News Article: Jacky Cheung to earn $300 million HKD for his ½ Century World Tour Concert

I haven't posted much about Jacky on my blog lately (mostly due to not having time to translate all the articles and other stuff that I've read / watched about him recently), so I didn't want to pass up the chance to post the below article.

To be honest, the 'numbers' in the article mean nothing to me really, since I'll continue to be a devoted Jacky fan no matter how much (or how little) money he makes (so to me, the 'salary' part is a moot point)!

A few other comments regarding the article:

.-- If it's true that the finale show on May 23rd will be the 144th show of Jacky's concert tour, then that means from now until the concert ends, there are approximately 32 shows left. So far, I would estimate that all of the upcoming 'return' shows that have been announced (from mid-February until May) only total about 15 or so (maybe even less, since I'm not necessarily counting every single Mainland China show)....so with half the shows still not announced yet, I guess this means that there is still a chance Jacky will return to the U.S. for another show (or two)? Definitely keeping my fingers crossed!!

.-- I love the song 《一滴淚》! I was so happy that Jacky actually included this song as part of the regular rundown this time around (he sang it during the Las Vegas show as well, since it's actually part of the 'mini-movie' portion) because he rarely ever sings this song live in his other concerts....he usually sings the Cantonese version of the song instead -- if he even sings it that is (nothing wrong with the Cantonese version, it's just that I've always liked the Mandarin version of the song better, probably because I heard the Mando version before the Canto one).

.-- With regard to the 'unpleasant travel experience' mentioned in the article, those who are interested can read a more detailed version of it here  (note that it's a direct link to the original news article from Sina, so the article is in Chinese). The interesting thing to note about the incident -- the airline involved was Cathay Pacific (yup, the same airline that Jacky used to work for decades ago)....ah, the irony!

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Jacky Cheung to earn $300 million HKD for his ½ Century World Tour Concert

Source: Mingpao

Translated by: llwy12

Jacky Cheung’s《1/2 Century Concert》returned to Taiwan this week [February 10th and 11th] with 2 consecutive shows at the Kaoshiung Arena. Last night’s show marked the 112th show of a concert tour that – once all is said and done – will have lasted a year and a half and shown to an audience count exceeding 2 million. It is anticipated that after the finale show (the 144th show of the concert tour) closes at the Asia Expo Center in May, total ticket sales will have exceeded $800 million HKD – with Jacky’s ‘salary’ per show set at approximately $2.3 million HKD, it is estimated that his personal ‘income’ from the entire concert will exceed $300 million HKD.

Since it has been 10 years since Jacky last held a concert in Kaoshiung, the more than 20,000 seats for both shows reached full capacity early on during the ticket sales process. For the opening night performance [on February 10th], Jacky was in his usual good spirits and maintained his trademark high quality performance, kicking off the night with a 5 minute tap-dance routine. Originally, the concert organizers had suggested that Jacky include a special performance of a song in Taiwanese for the audiences, however due to his busy concert tour schedule, he did not get a chance to rehearse the song – therefore, in keeping with his philosophy of not performing at all if he is not able to do it well, Kaoshiung audiences did not get the chance to hear Jacky sing in their native language. However, the audiences did get to hear Jacky sing many of his classic Mandarin hits, which was already enough to put the entire arena in an elevated mood!

On the first night, during his performance of classic hit 《一滴淚》[‘A Teardrop’], Jacky had a ‘near miss’ while trying to reach one of the high notes of the song, though it was barely noticeable to most audiences -- ironically though, during his Taipei concert show last year, Jacky also ‘lost’ to the same song [he encountered a similar problem with the same song last time].

Earlier, Jacky had traveled to London with his wife May Lo and their 2 daughters for vacation during the Lunar New year holiday. However, during their return trip back to Hong Kong, Jacky and his family encountered a slightly unpleasant experience – not only was their flight delayed by 11 hours, they were also mistakenly placed in Economy class when they had actually paid for Business class [a mixup occurred during the switching of flights]. Towards this, Jacky stated that the experience was definitely an unpleasant one, but he would treat it as a learning opportunity for his family to experience together.

Ever the benevolent father, Jacky revealed that his eldest daughter is 11 years old and already doesn’t like ‘playing’ with him anymore – sometimes, when he tries to kiss his daughter, she makes faces at him and runs away. Jacky also had some sound advice for his good friend Andy Lau, who will finally become a father this year: try your best to enjoy every day of being a father because once you miss the opportunity to see your child grow up, you won’t get the same opportunity again.

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Chinese version:

張學友1/2世紀巡唱袋3億

【明報專訊】張學友《1/2世紀演唱會》一連兩晚假高雄巨蛋舉行，昨晚第二場是學友巡唱的第112場，歷時一年半時間，觀眾人數突破200萬人次；預計5月在香港的亞博演唱會第144場後落幕，票房總收入近8億港元；學友每場歌酬以30萬美元計，其個人收入也逾3億港元。

相距10年再在高雄開演唱會，兩場共2.2萬座位早爆滿。前晚首場演出，學友情緒高漲，節目編排保持原汁原味，以5分鐘踢踏舞揭序幕。原本主辦單位建議學友在高雄演唱會唱一首台語歌，學友卻一直忙於巡迴演出而無法配合排練，他認為唱不好寧可不唱，但他的經典國語歌已令全場High爆。

前晚學友唱《一滴淚》的高音部分時有「小破音」情况，去年他在台北演唱會也敗在此曲，觀眾為他捏把冷汗。

唱《一滴淚》有小破音

農曆新年期間，學友跟太太與女兒到倫敦旅遊，返港時因航班延誤，他們轉航機後，是以商務艙價錢降級坐經濟艙回港。他稱這趟經驗很糟，就當作全家人一起體驗不同的生活際遇。學友的長女已11歲，自爆女兒已不想跟他玩，他想親女兒，她會做鬼臉逃走。他不忘提醒今年生龍女的劉德華，應盡量享受當爸爸的每一天，孩子的成長說錯過就錯過了。

圖文提供：自由時報