Venetian Cotai Arena Wednesday 16

What first caught our attention about Taiwanese pop star A-mei’s show at Cotai Arena this fortnight were the descriptions of her hi-tech, custom-designed stage and light show. Word has it that the vivacious 37-year-old diva, often referred to as the Chinese Mariah Carey, sings from the centre of a suspended steel sphere, back-dropped by a 5,000 square inch LED screen, enveloped in a retina-stunning array of explosive lights and lasers numbering in the thousands. If this is true, U2, Daft Punk and Celine Dion might have a new rival for world’s most ridiculously ostentatious and thoroughly awesome stage show. Yet, as the biggest Putonghua-singing female pop artist of the mid-to-late 1990s, A-mei could probably perform in her bathrobe on a bamboo scaffold and a sea of Chinese twenty-somethings would show up.

For her new world tour in support of her 19th album, A-mei has undergone a makeover of sorts, sporting a huge white-banged pop punk hairstyle and performing under the name “AMIT,” which both stands for the poptastic slogan “A Musical Transformation” and also happens to be her original family name (while A-mei’s Taiwanese birth name is Zhang Hui Mei, she descends from the Puyuma tribal ethic group of the Taiwanese mountains, and her traditional aboriginal name is Gulilai Amit). Her latest album marks a shift away from the dreamy sentimental balladry on which she made her name, towards a more rock-edged Avril Lavigne style of pop rock (emphasis on the pop). Regardless of the fresh look and new name, all eyes in the audience are guaranteed to go watery – either from the blinding light show or nostalgic overload – when A-MIT reverts to A-mei mode, singing her romantic 90s smash hits Bad Boy and Holding Hands.

Steve Cheng