A quick note about my first concert experience in Shanghai. The concert was Wednesday night at 7:30pm. My friend Junie left her house before 4:30 to make it to HP at 5pm to drive to the venue. In celebration of “Alecia’s Birthday Month” she had picked up a very nice dinner and a bottle of wine which we shared in the back of our car (Rocky was driving) on the way to the concert. We arrived at the stadium around 7:10pm, just in time. It is incredible how long it takes to commute to certain locations in Shanghai.
After we made our way through vendors with tickets, glow sticks, light up devil horns and posters, we entered the stadium. On the way in, we saw a group of people who apparently had purchased fake tickets because when the black light was paced near the back of them, nothing showed up, so they disappointedly were not let in.
We found out seats and shortly after the concert started. Even though we were in the main stands (not on the floor), the minute the concert started, everyone rushed down to the lowest part of our section (right by us) and crowded in. The minute Avril started singing, all of the Chinese fans started singing with her and it was one big Karaoke event. I could not believe the fact that everyone seemed to know every word to each song she sang. As the beat became fast in any given song, the fans thrashed their glow sticks with it and poor Junie got hit multiple times by some overly enthusiastic fans.
Avril replaced “thank you” with the Chinese equivalent “xie xie” and the fans went nuts. She tried to say one sentence in Mandarin which apparently meant “How are you all doing tonight?” but the crowd fell eerily silent. Without using the correct pronunciation, the Chinese do not understand (I didn’t understand her either). Slightly embarrassed, she tried saying it again but in English and the crowd, yet again erupted.
By the end of the concert, the guy standing next to us, apparently a huge fan, had lost his voice from screaming and singing. He kept looking over at us with a desperate look on his face and saying that he was not going to be able to talk tomorrow.
After the concert, some Chinese fans wanted pictures with us and then we made our way back to the car and headed home. I was not expecting an Avril Lavigne concert to be a cultural experience, but I should have known better.
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