The power of DT

As you undoubtedly read from the comments below that Mr Timothy Haygood had graciously left a msg. I have emailed him & hopefully he would respond and solved the mystery of why they are singing DT's Regular Friend. But ... the mystery deepens cos I found another westerner who is singing 普通朋友 as well! He is Christian Renz, a German bassist who is residing in Shanghai, China. Why is this song suddenly so popular among westerners? Maybe Mr Christian Renz will leave a msg as well *__*

DT & The Haygoods

Who or what are The Haygoods? And why am I blogging abt them here? Well, they are a performing family of 7 brothers and 1 sister who own and operate their own theatre in Branson, Missouri. They are currently on an extended tour to 14 chinese cities & you can read all abt it @ Global Times where this paragraph caught my attention:

During the show, which will last an hour and a half non-stop, they will present some songs from their soon-to-be released new album including Country Boy, Rocking in the Sun and Run Like Hell. They will also perform hits from Michael Jackson and The Beatles, a Chinese love song by David Tao and the Beijing Olympics theme song along with many others.

It's not I Love You which I am glad but Only want to be your friend which is the title they are using. Okay the Beijing Olympics theme song do have an english version but I am curious if they are singing David's song in chinese or putting their own english lyrics to the music. Also how or why did they chose this song? I can only imagine they kinda ask around to find out what chinese singer or song would appeal to an audience in the Middle Kingdom & randomly chose the song from a list. Or maybe they are acquaintances of DT & so decided to sing his song. It's getting curiousier & curiousier. Make me wish that he was still active on Twitter so I could ask him ^__^ Anyway you can go to their youtube channel to watch their performances. Hopefully they will upload their performance of DT's Regular Friend in China.

From Hero to Zero

DT showed up in a few venues in Hangzhou. On 1/15, he was at The Second Shiny Artists Ceremony (sic). I have no idea what ceremony that was & whether he won an award but I think he was just presenting. Really like his casual striped-scarf look & although the lady besides him looked familiar, unable to identify her. David sang Rain & I think he is one of the few singers who actually bothered to thank the dancers. (Above 3 pixs courtesy & much thanks to Bonnie @ 百度陶喆吧) On 1/17 he performed in another of the ubiquitous largescale concerts. He seems to have 2 different looks - casual smart or casual sporty - for these concerts. Here he appeared in a popular TV program on Chinese entertainment. So already he is quite the busy bee in the beginning of 2011. I hope he get his movie over & done with this yr so we get to hear some new music from him *sigh* Sry if I am not feeling optimistic abt his movie. But if he is still uncertain what kind of movie he wants to make - 'either a farce comedy or mind-puzzling thriller' - then why is he so insistent on filming one? If movie is his 'lifelong dream' he should have a script up his sleeve already not looking around for a script to film.
Well, the Green Hornet opened & unfortunately for Jay Chou who could have blew Hollywood away if not for his striking resemblence to John Cho. Anyway I have no desire to watch the movie since I don't enjoy Rogen humor but after reading the sypnosis, maybe I understand why Stephen Chow walked away. There are a few things abt Stephen Chow that I think a lot of people, especially westerners, don't realised. He speaks and understands english much better than a lot of Chinese stars like Jackie Chan or Zhang Ziyi. He is an extremely rich man not just from making movies but real estate. Stephen Chow doesn't really have any ambition to make it big in Hollywood cos if he did, he is probably one of the few who could. He is a highly intelligent filmmaker who made rather clever, relevant movies that were also crowdpleasers. When I read that the theme in Green Hornet was to hero-reverse the roles so that Kato was not only the muscle but the brain behind Green Hornet, I suspect that all along it was his idea. In an interview, Seth Rogen said that he wanted Kato to implant a microchip in Green Hornet so he could remote-control him to act like a hero. I thought it was hilarious & so tongue-in-cheek cos it was always Kato who stood up in Green Hornet & the reason being it was played by none other than the legendary Bruce Lee. But at that time, Hollywood shunned any idea of an Asian hero rejecting him for the lead in the TV series Kung Fu during the seventies. Perhaps Stephen Chow wanted The Green Hornet as a homage to Bruce Lee, reversing the roles so that the real star was Kato but since an Asian hero was still not acceptable, he get to control Green Hornet as the hero. Brilliant but still not quite acceptable in Hollywood I guess, Stephen.

DT rock 2011

Unfortunately live telecast on New Year's Eve only showed part 2 of DT's performance at Marina Bay. Fortunately theurbanwire.com captured unedited the whole of his performance:

There are 7 parts which should flow from one to the other but if it doesn't work for you watch on youtube. What a performance! For me it was toprated one of his best live performances. Probably cos it was so pared-down, no flamboyant costumes, no dancing girls, no backup singers. Just David & his band so he carried the concert all by himself, pure DT unadulterated & that's the way it should be for one of the best male vocalists the East has ever seen. I really think the audience got more than what they paid for causing theurbanwire to write empirically '...he commanded the stage for over an hour with his dance medleys, love songs and “RE:DT (关于陶喆)” [Part 3 video] specially dedicated to local fans. The superstar performed a total of 2 times for the pre-show and live broadcast of Celebrate 2011 at 11pm on Channel 5 – not bad at all for a $38 ticket."
(Quote, vid & pix above courtesy & much thanks to theurbanwire.com) Songlist: Zero to Hero, My Anata, RE:DT, Close to you, Smalltown Girl (rock version), I Love You, Love Can, Play that funky music, September, I feel good. My fav are his amazing rendition of RE:DT where he threw in his recent rumor of 'getting married next year' & getting drunk in Clarke Quay, the fabulous rock version of Smalltown Girl & the simply soulful yet passionate I Love You. But the whole show is just marvellous, once again he managed to bridge the concept of a western concert with singing mainly chinese songs. The way he went from the high of an extremely funky RE:DT to the nightcluby crooning of Close to you then back up again with the superb rock version of Smalltown Girl. Totally awesome. Also I love watching the total passion, devotion & respect he put into his music. The loving way he played his guitar & treated it as an instrument to showcase his music not to show off. The chemistry & harmony he developed with his band members onstage. It was such a joy & made me realised why I never gave up this blog, why I continued to blog abt him. Hopefully he is able to bring this kind of passion, devotion and respect to his movies too. Found this blogger who went backstage & saw DT. The story abt the cheese tarts is just hilarious. She also took a pix with drummer Brendon Buckley who did indeed recorded & toured with Shakira as mentioned on his website. Click on Tour & you can see 'David Tao New Year's Show, Singapore' scheduled on 12/31/2010. Bit of trivia: I think the guitar DT was playing that night is the same Gibson Les Paul Cherry Sunburst made famous by the character Yui in the hugely popular Japanese anime K-ON *__*