Rui En Concert >>>

ByTan Wanlin • Urbanwire   
• email reporter • email story • printer friendly version

Rui En wows NP students... and Principal too

Not only was Mar 20 the first time that local singer Rui En had performed at Lecture Theatre (LT) 26 in Ngee Ann (NP), it also marked the debut appearance of Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Principal , Mr Chia Mia Chiang at a campus concert. He, along with a packed audience of about 400, were laughing and clapping to the upbeat tunes of Rui En's first album, RuiEn vol.01 album.

Although the organiser of the concert, Poly Stage Production (PSP), sent an invitation to the Principal to attend the event, they didn't quite expect him to show up as he was going to be out of town. Fortunately, Mr Chia returned just in time to grace the event.

"I met the President of [PSP before], I spoke to [him] last October and I did tell him that if there are performances on campus, do keep me posted. So 2 days back, he sent me some tickets for today's performance so here I am," said Mr Chia.

Bursting onto stage at about 6.30pm, Rui En was all charged up like an Energizer Bunny and ready to rock 'n' roll in her long-sleeved shirt that said "Rock Star", beige cargo pants, funky sneakers, with a big loop earring on 1 ear and a dangly chain earring on the other. She first sang the theme song from the last June's Channel 8 drama serial, No Problem in which she starred across MediaCorp TV artiste Chen Han Wei.


Rui En loves doing campus concerts because she can interact with people of her age
At the beginning, the 22-year-old had to coax the reserved audience into clapping and responding to her. The crowd, with an equal balance of both sexes, took some time to warm to her. If not for Rui En's fan club members who were diligently waving placards and cheering for her, the concert would have been a tad quiet.

"Are you guys tired from lessons? Did you all have a long day?" asked an amused Rui En.

Still, she continued to give her best, slapping high-5s to audiences, offering her microphone to students to sing along with her and shaking hands with them.

"The audience [were] slow to warm up to Rui En, perhaps due to the fact she is still quite new to Singaporeans. Her songs are nice, but her chemistry with the students could be improved," said PSP programme manager, Cheryl Tan, 19, a 3rd Year Computer Technology student.

Strangely enough YES 93.3 DJ Cai Wei Bing's announcement that the Principal was in the house, created some buzz and got people more excited. Cai's witty comments also milked the most laughs from the audience when some students, picked to play a game on stage, were a little stiff and unimaginative. They had to dance to the music that was being played randomly and the best dancer won.


Rui En with Jim Lin Yi Xin from Dreamz FM
The atmosphere improved further after Rui En sang a few more songs. The audience particularly liked 'Bai Se Yu Mao' (White feather) which was composed by 'it' boy Taiwan R&B singer Jay Chou. Jim Lin Yi Xin, a member of local Mandarin group, Dreamz FM , also made a guest appearance to accompany Rui En on the guitar. Rui En sang a number of covers including Six Pence None The Richer 's hit song, "Kiss Me". After 7 songs, she wrapped up the concert by throwing some posters into the audience, which caused a frenzy as people scrambled to grab hold of them.

"It's the end of a long day and they were still very enthusiastic and welcoming, so it's really cool," said Rui En after the concert.

"I think she's not bad, I really like her unplugged [songs], it's a pity she didn't sing more," said Toh Siyu, 20, a 3rd year Accountancy student.

On the whole, the concert went well and attracted media coverage from MediaCorp TV Channel 8 and Chinese evening paper Shin Min Daily News. Although she's more fluent in English than in Mandarin, the newcomer stuck to Mandarin throughout the concert. It's evident that her command of the language has improved by leaps and bounds since her performance in No Problem. Kudos to her too, for the credible performance singing 'live' in the LT, considering she had no formal vocal training lessons.

HYPE Records has held several school concerts in NP before and according to Yvonne Lim, 27, Promotions Manager, "each collaboration has been an amiable experience. NP students are a wonderful audience who appreciate our artistes' performances, making it a pleasure to always have NP on our list of VIS (Very Important School) to visit."

Sold out performance, sold out CDs

The hour-long concert saw about 500 tickets snapped up on Mar 17 at the Atrium. Even though the LT could only seat up to 420 people, PSP gave out more tickets as students were not obligated to turn up for the show, as tickets were free.


The audience gave Rui En 2 thumbs up, including Principal Chia (1st row, white shirt) and Deputy Principal Mr Tan Hang Cheong (1st row, blue shirt)
Of the concert, Principal Chia said, "I must confess that maybe I'm a little bit too old for all these [kind of activities] but nevertheless I think it was a good atmosphere here, and I'm quite sure that the students enjoyed it very much. I did too, in my own way."

In fact, he enjoyed it so much that the following weekend when out on a family trip to Causeway Point Shopping Centre, he discovered that Rui En's albums were all sold out when he wanted to buy 1 for his children. In the end, HYPE Records and PSP presented him with an autographed single , much to his delight.


Singing, is what Rui En enjoys most. In fact, she was in the school choir when she was in Singapore Chinese Girls' School
For now, Rui En has finished her publicity tour in Taiwan and is home to meet her fans. Besides launching campus concerts at NP and Singapore Polytechnic , Rui En had a myriad of other promotional activities, like a press conference cum mini showcase at club Embassy last month, an autography session at Junction 8 Shopping Centre 3 weeks ago, appearances on TV and radio programmes and doing photo shoots for magazines.

Back to books

The National Technological University (NTU) banking student who is graduating this year has taken much time off to promote her album in Singapore. This month, she will have to hit the books again to make up for lost time. Because of her work, she attends more tutorials than lectures, although "I try not to [skip classes] as we try to schedule everything around my schoolwork" she says embarrassed.

She has yet to face any fanatic pursuits on campus as she laughed "No one treats me differently. NTU people are a bit shy, they don't really come up to me the people in my class ignore the fact that I'm a artiste but that's the way it really should be, because I would feel weird if I was given any special treatment actually the teachers don't really like me because sometimes I had to skip classes."

Click here to win 1 of 3 autographed Rui En singles!
And to find out more about her, click here for UrbanWire's full-length interview with Rui En!

RuiEn vol.01 album is available in stores.

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