Xtina Aims to Rub China the Right Way
Since staring this website I have attended every major Western concert that has come through Shanghai in an effort to give you readers an honest appraisal of this new trend of Western performances in China. Tonight, my streak of four shows (Stones, Clapton, Ziggy, Roots) will sadly come to an end. That’s because the professedly-Hispanic pop star Christina Aguilera is on the bill tonight at the Shanghai Grand Stage and I can’t be asked to pay 200RMB to watch her sing and dance. Instead, I might pay no money and just stare at this photograph all night. But that’s not to say that everyone is as indifferent about Tuesday’s concert as I am. There’s a certain group of people in Shanghai that is especially excited for the Christina Aguilera Back to Basics Tour. This group is called “girls.” In fact, the only people I know who are going are girls. Two female Shanghai residents I know almost cut their vacation plans short in Yunnan province for the Christina show before snapping out of it. And a manager of a prominent Shanghai English education company who has tickets for the show told Flumesday, “I have been walking around my office replying ‘What a girl wants’ to anyone who asks me a question.” Has Xtina cast a spell on the women of Shanghai? The four-time Grammy winner held a press conference in Shanghai Monday and said, “I’ve never been to China before, so it’s very exciting for me to be here…I love performing more than anything in the world. I have the best time being on the stage, feeling the passion of the audience and enjoying the music.” Photos from last week’s Tokyo show reveal that Christina has a baby bump and rumors are flying that the singer has a turkey in the oven. Though in Xtina-nese, one would say she has a “genie in the bottle.”
•AFP: Aguilera Excited About First China Concert