On Friday (13/9/13) Rihanna resumed the Diamonds World Tour in Macau, China. This was immediately followed by another concert in Macau on Saturday (14/9/13).
Both of these concerts were filmed in full by the promoter Live Nation
however they are rather childishly refusing to make any of that footage
even partially availible. The intention being to create an illusion that
there is an elite group of nations who have been given full access
while everybody else is being excluded. In order to increase the clamour
for information from those in the non-elite group (i.e everyone except
the US) Live Nation has also been actively suppressing information about
the concerts meaning that not even a set-list has been made officially
availible.
Fortunately though a full set-list was made availible through unofficial
channels almost as soon as the first concert ended. Therefore we know
it was the standard set-list with Act 3 (Man Down) and Act 2 (Jump)
being switched in what has actually become the standard running order.
The big difference is that Rihanna has done away with costume changes
and is instead performing the concert in just one outfit which I presume
will change from night to night. This is something that everyone
suspected when China was announced as the first venue on this third leg
of the tour and something that was trailed at the Helsinki, Finland concert (28/7/13)
where Rihanna wore slightly different boots during the Man Down Act.
The intention being to pique Chinese interest about exactly who Rihanna
would be bringing along on this third leg of the tour in order to get
them speculating about which member(s) is the CIA's agent in the room.
After all Rihanna's 'oufit' could be a reference to her attire or her
tour crew.
Once Rihanna's change in attire had been revealed at the concert the
intention was to put more pressure on the Chinese. In the first instance
this was supposed to get the Chinese speculating that Rihanna was
trying to signal something through her outfit choice as she did with her
more demure outfit in Morocco (25/5/13) and her Arabic inspired outfit in Denmark (4/7/13).
In the second instance this was intended to put pressure on the Chinese
to decide how this new information would be released to the outside
world. Primarily due to significant language differences people in China
don't really use western social media sites like Twitter instead using
their own alternatives like Weibo meaning that while people in China
could all be happily discussing and sharing pictures of Rihanna's
concert it would take a concerted effort for people to share that
information with westerners like me. Although it has significantly
loosened over recent years the Chinese government has in the past
tightly restricted Internet access especially to US sites such as
YouTube and Facebook. Therefore the US seemed to be attempting to
stoke-up anti-government feeling in China by making its people angry
that government censorship was preventing them from sharing information
about Rihanna's concert with me. Of course nothing of the sort actually
happened because Chinese censorship of the Internet is nowhere near as
strict as the US likes to pretend it is. The Chinese actually took the
time to make a little joke of it in the days prior to Rihanna's concert
by announcing a new raft of measures to tackle the spreading of rumours
on the Internet.
Sadly faced with this level of provocation from the US the Chinese
simply couldn't just ignore it. However their responses have all been
very low-key and seem designed to minimise the pressure on Rihanna
herself. On arrival at her hotel Rihanna was presented with a chocolate
statue of her Chinese birth-sign. Chinese culture is very big into
astrology but uses a completely different system to the one used in the
west. Therefore offering to do their Chinese Horoscope is actually a
pretty common way to introduce westerners into Chinese culture. It seems
particularly appropriate for Rihanna who has previously expressed quite
an interest in astrology. However it also served the purpose of
reminding the US handlers that the Chinese are aware that they often
remotely influence Rihanna's behaviour through Twitter based
astrologers.
Rihanna was also given a gift of a sweatband with an attached black lace
veil rather similar to a hat worn by Miley Cyrus in her "We Can't Stop"
video. This could be the Chinese expressing confusion at the
relationship between Miley Cyrus and Rihanna that was brought into sharp
focus by the two of them recording interviews for the UK chat show
"Alan Carr: Chatty Man" on Wednesday (11/9/13). It could also though be
the Chinese gently reminding Rihanna that she would benefit from being a
bit more like Miley. That's because while Miley Cyrus is only 20 she
has been in the business for a very long time and I think it was
Pharrell Williams who pointed out that Billy Ray Cyrus is her father and
her godmother is Dolly Parton.
Finally in an effort to minimise the stress of Rihanna the Chinese
invited Rihanna's brother to preform in Hong Kong on Thursday (12/9/13)
in order to give Rihanna time to adjust to the massive time difference
between the US and China and help her deal with the culture shock.
That's because while Hong Kong is most certainly Chinese 100 years of
British rule means that it is much more westernised than the Chinese
mainland. The Chinese also provided Rihanna with a villa style hotel not
at all dissimilar from her home in Los Angles. The idea being that
Rihanna could relax there for a few days before moving onto the
Philippines.
Unfortunately Rihanna's handlers had different ideas and Rihanna was
forced to leave Macau almost immediately after her second concert
finished in order to fly to Hong Kong for an event to promote her MAC
cosmetic line. As a result Rihanna appears to be suffering heavily with
the effects of jet lag. This of course has been the handlers intention
all along with a punishing schedule involving the wholly unnecessary
trip to London intended to completely physically and psychologically
exhaust Rihanna in order to force her nervous breakdown in Abu Dhabi, UAE on October 19th (19/10/13).
We are now all waiting to see whether Rihanna will be granted
permission to rest in Hong Kong or whether the handlers are going to
force her off to yet another country.
The worst thing Rihanna can do is head straight to the Philippines.
That's because while the current fighting is taking place on a
completely different island from the one Rihanna is heading to she would
be well advised to minimise the time spent there especially as Rihanna
is going to have to wait around in the country following Thursday's (19/9/13) concert before heading to Singapore for a whistle-stop visit on Sunday (22/9/13).
Of course the obvious thing to do would have been for Rihanna to take
the option of a rest in China before flying into the Philippines at the
last minute before flying back to Hong Kong for this MAC cosmetics event
before heading to Singapore.
(Originally Posted) 12:45 on 15/9/13.
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