Shanghai, Oct. 15 (CNA) Thousands of Chinese fans of Mandopop King Jay Chou (周杰倫) are expected to again gather outside Shanghai Stadium on Sunday evening before the final concert of the Taiwanese singer’s four-day run in the Chinese city.
Currently on the “Jay Chou Carnival World Tour 2023,” Chou has been performing at his Shanghai stop since Thursday.
Tickets to the four concerts, being held at the outdoor stadium that holds up to 80,000 people, was sold out in seconds when they became available online in mid-September.
Due to Chou’s popularity, locals have described the concerts as catering to “80,000 inside [the stadium] and 100,000 outside” to express the sheer volume of “tailgaters” participating in the event around the stadium’s perimeter.
The people who have gathered outside the stadium the past three days are not tailgaters in the traditional sense but there simply to get a glimpse of the concert’s flashing lights and snippets of Chou’s songs, which lasts around three hours every time.
Many of them have been dressed to the nines with Chou memorabilia, while others try to get access to commercial and residential buildings around the stadium to enjoy what the Taiwanese singer has to offer.
The concert has been one of the hottest topics on China’s micro-blogging social media service Weibo, with some Shanghai residents of locations around the concert venue jokingly offering their balconies as alternative nosebleed seats to Chou fans at reasonable prices.
Chou’s Shanghai tour has been such a big draw that local police have been on high alert, setting up barricades and alternative pedestrian routes to direct traffic around the stadium.
To guarantee the rights of the ticket holders, Chou’s Shanghai concert adopted a real-name system, which requires the person who purchased a set of tickets to be present when their group enters the stadium.
The system was used to try to prevent scalpers from grabbing a large number of tickets and reselling them at a huge profit.
On Chou’s previous tour stop in Tianjin, local media reported that tickets with a face value of 2,000 renminbi (about NT$8,800) ending up being sold for 100,000 renminbi by scalpers.
Chou is best known in Mandarin speaking countries around the world, including Chinese-dialect communities in the Western world, as one of the most gifted Mandarin singer-songwriters of his generation.
Aside from creating famous songs the likes of “Nocturne” (夜曲) and “Love before BC” (愛在西元前), Chou has also worked with renowned actors.
He had Hollywood actor Danny Trejo star in his music video for “Double Blade” (雙刀), and wrote the catchy theme song for martial arts superstar Jet Li’s (李連杰) kung fu masterpiece “Fearless” (霍元甲).
English-speaking audiences not of Chinese decent mainly know Chou for co-starring alongside Hollywood comedian Seth Rogen in the 2011 “The Green Hornet” reboot as “Kato,” a character originated by martial arts legend Bruce Lee (李小龍).
He also appeared in 2006’s “Curse of the Golden Flower” (滿城盡帶黃金甲) starring Hong Kong’s Chow Yun Fat (周潤發).
