Travel Destinations:
Genting Highlands Arena of Stars
Olivia Newton John concert
"I want to see Olivia Newton John," my wife said. "She'll be here in Genting Highlands giving a concert!"
"Well, ok," I said. She's such a fan of Olivia, "Let's go and see her concert," which will be held at the Arena of Stars in Genting Highlands, one of the nearest highlands travel destinations.
She paid for the tickets costing RM241 per person and treated me to the concert, and all I had to do was to take her there and enjoy the show. Lucky me!
That was about two weeks ago when we decided to watch the concert. And on the Sunday, 29th of April, at about 6 o'clock, we got into the car and drove over to Genting Highlands which was under an hour drive from Kuala Lumpur.
Olivia Newton John was an old favourite for many, spewing out songs since the late seventies with hits from the musical Grease, Xanadu as well as chart toppers in the country and western and pop music. Songs like "Summer Nights", "I honestly love" from Grease, "Physical", "Let me be there", and many more are some of the perennial favourites. Though I'm not a big fan of Olivia, her songs are light and easy to listen.
As we approached Genting Highlands from the Karak highway, I know we would probably encounter some amount of fog. From the highway I commented to my wife that there was quite a fair bit of cloud cover over the mountains around Genting. Sure enough as we hit the steep incline road towards the highlands, there was a thick fog all around, and I have to make my way carefully around the highland resort, slowing down the car for safety and I had to get nearer to the directional signboards in order to read it.
It was quite unlike Cameron Highlands where you seldom if at all encounter any heavy mist. You may encounter some mist in Fraser's Hills, but in Genting Highlands, it happens all the time.
We passed by Peacehaven on the way up, and reminiscence the mission like trip we made in January earlier this year when we had our Church Cell group retreat together with Pastor Alex from Sabah. We could see this time there was another church group having their dinner as we pass on by. I hope Jason Ong, the caretaker of Peacehaven was doing well. I think I'll drop him a mail later when I get back to KL.
Upon reaching highlands, finding the entrance to the car park wasn't too difficult though getting a parking space was rather time consuming. We had to go round and round several times before finally getting a spot. The amount of time it took me to get a parking bay was equivalent to half my traveling distance from KL to Genting. We should have given ourselves more time before the start of the concert. Instead of taking our sweet and casual time and enjoy ourselves before the start of the concert, we now have to rush and quickly grab a quick bite in good old Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant. After the quick dinner, we had to figure out the correct way to get to the Arena of Stars where the concert will be held. Genting Highlands resort interiors is such a labyrinth. All the hotels are interconnected but in such a confusing manner that it takes awhile to find the correct way.
But I had a feeling we were going to have rubber time and sure enough though we arrived at the concert hall on time at 8pm, many concert goers are still streaming in to the hall. The concert didn't start till 8.30pm. The delay did make some concert goers chant the "why are we waiting" tune!
The concert was rather superb, and Olivia Newton John still has that same singing vocal tone after all these years! She's 59, and my wife has exclaimed, "Why are we watching an old lady sing?" But we were not disappointed. Her vocals are still strong when she sang, though it was raspy when she spoke. I could see the crowd enjoyed her performance with many letting themselves go and swaying to the rhythm of her music. I particularly like the Bossa Nova / Jazz rendition of "Physical".
The stage was simple with no fancy props nor was there any pyrotechnics. Just good old Olivia and her live band and spotlights and nothing else. Just to show that if your songs are good, there is no need to have all the fancy visual like those concert by Rain or Jolin. Then again the targeted age group is different here.
The band set up was simple, with a keyboardist on the left, a guitarist, a multi-talented saxophonist/flutist, two backup vocalist, a bassist and a drummer on the right of the stage. The sound quality was good though there was one instance of technical problem when an irritating howling sound of feedback marred one of Olivia's song performance. One thing came to my notice was the guitarist kept changing his guitar for every song. From electric guitars to acoustic guitar and vice versa he must have brought half a dozen guitars just for this performance. I guess he wants the perfect guitar tone to match the songs. After all, I found out later that he was also the musical director for the band when each member of the team was introduced!
It didn't feel quite that long especially when you are enjoying the songs but the concert was over in just about under two hours. Ah, Malaysians just want to get their ticket worth but I do believe the crowd really enjoyed the performance and did call her out for two more encores before the concert ended proper! As we stream out of the hall together with the crowd, we spied a group of people buying some of her CDs.
Her latest album - Grace and Gratitude, though is not one I would recommend, my wife having bought the CD album after concert was over, was rather disappointed with it. With many strange Tibetan chants, Japanese Buddhism and Hebrew meditative motive weaved into its music; it was much too lethargic for our taste. Though some of the songs was rather listenable, but was not quite up to her previous hits standards.
Nevertheless, the concert was enjoyable and we decided we might come up to Genting Highlands in future for some other concerts or performances. Maybe we might consider attending the Genting International Jazz Festival which will be held on 8th and 9th June 2007.
The fog cover was really thick as I carefully drove back down to KL and back home for a good night's sleep. And why didn't we stay in any of the Genting Highland's hotel? Well, for one, we made our bookings rather late and couldn't get a room even on a shoulder period. And secondly, my wife's colleague who bought the Olivia Newton John concert package that came with one night stay at First World Hotel has decided not to stay overnight after checking into the room. It seems the room condition was rather dismal and they rather go back home then stay the night over. Oh, well, the distance wasn't that far, just needed to be careful when making the journey home. -- JanLeow.com/CH. 29-04-2007.
Posted on 30-Apr-2007
