In HK, if you have no clue who “Mirror” is, you must be
living under the rock. The 12 member
Cantopop boy band took the e-circle by storm after participating in the hugely
popular reality talent show, “Good night show - King Maker” (first season) in
2018. Aside from sparking renewed
interest in the fading Cantopop scene, the fandom magnitude is mind blowing!
Their faces are literally plastered everywhere, from billboards, public
transports to malls. I had a taste of
Mirror’s fanaticism during the “One Asia Music Festival 2023”, produced by ViuTV.
Their HK and overseas fans came in droves, congregating at Sunway mall, hotels
and theme park, to support their idols’ first public performance abroad. Their love and enthusiasm for Mirror is
contagious. This could be observed by the fans’ wide age range. I saw elderlies in their 60s-70s, queueing in
the unforgiving scorching sun for extended hours, just to secure strategic spot
at the venue. This is in addition to
braving a heavy downpour, which failed to dampen their spirit before the show
commenced.
Having faithfully glued to every episode of “King Maker”, right from the initial to the current fifth season, I am also sucked into the Mirror fad. I have to admit that out of the current crop of new HK musicians, I am only familiar with Mirror’s songs(both as a group and individually). My bias is Keung To and Anson Kong but have to say, I’m also drawn to the rest as well. Aside from Keung To, Anson Lo, Edan Lui and Jer Lau, the festival has a line-up of other A-lister vocal powerhouse too, namely Hebe Tien, Yoga Lin, Bii and Lala Hsu. That said, I only stayed until the boys wrapped up their performance in 45 minutes. I have no interest in the other singers. So, yeah, I guess that makes me a certified Mirror fan since I bought the premium ticket, solely to watch the foursome.
The event duration is from 6 to 11.30 pm. Thankfully the wait for my new young idols was not long. After the local opening act ended her gig in 40 minutes, Keung To emerged to dazzle the concert goers with “Master Class”. Then, Keung Admin followed up with his latest single, “Dummy”. Each performed two solo hits. The energetic Edan (who looks even better in person) appeared in a red/black chic attire. He performed a band sound new song, “ChatMrE”. Definitely a departure from his usual style. Edan is extremely chatty, compared with the rest. Edan did most of the talking during the gig. Jer was up next with 狂人日記, where he demonstrated his impressive vocal range. It also happens to be my fave Jer song. Jer then crooned his next number, 人類群星閃耀時. Next we have hot crowd-puller, Anson Lo, gyrating to addictive beats of “Mr Stranger” and “Money Money”, showing no signs of fatigue although he was down with gastroenteritis the day before. We were soon besieged by immense adrenaline rush again when the boys came together to set the stage on fire with their explosive debut English track – “Rumours”. They wind-up the show with a spectacular rendition of their catchy chart topper, “Ignited”. The guys expressed their desire to be back in Malaysia next year with a full-fledged Mirror concert. Yes, yes, please bring it on !! I am all set to be ignited by their dynamic and captivating performance! The quartet also participated in a few media interviews after the festival and feast on lip-smacking durians with their manager, Fa-Jeh.
