DUO Eason Chan Concert Live 2010 Karaoke (2 Blu-ray) Blu-ray Region All

In his previous Moving On concert, Eason employed a three-sided stage in the square-shaped Hong Kong Coliseum. Along with an emphasis on performance pieces and a grand stage design, the show was strangely alienating for this relatively small indoor venue. Eason and his team correct that mistake when designing Duo, opting for a complex setup on a four-sided center stage that allows audiences on all sides to be closer to the performer. The stage design also gives ample open room for the band featuring well-respected musician Jun Kung and At 17's Ellen Loo, making them as important in the show as its main performer. At one point, Jun Kung gets his time on the stage with Eason for the classic song Embrace this Minute, while one of the chorus members gets a solo with a heartbreaking a cappella version of Skeeter Davis' The End of the World. Giving the supporting musicians' time in the spotlight not only allows Eason to rest between songs; it also reflects the concert's collaborative nature.

While Eason and his team picked a more EEG/Cinepoly-heavy lineup for Moving On, they managed to choose quite a few classics from the Capital Artists days for Duo. In addition to the aforementioned Embrace this Minute, Eason opens the show with Wait For Me to Come Today, and he even performs the overlooked classic Anticlimax, composed by Eason himself back in 1998. The presence of these songs lends a nice dose of nostalgia that easily earns points with the audience, and it shows that Eason's own brand of pop music stood out from the rest of the pack even at the beginning of his career.

Duo also devoted a surprisingly large part of its playlist to cover songs from different eras by other artists, including Kay Tse's Wedding Invitation Street, Jacky Cheung's The Hair got Messy, Leslie Cheung's Cantonese version of Lady Marmalade, and even Tamaki Koji's Mr. Lonely, which Eason tackles in Japanese. While those performances are hit-or-miss overall (Eason's simultaneous impressions of Leslie and Anita Mui during one song is a little too campy for its own good), it's a fresh way for Eason to avoid falling back on the same hit songs for the umpteenth time.

Hong Kong audiences understandably put a lot of emphasis on a musical artist's live vocal performance, and that's why Duo may disappoint some on an aural level. However, Eason and his team do plenty to convince the audiences in the coliseum that watching a concert is different from listening to someone sing on a record. From eccentric costume designs to Eason's own neurotic stage behavior, Duo is a thoroughly entertaining show where watching is the main priority and perfect vocal is only a bonus. The Blu-ray, which captures its marathon-length final show, is a crisp and splendid delivery of the visual treats, and it's easily a demo quality disc among Canto-pop concerts on Blu-ray. With Duo, Eason Chan has proven that he is not just a singer or a musician - he's an entertainer.