God Bless You, Michael Bolton

October 3, 2012

Krit won tickets to the Shanghai West Bank Music Festival (random?) and she couldn't go so Cam and I took her place.  This three day festival featured acts from mostly China but a few from other parts of the world.  We were stoked to go and we arrived at the venue to find that on our night, in addition to a score of Asian bands, the closing act was none other than.......wait for it...........Michael Bolton.
I know right?
When Cam told be that he was on the line up I said, "There's no way that it could be the REAL Michael Bolton.  Are you sure it's not just some Chinese guy that, like, sings Michael Bolton songs?"  On the promotional stuff it was even, in typical Chinglish fashion, spelled Michel Bol-Ton so I was totally dubious.  But it was REALLY HIM!
It seems the Chinese promoters were trying to keep all that Bolton goodness to themselves and not sharing it with the foreigner crowd, because it was not promoted anywhere and there was not a single Bolton fan in that audience. But I can assure you I, Ashlee Votroubek, saw a Michael Bolton concert in Shanghai, China.  I want to shout it from the rooftops.  Bolton!  In Shanghai!
The mountain had come to Mohammed.
Please enjoy the following photos:

Never in my wildest dreams, did I EVER think I’d be standing this close to Michael Bolton.

The concert started at 5pm and Bolton didn’t take the stage until about 10:30pm.  Cam and I were absolutely determined to get to the front row of the pit by the time he started so we stood in that crowd, smooshed against 5000 natives for five hours.  Every time an act would finish, bodies began to shift and we would slowly swim our way closer and closer to the front of the stage.  No food, no water, no bathroom, we refused to lose our spot!  And boy did it pay off.  ;) 

There were at least 10,000 enthusiastic audience members at this concert and, poor Michael Bolton, by the time he took stage the audience had dwindled to maybe 700?  It was so sad.  And he kept trying to get the crowd to sing along but no one knew any of the songs!!  Still, he plowed away at all his greatest hits.  Something took over me, I think because I felt like I should support for my fellow American, and I started acting like a Michael Bolton super fan.  Cam and I were jumping up and down, screaming, singing, clapping, and swaying like we had Michael Bolton fever.  

Cam and I were racking our brains before he took the stage trying to think of some MB songs other than "When A Man Loves A Woman" and couldn't think of anything.  However we had a lot of "ah-ha" moments as he sang through his hits and honestly, after sitting through five and a half hours of songs in Chinese, I would've listened to Michael Bolton read the phone book just to hear some recognizable English.

Wailing on the guitar.  You go, Michael Bolton!

 Cam and I so excited to be at the concert! (This was before we entered the pit.)

Imagine the most crowded concert you’ve ever been to and times it by five.  Standing in the pit at the front of the stage I have never been so packed in my life.  At one point a girl behind me wanted to cran her neck over her friend’s shoulder to look at the pics her friend was previewing on a camera.  She couldn’t move enough so she just went ahead and laid her head right onto my back.

I looked at Cam and said, “She has her head fully resting on my back, right?

Cam: “Yep.  She’s tired.”

Right between my shoulder blades and she didn’t even move it when I started laughing.

10,000 people, Cam and I counted five other Westerners.  It was awesome!  I'm pretty sure they were all wondering what the heck we were doing there.

Chinese three-piece folk band called Wild Children.  They played chill music with tight harmonies, I liked them.

HangGai.  By far my favorite band of the night, even better than Michael Bolton.  They're a Mongolian folk and punk rock fusion band (sort of) and not only did I like their music they have a fabulous lead-singer/show man that's something akin to an Asian Meatloaf.  He used various props (this flowy scarf, a whip that he kept twirling around his head, Heineken that he sprayed at the audience) to add dramatic effect.    

 So I have a little bit of a crush on one of the members of HangGei.  He's this super elegant Asian man that looks so sophisticated because he plays this beautiful, traditional Mongolian musical instrument (a morin khuur).  But then when he sings he does this thing, I guess it's called overtone singing, where his voice transforms into this inhuman guttural noise that's like nothing I've_ever_ heard.  Love him.

)

 Between acts they had a DJ on a steel stage that they moved up and down using a crane!

The venue was super cool.  

All the Chinese people got really excited and pulled out their cameras when this eight member Taiwanese indie band, Soda Green, took the stage.  Apparently, they're pretty popular but they sang like seven ballads in a row and by the end I just wanted to take a nap.

 It seemed that the main event for everyone was not Michael Bolton but a Chinese rock singer named XuWei and his band.  I wish I could describe how crazy the crowd was about him, and I noticed that it was mostly young men going nuts.  You'd think that we were at an Iron Maiden concert or something with the way they were all head banging, singing and jumping around. 

 XuWei

 Tons of young people at this concert so that means lots of people who spoke English.  Every time they’d make announcements in Chinese this sweet girl in front of me would turn around and shyly translate. 

At one point  a light from the stage kept spinning around and blinding my eyes.  It would stop and then as soon as I’d open my eyes it’d turn on and blind me again.  My eyes started watering and I started laughing so hard that a tiny girl in front of me turned around and said, “What happening?”

Me:  “The light!  It keeps shining in my eyes!  It hurts!”

So she reached up and put her hand over my eyes and said, “Don’t open!” and held it there, giggling, until the light finally stopped.  Later, it shined in her eyes and I did the same for her.

There was lots of other chatting in English, especially as the MB concert approached.

Cam even started an Adele sing along with 40 audience members while we waited for him to set up.

Afterwards, I made friends with a girl while we were waiting for a taxi who is a new found Michael Bolton fan.  She had lots of questions about his music and about what I thought of the concert.

Overall, a totally random experience but so, so fun.