The boys are back! Though they aren’t boys anymore, are they? Thirteen years after they singlehandedly started the idol drama craze in Taiwan, F4 reunited at the Jiang Su STV Lunar New Year Eve extravaganza and performed two signature songs from their oeuvre “Meteor Rain” and ‘The First Time”. Between the audience sobbing in joy and myself watching with a smile and a sniffle, Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, Ken Zhu, and Vanness Wu took us all back to the halcyon days of yore. The performance was really nicely staged, with them appearing like a meteor shower before their first song, then a very candid interview with the hosts, and finally a return to the MG school room where they sang about being there for each other as friendship is always the first to arrive in time. In the interview, the guys said some things that aren’t surprising but it felt like they truly were happy to be reunited at last. Jerry says he’s the oldest but emotionally the youngest so he was hard to deal with. Everyone agreed Vanness has changed the least, remaining the one who is most certain of his goal in life and goes for it and doesn’t give up. Ken says Vic keeps so much inside him that the perfect girl would be someone like a mom or younger sister at times and is able to deal with his emotional extremes. At times the guys got misty-eyed, but there was tons of laughter such as when they were asked to deliver a line of dialogue as their character in Meteor Garden. As for the singing, they actually sang live and it was awesome – not because they are the best singers but because you can totally hear the imperfections and that adds to how real it is. They still can harmonize amazingly well, and my only gripe was wishing they performed more songs. Check out the performances and interview below and be prepared to smile from cheek-to-cheek. I also got a kick out of how many verklempt fangirls in the audience were sobbing and gasping from glee.  Continue reading →