Recordsurplus usually has performances, so there is a stage in their store, and there is even a piano. However, the sound of their piano is so bad that it seems that it has not been properly maintained.
It’s no wonder that they don’t pay attention to maintenance. This piano is indeed rarely used and there is no need for maintenance.
Generally, people who come to the store to perform are mainly pop and jazz performers. They will bring their own musical instruments. It is better to use a keyboard than a piano.
The stage for the performance was on the east side, next to the lounge. When Zhou Yan followed Huo Yilun, he couldn't help but widen his eyes when he saw the audience crowded under the stage.
When he came to the store just now, he saw a small stage here, but the space under the stage was very small at that time, which was larger than the average aisle. It could be squeezed in even if it was crowded. A person in his fifties or sixties.
But now the place has changed. The original shop has been moved away, leaving a large space that looks to be the size of a middle school classroom.
And in such a small place, at least 300 people were crammed into it, so densely packed that there was no space at all.
The most outrageous thing is that there are still many people sitting near the stage.
They were not sitting on independent chairs, but on slender benches. Many people could sit on one bench, so although they were sitting, they did not take up much space.
The people in the back rows were standing normally, and further back, there were many people standing on the benches.
Seeing this scene, Zhou Yan remembered that in junior high school, the school held a New Year's Day party. The stage was the basketball court. All the audience gathered around the basketball court. The audience also sat, stood and climbed up in the same way.
Zhou Yan couldn't help but turned sideways and reminded Hoylen, "Pay attention to your safety."
So many people were crowded into a small space, and so many people were standing on stools Yes, it is indeed dangerous.
Hoyilun smiled and said, "Don't worry, nothing will go wrong. Our store often puts on performances, and this is not the first time."
Listen to what he said, Zhou Yan could only nod. Anyway, if something went wrong, Huo Yilun would be the one in trouble.
Arriving at the side of the stage, Ivan from Tomson's office sent the violin over.
Because there was a performance, Zhou Yan asked Yi Wen to send him a violin. In addition to the violin, Zhou Yan also brought a bamboo flute.
As soon as he got the violin, a beam of light suddenly hit him, and then there was warm applause from the audience.
Although there were not too many people, the applause sounded very loud because the space was small and the audience was right next to the stage.
Zhou Yan looked at the lights falling on him and couldn't help but marvel. He didn't expect that there were lights in a record store and it was quite professional.
Holding the violin, Zhou Yan walked onto the stage, and the lights followed him. Then he saw the source of the lights.
It turned out that there was a small mezzanine above the lounge, which was about one person tall. At this time, someone was holding a lamp and pointing it at him.
When he arrived on the stage, Zhou Yan first bent towards the audience, and then said into the microphone, "Thank you everyone for coming to my autograph signing today. Because more people came than expected, I added a little extra time. It’s been a while since work, everyone hasn’t eaten yet, right?”
It’s time to eat, but they didn’t eat in order to wait for Zhou Yan’s performance.
“We are not hungry.”
Hardison shouted excitedly from his seat in the front row.
The reason why he and Jessica could sit in the first row was because of Qian Er.
At first, the cashier told them that as long as they bought a record, they would get a seat at the show.
But after a while, the staff told them that although they had seats, they were farther back. If they wanted to sit in the front, they would have to spend more.
In order to get the first row seats, Hardison and Jessica spent hundreds of dollars.
So did everyone else sitting in the front row, spending a lot of money.
But they didn't feel a loss at all, because it originally cost money to watch Zhou Yan's performance, and their money was not in vain, they also bought a lot of records.
Especially when they sat down, they found that members of the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey were also sitting in the first row, right next to them, and they immediately felt that the money was well spent.
Many people saw the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey sitting in the first row and regretted not spending money to go to the first row. They originally thought that with such a small space, the first row There is no difference from the back.
It must be said that Hoylen is really good at doing business. Originally, they could not make much money by hosting a book signing event just to gain popularity.
Recordsurplus's business is very good, and the daily shipment volume is very large. The hundreds of records signed and sold are nothing to them, and they also have to give profits to Tomson, so the money they receive is not much different from usual. How many.
But now that this is done, the store's turnover has increased sharply. Hoylen calculated just now that today's turnover is equivalent to more than a week.
This is also the first time for Zhou Yan to perform in such an environment. The audience in the front row is only one meter away from him. If he were any closer, the saliva from the audience would be sprayed on his face when they talk. .
This is a bit like an offline talk show. The performer and the audience are completely face-to-face, which facilitates communication between the performer and the audience.
Looking at the excited audience, Zhou Yan smiled and continued, "Because this autograph session was decided at short notice, the preparations were not sufficient, but I didn't expect that such a friend would come. . I also know that many people here did not get the signature. To express my apology, I will bring you a few songs.”
"In addition, in a while, the Piano Youth Orchestra and I will come to the United States again. In addition to holding concerts, I will also hold a book signing again. If you are interested, you can pay attention. Okay, Without further ado, what I want to bring you next is an earlier song called "Kite". I hope you like it. "
"Kite" is a simple song. Suitable for violin solo, Zhou Yan took it as the first piece and as a warm-up.
After saying that, Zhou Yan took a step back, positioned his movements, and was ready to start playing "Kite".
After Zhou Yan got ready, the originally noisy record store became quiet, and the audience held their breath, waiting for Zhou Yan's performance.
As Zhou Yan said, the song "Kite" is relatively early. It was the first time he independently wrote it for the movie "Reply from Heaven", and it is also a song in the first album "Piano Boy" .
Compared with the soundtrack of "Sense and Sensibility", this song is definitely less popular, but those who came to attend the book signing today are all Zhou Yan's fans, so they have basically heard this song.
When the slightly sad melody sounded, the audience suddenly felt that the environment they were in had changed, as if this was no longer a crowded record store, but a concert hall full of romantic atmosphere.
Music gives people the most intuitive and impactful feeling. Listening to "Kite", they don't need to think about anything, they just need to feel the emotions expressed by these note combinations.
While listening to "Kite", Jessica thought of "Heaven's Reply" in her mind. She must be one of the few viewers who has watched "Heaven's Reply".
This movie is hard to find in the United States. Except for Zhou Yan’s music fans, basically no one knows about it. Even Zhou Yan’s music fans generally don’t make a special trip to see the movie. Even if they want to see it, they can’t. Not found.
Jessica was able to see this movie because of the previous owner of the video store. In that video store, there were many videos related to Zhou Yan, including Zhou Yan's concert videos and all the movies in which Zhou Yan participated in the soundtrack.
During this period, Hardison and Jessica often went to the video store and basically watched all the videos related to Zhou Yan. She even borrowed the video tape of "Heaven Replies" to watch. After several days, by the end she felt like she could speak a few words in Chinese.
A few minutes later, the performance of "Kite" ended, but Zhou Yan did not stop and directly connected to "Young and Beautiful".
When the melody of "Young and Beautiful" sounded, a low roar broke out on the scene, and the audience all looked in the direction of Mariah Carey.
In the past half a year, "Young and Beautiful" has been so popular. Even now, the popularity of this song has not subsided, and it is still a hot song on the radio.
However, there is a trouble with the hot music, that is, when Zhou Yan plays it, many audience members in the audience can't help but hum along.
Although they didn’t hum loudly, once the number of people increased, the sound became louder.
Especially in this environment, he could even hear an audience member in front of him humming with pitch problems.
Of course, since he chose to play this piece of music, Zhou Yan didn't care about the current situation.
The audience likes to hum along, so let them hum along. In this environment, everyone hums along, and the atmosphere is pretty good. Zhou Yan is not a picky performer.
As soon as the song "Young and Beautiful" ended, Zhou Yan saw Mariah Carey sitting in the front row standing up and waving to him, as if she wanted to say something to him.
Zhou Yan immediately turned his head to the other side, pretending not to see Maria. He was afraid that this woman would do something wrong again.
However, although he pretended not to see it, the audience at the scene saw it and called Maria's name to remind Zhou Yan. Being reminded by so many people, Zhou Yan could no longer turn a blind eye and could only pretend to see Maria. He smiled into the phone and said, "What do you want to say? Maria?"
< br>Maria did not speak, but waved to Zhou Yan, indicating that Zhou Yan would give her the microphone.
Zhou Yan rolled his eyes helplessly and could only take off the phone and handed it to her.
After getting the microphone, Maria said nothing and started singing directly, "I'veseen the world..."
While singing, she also raised her hand to the audience to signal her approval. Everyone sang along with her.
When Zhou Yan was playing the violin just now, the audience wanted to sing along, but they were more restrained because they were still afraid of affecting Zhou Yan's performance. But now that Maria was singing in person, they naturally had no worries. , and started singing along wantonly.
The emotions they had suppressed before were now released because of the chorus.
Indeed, I can’t sing even if I want to, it’s too uncomfortable to hold back.
Zhou Yan stood on the stage, listening to the chorus, and couldn't help but curl his lips. Maria was indeed a restless person.
But one thing is that when she led the chorus like this, the atmosphere at the scene was indeed much better, and Zhou Yan felt much more relaxed.
Originally, Zhou Yan only wanted to play two or three songs and then end it. However, when he saw so many spectators before going on stage, and the stage was well-organized, he was embarrassed to only play two or three songs. He left the show after the first song, otherwise the audience would have been disappointed.
After all, just standing in the audience can't stand up for half an hour.
Anyone who has waited this long to listen to just two songs will be disappointed.
So Zhou Yan just decided to play a little longer, at least half an hour.
Now that Maria is leading the chorus, Zhou Yan can rest a little longer.
……
“Isn’t this that song?”
At this time, two girls passed by the door of Recordsurplus and stopped when they heard the singing coming from the store.
"Maria's "Young and Beautiful"." Another girl said.
"Are there any performances inside?"
"Probably, it seems to be a record store, but the sound... sounds like Maria."
" It seems to be the original sound played.”
"No, there is no accompaniment, and it doesn't look like it was released."
"Go in and have a look..."
The two girls walked into the record store with curiosity, and were immediately attracted by what they saw in front of them. The scene was shocking. A large group of people gathered around a corner of the record store, and all the people in the back row stood on stools.
Maria's voice came from inside, and everyone at the scene was singing along.
“What is going on?”
The two girls jumped a few times, wanting to see what was going on inside, but the people in the back row stood too high and were completely covered.
One of the girls was brave enough to run to the back row and squeeze her head in from the waists of the two audience members. Then she saw Zhou Yan standing on the stage.
As for Maria, she couldn’t see it because she was standing in the audience.
The audience in the back row felt a head squeeze into their waists and almost fell off their chairs.
“What are you doing?”
"Who is singing?" the girl asked with a smile.
"Of course it's Maria, can't you tell?" The man curled his lips, ignored the girl, and continued singing along with the others.
Hearing that it was Maria herself singing, the girl quickly went to report to her companions.
“It’s really Maria.”
“Why is she here?”
"I don't know, I really want to squeeze in and have a look."
Just as the two girls were thinking about how to get in and see Maria, several more people walked in from outside the door.
“What is going on here?”
The two girls immediately said, “It seems like Maria is giving a concert.”
“Wow, Maria Ah.”
...
The chorus did not end, and many people poured into the record store, filling the aisles between the stores more and more.
The staff saw this situation and quickly reported it to Hoylen.
When he learned that there were more and more people, Hoylen was surprised and happy. In order to allow more people to see the performance, he immediately took people to maintain order. First, he asked people in the last row to get out of their chairs. Go up and down, then line up again for new arrivals.
Although it is still difficult for short people to watch the show in the back row, it is much better than before.
Zhou Yan was on the stage, and when Maria finished singing with the audience, he ran to get the microphone back from Maria.
But Maria held on to the microphone and even stepped onto the stage and said into the microphone, "Isn't everyone enjoying the singing?"
"Enjoyed!"< br>
“Do you still want to listen to it, do you want to sing it?”
“Yes!”
After getting the answer she wanted, Maria said with a smile, "I am also very happy to sing, but I can only sing this song today."
"Oh~" The audience was a little disappointed.
“Don’t be disappointed, everyone. The lyrics for the new song "Someone Like You" written by Y have been filled in and will be released in a while. Then we will sing "Someone Like You" again, Okay?”
The audience became excited again when they heard that the new song was about to be released.
“Okay.”
After promoting her new song, Maria did not forget to help Zhou Yan promote it, "Y will come to hold a concert in a while. Everyone should go to the venue to support it, okay? We will go together then."
"Okay!"
After saying this, Maria finally returned the microphone to Zhou Yan. (End of this chapter)