1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Wang Zuan was also afraid that his mother would really go, so he quickly said, "It's better not to go. It's already disturbing her."

"Oh fine."

Mother Wang also listened to the advice, nodded, and didn't say anything more about it.

After a while, she asked again, "How long will Xiaoxian stay in Taipei this time? She doesn't like to come home this time, so I don't have much chance to chat with her. Now she's not filming anymore, is she that busy?"

"I didn't ask either." Wang Zuan shook his head.

"I'm going to talk about her later..."

Wang Yaohuang said in a deep voice, "The performance is about to begin, please be quiet."

Hearing what her husband said, Mother Wang rolled her eyes at him but said nothing more. At this moment, the band members had already started to take their seats on the stage, and the audience was much quieter than before.

Not long after, the lights on the stage came on, indicating that the performance was about to begin, and the audience applauded to welcome Zhou Yan's appearance.

Amid the applause of the crowd, Zhou Yan and conductor Yue Lin walked onto the stage.

After the two came on stage, they bowed to the audience, then Yue Lin walked to his seat and stood, while Zhou Yan walked behind the microphone, smiled and said to the microphone, "Good evening, everyone. I am Zhou Yan."

The applause became enthusiastic again.

This is Zhou Yan's second time holding a concert in Taipei City. Compared to the last time, the attention this concert attracted is completely different.

After the news about each stop of the Piano Boy World Tour Concert was announced, there has been no shortage of news about the concert in Taiwan.

And this time it was not just the media that reported on it. Some professionals from functional departments on the island also publicly expressed their welcome to Zhou Yan, and there were also some local officials present in the audience today.

Originally, the other party proposed to arrange a condolence session and organize some people to go backstage to meet Zhou Yan, but Zhou Yan politely declined.

Zhou Yan came here just to hold a concert and didn't want to make it too high-profile.

The key point is that his identity is rather special, and it is not convenient for him to get too close to local officials.

Every time Zhou Yan performed in Hong Kong or Taiwan, his grandfather would call Zhou Yan, reminding him implicitly and implicitly to be careful with the language used in the local area. If any problems arose, it would not only concern him personally, but might also be mistaken for a signal sent by the Zhou family.

Of course, apart from the call from his grandfather, Zhou Yan did not receive any calls from other relevant leaders in the mainland, so it was impossible that there was any special task.

After saying "good evening", Zhou Yan smiled and said, "I am very moved to visit the old place again. The music fans in Taipei City left a deep impression on me at the last concert. Some of you may have been here last time. You should know that Taipei City can be said to be the starting point of all the concert tours of the Piano Youth Orchestra."

Unlike previous quick decisions, Zhou Yan decided to chat more with the audience this time. As soon as he came on stage, he saw Wang Zuan's seat and the people next to him, who should be Wang Zuxian's other family members.

When facing Wang Zuxian's family, Zhou Yan still wanted to show more of his friendly side.

“Taipei is a city full of humanities, and I have gained a lot in this city…”

Although Zhou Yan talked a lot, the content was all small talk, intending to get closer to the audience.

And his goal was achieved. For most music fans, "Zhou Yan" is more like a symbol, an illusory existence.
After listening to what Zhou Yan said this time, they felt that Zhou Yan's image became more concrete and closer to them.

After speaking for six or seven minutes, Zhou Yan turned off the microphone and began to play for the audience.

The program of the concert tour is fixed, with little difference between each show. There is only one difference between the program in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Zhou Yan removed "Journey to the West Fantasy" and replaced it with "Hidden Fragrance".

The official performance lasted for two hours, and then entered the encore segment.

This time, Zhou Yan also returned many times, even one more time than the first show in Hong Kong, a total of fifteen times.

However, although he had many encores, the number of additional programs was not that many, only five, one less than the first show in Hong Kong.

Because when he walked off the stage for the first time, the staff told him that there were a lot of people outside the concert hall today, and they hoped that he could shorten the time inside the concert hall as much as possible and leave more time outside.

After the fifteenth thank you ceremony, the audience in the hall were still not satisfied and were still clapping vigorously, trying to call Zhou Yan up again, but this time Zhou Yan did not show up.

After seven or eight minutes, the audience left the concert hall one after another.

Originally, the Wang family was going to go home directly after the show, but when they walked out of the concert hall and saw the huge crowds of people outside the door, Mother Wang was reluctant to leave and wanted to join in the fun.

"Why don't you stay and watch for a while."

When Wang Yaohuang heard his wife say that she wanted to take another look, he wanted to agree in his heart, but he glanced at his father and said, "Let's go back. It's getting late. If we delay any longer, we'll have to wait until late at night before we get home."

The old man Wang Guofan naturally knew that his son was being considerate of him, so he smiled and waved his hand, saying, "It's rare to have such a lively time, you guys stay and watch, I'll go back by myself."

Wang Yaohuang nodded and said to his eldest son, "Okay, Zupei, you can take Grandpa back."

Although Wang Zupei also wanted to stay and join in the fun, after hearing what his father said, he could only nod and accompany his grandfather back.

After Wang Guofan and his grandson left, Wang Yaohuang and his family of three began to look for a suitable seat at the entrance of the concert hall to watch the performance.

In fact, there were no better seats at this moment. The good seats had already been occupied by people waiting outside. They could only find a place relatively close to the stage on the periphery.

Fortunately, the three members of the family are not short. Even the shortest woman in the family, Mother Wang, is relatively tall compared to ordinary Taiwanese women.

There were a lot of people at the scene, several times more than in the hall. Now that the show is over, many people stayed behind, and the crowd has grown even bigger.

However, there were many police officers on the scene maintaining order, so although there were many people, it was still well organized and not particularly chaotic.

Maybe it was because of the grand scene at the entrance of the cultural center when Zhou Yan performed in Hong Kong before, so the concert hall was well prepared in advance this time, and landmark lines were already posted on the ground in front of the concert hall.

Audiences watching the performance outdoors only need to line up according to the landmark lines.

A 50-centimeter-wide passage will be left every few rows of people.

This passage can not only prevent some accidents, but also can be used for commercial purposes. The concert hall has arranged several small carts that move back and forth in the passage. There are many drinks on the carts for the audience to buy.

Every once in a while, someone would pass by pushing a garbage truck and collect the garbage from the audience to prevent them from littering.

Compared to the one in Hong Kong, the concert hall in Taipei has another advantage, which is the big screen.

Outdoor audiences can arrive at the scene early and wait, and they will not be bored, because some videos related to Zhou Yan will be played on the big screen.

There are not only wonderful concert scenes, but also some interview programs with Zhou Yan, and even promotional videos of several of Zhou Yan’s movies and some videos of Zhou Yan receiving awards.

Each video is quite long, and you can kill time just by watching it. After the Wang family members were seated, the documentary "Distant Journey" was playing on the big screen, and Wang Zuxian also appeared in this documentary.

When Joey Wong appeared on the big screen, the audience burst into cheers.

Seeing her daughter appear on the big screen, Wang's mother was also very happy, "This should be when they were filming The Sixth Sense, right?"

Wang Zuan nodded and said, "It should be the set of The Sixth Sense."

“I haven’t even seen this movie.”

"This is a documentary. It's very popular in Japan. There's a scene in the beginning where Zhou Yan plays the flute."

"I'd like to watch this documentary if I get a chance. I don't know if we can buy it here."

"My little sister must have it."

"Yeah, I'll go ask her later." Mother Wang looked towards the gate again to see if her daughter had left.

After all, Joey Wong is a big star and attracts a lot of attention, so after the show, they just chatted for a few words and then parted ways, and did not leave together.

The documentary is very long, so it was impossible to play it in its entirety on site, so after Joey Wong came out, the broadcast cut to the scene where "Sense and Sensibility" won the Oscar for Best Original Score.

Although Zhou Yan did not appear to receive the award, there was still cheering at the scene. The Oscars still had a very strong impact on everyone.

After the Oscar Awards ceremony clip ended, the screen suddenly went dark, paused for a few seconds, and then lit up again. A "10" appeared on the screen, and then changed to a "9".

The audience immediately understood what it meant and began to count down following the numbers displayed on the big screen.

"8...7..."

"3...2...1!"

When the last "1" sounded, a voice rang out: "Let us welcome the musician - Zhou Yan!"

Amid the cheers of the crowd, Zhou Yan and some band members walked onto the makeshift stage in front of the big screen.

Although the stage was built temporarily, it looked quite realistic because there was a large screen at the back.

Before coming out, Zhou Yan heard that there would be a lot of audiences outside tonight, so he was mentally prepared. However, when he actually stood on the stage and looked down, he was still shocked.

The area at the entrance of the Taipei City Concert Hall is much larger than that of the Hong Kong Cultural Center, and there is basically no obstruction, so it can accommodate many people.

Zhou Yan didn’t know exactly how many people there were, but it was certain that the number of people attending the outdoor concert in Hong Kong would be higher, probably reaching five digits.

This should also be the performance of their band with the largest audience.

The band members were very excited. Ma Dongfang rubbed his hands behind Zhou Yan and joked, "It's a pity that so many people didn't buy tickets."

Zhou Yan said with a smile, "If there are still so many audiences willing to come even though tickets are sold, that's a real talent."

Ma Dongfang was quite confident, "I think as long as you play, there shouldn't be any problem."

Zhou Yan smiled and didn't say anything else.

If Zhou Yan were to hold an outdoor concert now, as long as the ticket price was made more affordable, it should be no problem to attract so many people.

But from a commercial perspective, it is not necessary to lower the price in order to attract more viewers.

Now Zhou Yan’s concerts are always packed, and the ticket prices are much higher than those of ordinary concerts. If they are held outdoors, the ticket prices will be greatly reduced. Although there are more audiences, the overall income is actually about the same.

Moreover, outdoor concerts may encounter many problems. Not to mention the performance effect, which is definitely very different from that in a concert hall. In addition, there is also the weather problem.

The weather has been good these days, but if there are too many performances, it is inevitable that there will be wind and rain. If the weather is a little worse, the performance will encounter many difficulties.

If the performance is cancelled due to bad weather, not only will manpower and material resources be wasted, but plans will also be disrupted.

Zhou Yan glanced at the large screen behind him. His image had been synchronized to the large screen in real time. Although the image was average and the smoothness was not very good, Zhou Yan was already quite satisfied.

It is not easy for the big screen at the entrance of the concert hall to achieve this.

With the images from the large screen synchronized with the camera, even the audience far back can clearly see Zhou Yan.

Zhou Yan tried the microphone briefly and found that there was some delay between the sound and the picture, but it was not particularly obvious.

He faced the camera and adjusted his position so that he was in the middle of the screen. Then he smiled and said, "It seems that God is very kind to me. It's another cool night today. It's really late. I hope you are not impatient to wait."

As soon as he finished speaking on the stage, the audience responded.

"No, it's worth waiting for you."

"Let's play a few more songs tonight."

"For you, I can wait as long as it takes."

……

At this time, the staff brought over a chair. Zhou Yan took it without hesitation and said to the audience, "You don't mind if I sit down and chat with you, right?"

The audience naturally responded that they didn't mind. After Zhou Yan sat down, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Every time I see so many audiences gathered outside the concert hall, I am both happy and terrified. I am happy because you all like my band and I, but I am also terrified because I am worried that we will not live up to your expectations. Music is a very subjective thing, and everyone likes different things. Fortunately, my music happens to be liked by you all."

"Before the concert started, I said in the concert that Taipei is a very important city to me and I have gained a lot here. Some of you may have seen the news and know that I am writing the script for my fourth feature film. When I came to rehearsal yesterday, a journalist friend asked me if there would be elements related to Taipei in this film. I gave him a positive answer that my new film will definitely be related to Taipei."

There was immediate cheering from the audience; they had not forgotten that Zhou Yan was not only a musician, but also an internationally renowned director.

The news that the remake of "The Sixth Sense" is a dark horse and is winning the European and American box offices has been talked about a lot recently.

News related to the movie was just played on the big screen. "The Sixth Sense" is now at the top of this year's global box office rankings.

Maybe it will be surpassed by the aggressive "Independence Day" later, but it should have no problem taking the top three.

Zhou Yan's new movie features elements of Taipei City, which naturally delights local audiences.

After a pause, Zhou Yan saw that the instruments behind him were almost in place, so he continued, "When I went to the United States some time ago, I wrote an interesting song that is just right for today's occasion. Next, I will bring you "We Are Young" with my partners. I hope you will like it." (End of this chapter)