The 25th Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan

On June 28th, 2014, the 25th Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan was held in Taipei Arena at 7 o'clock until 12 at midnight. There was 25 awards listed, and 11982 nominations on the list.

  My family and I were very honored to be invited to the join this special event at the special guest seats, where we got to see many well-known singers, producers, and so on around us.  

Taipei arena is an indoor sporting arena. Its multi-purpose stadium is used for many different major events including culture activities, such as live concerts. (In the past Disney on Ice, and Cirque du Soleil, Cats the Broadway Musical are the famous ones that performed in Taipei Arena).

However, this time, on June 28th, Taipei Arena was dedicated for the 25th Golden Melody Awards!

Harlem Yu (庾澄慶）, the host of the show, is a Golden Melody Award winning songwriter and singer. His music career has gained recognition throughout Asia, and all Chinese speaker regions. 

Yu opened the show with a short introduction and sang a song string to celebrate and congradulate all the nominators of the 25th Golden Melody Awards on stage. 

Afterwards, 5 singers(韋禮安、范逸臣、品冠、盧廣仲、李浩然）performed a 9-minute song combined with some of the classic Golden Melody Awards winning Chinese songs.

 on the screen: Harlem Yu

The climax of the show was the performance of the special guest, Jason Mraz, Ft JJ Lin (林俊傑）. American singer-songwriter, Jason Mraz performed "Love someone" from his latest album "Yes!" with Los Angeles-based electric folk-rock band Raining Jane. Jason Mraz later on greeted the audience in Chinese and said it was an honor for him to be here and perform with JJ Lin. They sang "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz and all the award nominators sang along as if they were the audience of a concert.

 

 To celebrate this quarter-century Golden Melody Awards, award organizer, Taiwan Television Enterprise invited Laurence Estrin, an audio engineer to supervise the technical production and the audio of the award. Taiwan Television Enterprise spent NT$40 Million total to create this overwhelming stage for this special night. News media claimed that the 25th Golden Melody Awards was a great improvement from any other awards in Taiwan from the past.

Jam Hsiao(蕭敬騰）24th Best Male Mandarin singer performed 真愛 

 Harlem walks around the the VIP seats right next to me and asked if anyone wants to take a selfie to past his or her phone to him. I hesitated to hand him my phone because my hands were shaking obviously enough that made me very embarrassed if others see it (I regretted not being brave afterwards).

It was hard to tell that he is 52 year-old and still so energetic and in such good shape. 

During the commercial break time, which is usually 1 minute or up to 6 minutes, people at the VIP seats get up and socialize with others. It was a special experience for me to see all those artists I've admire since I was a kid with my own eyes in REAL LIFE. 

Miss KO, the first female mandarin rapper who one the best new artist last year

 It was such an honor to sit in the VIP seats and witness this annual Golden Melody Awards with all the best singers, artists, producers, songwriters, and so on. 

And finally, one of the most exciting part, the best female mandarin singer of the year!

Penny Tai (戴佩妮）, a Malaysian singer-producer took home the trophy of her album "Unexpected," "純處意外."

From Left to right: Penny Tai, Faith Yang, Denise Ho, Tanya Tsai, and Jia Jia

 The Best Male Mandarin singer goes to JJ Lin, a Singaporean singer-songwriter for his album "Stories Untold" （因你而在）.

From Left to right: Lee Ronghou, Chang Chen-yue, JJ Lin, rapper Soft Lipa

Best Male Mandarin Singer: JJ Lin

 The award ended with Jolin Tsai's performance on many of her songs along with 72 dancers. Her dance and songs heated up the night and wrapped up the 25th Golden Melody Awards nicely.

Afterwards, special guests were invited to the after party where all the organizers, directors of the event gathered and celebrate the night. Delicious foods from different countries were served, as well as various drinks. 

   

The night didn't end after the party, but remained with the musics that surrounded us throughout the past years. Artists in the music field need to be awarded. Their hard works are not supposed to be judged by others, but respected. In this technology overload generation, albums in CD forms are not easy to make money anymore, and there are many other ways to download music illegally for free. But once we look at the efforts artists put behind one single artwork, the outcome is not just about money anymore.

6.30.14 Perng。