There were no words of farewell or the customary “see-you-next-time” closing remark.
To some among the 6,500-strong crowd at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Saturday evening, Mandopop diva Faye Wong’s two-hour concert was marred by its abrupt ending.
The icy 42-year-old Chinese songbird, who returned to our shores after a seven-year hiatus, simply left the stage after delivering a mesmerising rendition of the haunting track Flower On The Shore.
A huge mirror then appeared on stage while Wong could be heard performing a hypnotic Buddhist chant in the background.
The audience realised it was all over only when the lights came on and her production crew started packing up the equipment.
Some fans The New Paper spoke to could not hide their disappointment.
“I must admit I was slightly taken aback,” said Mr Li Xiao, a 26-year-old postgraduate student. “My friends and I were still feeling very high from her performance and suddenly, the concert just ended.
“But I guess there’s nothing we can do about it; that’s her style.”
Mr Li’s friend, 25-year-old Cheng Wei, an undergraduate at a private university, said: “The ending was really too sudden. She could have made it more obvious… Many people weren’t even sure if they should leave the stadium.”
Fans were also quick to react online, leaving comments on Wong’s Sina Weibo microblog.
They included messages such as, “You concluded too abruptly, we had no time to react… you owe us one, we need to be consoled!” and “Sobs, we were still sitting there, stupidly waiting for you to return to stage.”
Wong, who kicked off her comeback Asian tour in Beijing in October last year, as expected, did not interact much with the audience on Saturday.
Preferring to let her music speak for itself, all she mumbled in between her songs was “thank you” – five times in Mandarin and once in Cantonese.
Paano Na Kaya? (Album)
Heroes