The first time I heard Hu Yanbin’s "Hong Yan" on a DVD, my only thought was: this is astonishing. That was 21 years ago. More than ten years have passed since I last slipped into Yitong College to see him perform live. Back then, he had just finished I Am a Singer, and with "Shan Qiu" he had at least shaken off some of the awkwardness of being one of those artists whose songs are everywhere while the person himself is less so. Last year he came to Chongqing for a concert, but I had something else going on and missed it. This year, when the Chengdu tour tickets went on sale, I grabbed an indoor-floor ticket right away. Later I realized his tickets didn’t even require that kind of frantic timing.
On October 25, I took the bullet train to Chengdu. After checking into the hotel and charging my phone, I headed straight to the venue. In the group chats beforehand, a lot of fans had been sharing the props they made and keeping everyone updated on the latest information. I probably don’t count as a hardcore fan, so I just brought my phone and ID and went.
No wonder people online keep joking that Damai should “go out of business.” The ticketing really wasn’t great. On top of that, the organizer put too many seats in the front row of the floor section. I was in a seat off to one side and packed in so tightly that for a moment I was actually jealous of the people in the stands upstairs. Their view was much better.
When showtime arrived and the warm-up music came on, the person everyone had been waiting for finally walked out. A week has passed since then, and I can’t remember what the first song was anymore, but the whole concert was clearly and carefully arranged. It moved from classical to modern and then back toward classical again. The backgrounds and lighting alone already made it feel far more polished than an ordinary livehouse show.
Soon enough, "Hong Yan" came back around, with some changes in the arrangement. There was a traditional vocalist and an erhu player on stage, and later in another song there was even a suona. It reminded me of something from I Am a Singer: once, Zhang Liangying came on stage in a white dress and everyone else seemed focused on the outfit, but Hu Yanbin only said, "an erhu, and a suona." I guess that moment stayed with him for a long time. He brought those two traditional instruments into the arrangements of his earlier Chinese-style songs, and the result really does feel different. The first time I heard it, the effect was no less striking than hearing a trumpet suddenly cut through a rock band set.
After the transition video ended, the screen flashed "Moonlight", and the crowd erupted again. A lot of people probably know this song through The Legend of Qin. I never watched the anime, but I still remember hearing it one night on my MP3 player in middle school. The melody twists and turns so much that I remember thinking: so that’s how a song can be sung? I looped it every day for a while after that. Later, more and more short-video accounts started questioning whether Hu Yanbin could still sing it at his current age. When he responded on Weibo, I honestly didn’t expect him to be so serious about that kind of talk. After hearing it live, I believed even more in what he said at the time: he could sing it before, and he can still sing it now.
The audience was far more energetic than I was. The little girl to my right screamed and cheered every time, while I mostly just waved my glow stick at first, so introverted that I didn’t even dare make a sound. Later, during a short interaction, Hu Yanbin asked everyone what they wished for. She blurted out, "Getting into high school," and both I and the boy on her other side turned to look at her in surprise. Then we found out she was only in ninth grade.
Ninth grade, about 15 years old—basically a post-10s kid. And yet she knew way more of his songs than I did, which made me, a so-called "20-year fan," feel a little ashamed.
At the two-hour mark, Hu Yanbin said goodbye. The ticket information had said the concert would run for about two hours, but no one in the venue left, and the lights didn’t come up either. It felt like everyone already understood this part of the routine. The crowd kept chanting his name over and over, and the band started responding too. After quite a while, Hu Yanbin really did come back out. In the extra hour of what felt like overtime, he sang some early songs a cappella, like "Little Dog", and also some later tracks like "Treasure Boyfriend". He even sang "Shan Qiu" again. I said at the time that the last time I had heard him sing that song was ten years ago, and the little girl beside me looked genuinely shocked—because back then, she was only five. Thinking about that now still feels strange.
The last hour felt more like a giant group dance party. It was looser, less structured, but the atmosphere was really good. Because the floor was so crowded, I didn’t stand up like everyone else. Leaning back in my seat and closing my eyes to listen turned out to be a different kind of enjoyment.
Around ten o’clock, people began leaving the venue one after another. In a rare burst of social courage, I said to her, “Then I wish you get into the high school you want.” She turned around, smiled brightly, and said, “Thank you.”
When I got home and整理ed the photos and clips I had taken that night, I was struck again by the same feeling: some music really is more moving in a live venue than it can ever be on even the best CD.