A "Real" Love Story as Taylor Swift Sizzles at The RED Tour in KL "Real Music Never Stops"
7 mins read
Kuala Lumpur, 20 June 2014 – It really felt like “Real Music Never Stops” at the Putra Indoor Stadium where nearly 8,000 people gathered and sang alongside Taylor Swift to her popular hits at The RED Tour. As the lead sponsor of Taylor Swift Live in KL, AIA Bhd. was overwhelmed with the sold-out concert and described it as a massive and exciting experience.
The minute Taylor Swift’s silhouette appeared on the large red curtain, fans erupted as she launched into her first hit, “State of Grace” followed by “Holy Ground”, “The Lucky One” and “Red”. The almost two-hour long concert saw the American singer/songwriter superstar demonstrating a few of her instrumental skills including the electric guitar, banjo and piano. Combined with red flashing lights, an upbeat tempo and loud music, the concert atmosphere reached a fevered pitch when Taylor picked up the pace with crowd favourites “Mean”, “22” and “Love Story”.
The Taylor Swift concert in Malaysia is part of the seven-time GRAMMY winner’s 16- month long The RED Tour, which included performances in Shanghai, Tokyo, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. Reaching its grand finale in East Asia, the sold-out concert proves once again that Taylor Swift is very much at the top of her game.
During the show, Taylor also shared a short video montage of her growing up, beginning when she was 1 year old, to when she got her first guitar at age 8, to global stardom. Swift writes songs about her feelings that accompany her lifelong voyage as a singing superstar. The concert proved that nearly 8,000 fans were there to celebrate her remarkable musical journey with her. Each rocking, melodious and catchy tune was emphasized on through elaborate costumes and entertaining stage acts. Swift closed the night with her number one hit We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
Even before the show, as early as 3.00pm, there were plenty of fun activities organised by sponsors, including AIA, outside the concert arena. Thousands of fans including AIA’s contest winners, employees, life planners as well as media representatives and business partners gathered at AIA’s interactive booth to join in the activities which included make over and hairdo sessions; a photo booth with funky backdrop and props; quizzes and merchandise giveaways.
Bill Lisle, Chief Executive Officer of AIA Bhd. said, “We believe in sharing real life experiences with our customers, life planners, employees and the community. Hence our lead sponsorship of Taylor Swift’s The RED Tour in KL presented the perfect opportunity for us to connect with and bring young people together to share in this exciting experience with AIA.”
In the weeks leading up to the concert, AIA Bhd. launched a series of contests on its Facebook page, selected radio stations, newspapers and news portals to give Taylor Swift fans in Malaysia a chance to win tickets to her sold-out concert in Kuala Lumpur, meet and greet passes as well as exclusive merchandise.
The activation concluded with The AIA Red Party which saw hundreds of AIA contest winners, media representatives, employees and business partners gathered to celebrate the countdown to Taylor Swift’s The RED Tour in Kuala Lumpur.
–END–
About Taylor Swift
Lauded by The New York Times as “one of the most important pop artists of the last decade,” and by Rolling Stone as “one of the few genuine rock stars we’ve got these days,” 24 year-old Taylor Swift is a seven-time GRAMMY winner, and is the youngest winner in history of the music industry’s highest honor, the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. With the 2012 release of her album RED, she is the only female artist in music history (and just the fourth artist ever) to twice have an album hit the 1 million first-week sales figure. She holds the record for the biggest digital sales week ever for a song by a woman, and for the second-largest song sales week overall, as well as the worldwide iTunes record for highest ever first-week album sales. With RED, Taylor became the first artist since the Beatles (and the only female artist in history) to log six or more weeks at #1 with three consecutive studio albums.
Taylor has an album on Rolling Stone’s prestigious The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time (by women) list, and Time magazine has named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She is Billboard’s youngest-ever Woman of the Year, and her more than 100 industry award wins have included the American Music Awards’ Artist of the Year, the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year and three European Music Awards.
Taylor, who writes all of her own songs, has career record sales in excess of 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads worldwide, and her two most recent albums are two of only 18 albums in the entire history of music to sell more than 1 million copies in a single week. She has had singles top both the country and pop radio charts around the globe, and has thus far scored 13 #1 singles across multiple radio formats. She is one of the top 5-selling digital music artists worldwide, and is the top-selling digital artist in country music history.
About AIA Bhd.
AIA Bhd. is a leading insurer in Malaysia, where we have been privileged to do business since 1948. We offer a suite of high quality products including Protection, Health, Personal Accident, General Insurance, Employee Benefits, Retirement and Family Takaful options to meet our customers’ protection and financial security needs at every life stage. Through our wide and diverse distribution footprint which comprises a tied agency force of close to 17,000 members, our exclusive bank partner’s branches nationwide as well as corporate sales teams and brokers, we give our customers the choice of deciding how, when and where they connect with us.
Part of the AIA Group, the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group, AIA Bhd. in Malaysia has the financial strength, experience, service centre network as well as a well-trained team of more than 2,000 staff to serve its 3 million customers nationwide. As at end 2013, AIA Bhd.’s total asset worth was RM42 billion, with a paid-up capital of RM767 million.
