, yes, that's you."

The boy who was chosen was very excited and shouted, "I want to order a song called "If Love Has Destiny"."

This is the advantage of choosing an audience member in the front. Although the scene was noisy, Zhou Yan still heard his voice.

"If Love Has Providence", well, this song is good, because it hasn't been played today. Can I ask why you chose this song?"

“I want to give it to my girlfriend.”

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It seems that you love your girlfriend very much. Is she here today? Is that the one next to you?"

The boy waved his hands and said, "No, this is my friend. I have broken up with my girlfriend."

Zhou Yan couldn't help but roll his eyes. This guy must be here for show effect.

He didn't ask any more questions and started playing "If Love Has Providence" directly.

It goes without saying that this song is very popular in Hong Kong. When Zhou Yan was playing it, some people at the scene even sang along.

It must be that Anita Mui left early, otherwise if she had gone on stage and sang along, the atmosphere would have exploded again.

After the performance of "If Love Has Destiny" ended, Zhou Yan was ready to continue calling on the lucky audience members.

He originally wanted to call on a female audience member in the front, and just as he was about to speak, he suddenly saw a flash of white appearing in the back.

That's right, it just popped up.

Zhou Yan looked closely and found that it was a woman in a white wedding dress.

This woman must have been picked up by someone, or carried on someone's shoulders, but her skirt was very long and the person underneath could not be seen clearly.

Zhou Yan couldn't help but twitch his lips. This is too much.

The other party has tried so hard, it would be unreasonable for Zhou Yan not to point her out.

"The girl in the wedding dress, what song would you like to order?"

The girl was very excited when she was called and shouted loudly. However, because Zhou Yan was too far away and the scene was very noisy, he couldn't hear clearly.

Seeing that Zhou Yan couldn't hear clearly, she raised her hands to make a trumpet shape and wanted to shout again, but as soon as she raised her hands, she tilted and almost fell down. She was so scared that she quickly put her hands back in front of her. She was supposed to be supporting the head of the person who was carrying her.

Seeing this, Zhou Yan had no choice but to ask the staff to send the microphone over.

Although the scene was very crowded, security personnel still separated some passages, so the microphone was passed over quickly.

After getting the microphone, the girl said excitedly, "Zhou Yan, I am your loyal fan of music and movies. I have watched all your music and movies. When I am at home, I only listen to your music..."

Seeing that the girl didn't seem to be ready to stop, Zhou Yan smiled and asked, "Excuse me, why are you wearing a wedding dress? Is there any special meaning?"

"Because I'm getting married, and I'm taking wedding photos today."

As soon as the girl finished speaking, there was a burst of booing at the scene.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Fortunately, you are not getting married today."

This time the audience laughed even louder.

Zhou Yan asked again: "You definitely didn't take the wedding photos by yourself, right? Where is your husband?"

The girl pointed under her skirt, "Here he is."

At this time, a hand was raised from under the skirt and waved towards Zhou Yan.

"Well, groom, I saw you greet me." Zhou Yan joked, and then said, "I wish you a happy wedding, a long-lasting marriage, and a son soon. What music do you want to listen to?"

The girl just said a lot, but when it came to choosing a song, she was confused, "I think, I think... there are too many things I want to listen to."

This girl obviously had difficulty making a choice, and many of the audience members nearby gave her advice.

“The Kite.”

"'Cheating Joy', this song is cheerful."

"It's better to be reunited."

"Young and beautiful, this song is suitable for you."

……

The more the girl listened to other people's advice, the more confused she became.

Seeing her so conflicted, Zhou Yan pondered and said, "Since we are so destined to meet, how about I give you a song that has never been played before?"

Before the girl could react, the audience had already cheered in unison.

That was a song that had never been performed before, which meant that they would be the first audience to hear it.

After the audience cheered, the girl finally responded and said in surprise, "Okay, okay."

Zhou Yan nodded and explained the origin of the song, "I'm actually writing the script for my new movie recently, and this song is the soundtrack."

The script hasn't even been written, but the soundtrack has already been created. This is a very rare thing, but the audience at the scene was not surprised at all, because it was nothing to Zhou Yan.

They just feel extremely surprised because it means they will have new movies to watch and new music to listen to.

"The next song is called "How Long Will I Love You?" You are the first audience for this song. I hope you like it." (End of this chapter)