Jacky Cheung (張學友) launched his ½ Century World Tour Concert back on December 30, 2010 [in Shanghai] – a year and a half later, after a record-breaking 146 shows, the concert finally came to a close. Yesterday night (May 30th), Jacky wrapped up his World Tour Concert with the last of 10 sold out shows at the Asia Expo Center in Hong Kong.
Prior to yesterday's show, Jacky, his concert manager Florence Chan, and the rest of the crew participated in a special blessing ceremony for the show – afterwards, Jacky met with over 100 fans who had arrived extra early for the show, shaking their hands and posing for pictures with them. Asked about his feelings towards his concert tour drawing to a close, Jacky stated that as early as a few days ago, he was already experiencing feelings of sadness, as the concert tour had become somewhat of a 'lifestyle' that he had already gotten used to.
Asked if he will finally have time to rest now that the tour is over, Jacky smiled and replied: "I will actually be going from one 'job' to another, as I will go back to taking care of my daughters. With summer vacation coming up, I need to help my daughters arrange summer plans." (Going on another family trip?) "No, I would rather spend more time chatting with them at home." (Did you ask your daughters for their opinion?) "No, because if I ask them, their answer would be a family trip – we always go to the same places on our family trips, so I would prefer not to this time around. I would like to arrange for them to take music classes instead." (What's your wife's opinion about it?) "She's ok with it, since I'm back now helping to take care of the girls, she can rest now."
Asked about his thoughts on NowTV's rumored plans to create a music chart and awards ceremony similar to TVB's Jade Solid Gold (勁歌金曲), Jacky responded that he is not too familiar with the reported plans: "The most important thing is whether the criteria [for the charting and awards] is clear or not – if so, then it is beneficial for the music industry. However if all it does is create unhealthy conflict, then there's no point." (If the criteria is clear, would you mind making an appearance on the show in support of it?) "It's not a matter of whether I mind or not – it's really dependent on my schedule. Nowadays, I don't make music as consistently as I did in the past – with me releasing albums only every 3 years now, if they were to wait for me, their program might be over already!" Jacky emphasized that the ceremony needs to be beneficial to the music industry -- if it's just like all the other ceremonies where they need to rely on relationships to get awards or the ceremony is used to promote their own artists, then it would just be "asking for trouble".
During the final show, Jacky shared his feelings toward ending this 17 month journey with his many fans sitting in the audience: "Every time I see your smiles, the moved expressions on your faces, and hear the applause, it gives me tremendous encouragement standing here on the stage." He continued: "I'm generally a pretty reserved person, but at this moment, I would like to say to all of you: I truly love you guys!"
Many stars attended Jacky's final concert show, including his good friends, singer Eason Chan (陳奕迅)and director Andrew Lau (劉偉強), both of whom made special effort to attend the concert as well as the celebration event afterwards; later on, both of them posted their pictures with Jacky on Weibo.
After the show, despite being exhausted, Jacky attended the celebration event for his concert and received huge applause from the entire crew. Eason Chan also attended the celebration event and as soon as he went on stage, he got on his knees and pretended to 'worship' Jacky. When the two of them hugged, their faces were so close to each other that they almost 'kissed' on the lips! Jacky immediately laughed and said to Eason: "I was planning to imitate what you and Denise [Ho] did!" to which Eason replied: "We should ask Andrew Lau to open a new film for us similar to Happy Together (春光乍洩)!"
Source: Mingpao, Oriental Daily, Sina
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics
