F4 Delights Fans With Surprise Reunion in Taiwan

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Fans were in for a treat when Taiwanese boy band F4 staged a surprise reunion during rock band Mayday's concert on Saturday. They sang their iconic ballad "Meteor Rain" at the Taipei Arena making 40,000 fans feel nostalgic and many are even singing along to their beat.

 

Meteor Rain served as the theme song to the 2001 Meteor Garden TV series which also starred three other F4 members, Jerry Yan, Vanness Wu, Vic Chou, and Ken Chu.

The drama almost instantly made them huge stars across Asia. Adapted from a Japanese manga series of Flower Boys, Meteor Garden became an overnight sensation, popularizing the "idol drama" genre.

Meteor Garden co-starred with actress Barbie Hsu, who died in February of pneumonia. The plot centered around Hsu playing a poor girl who meets four very rich, very arrogant guys dubbed F4, or Flower 4.

Fans Nostalgic for Meteor Garden
The drama inspired multiple remakes with Japan's Hana Yori Dango in 2005, Boys Over Flowers in South Korea in 2009, Meteor Garden in China in 2008, and F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers in 2021.

The original boy band F4, assembled during the rise of the show, disbanded in 2009 but reunited temporarily in 2013 to perform during Jiangsu's Spring Festival Gala.

During the concert at Singapore's F1 Pit which took over two hours, Mayday's lead singer Ashin, whose real name is Chen Hsin-hung, shared how long it took to revive all four F4 members for this grand reunion. "Everyone jumped through a lot of hoops to put me up on the screen," Ashin told the jubilant audience.

Mayday, a band that formed in 1997, is one of the most popular groups in the Chinese-speaking world, often referred to as the "Beatles of Asia" and compared to Western acts like Coldplay and Maroon 5. At the concert, F4 also appeared with Mayday to sing "The Song of Laughter and Forgetting".

F4 Reunion Becomes the Dream for Many Calling for a Comeback
Jerry Yan, now 48, thanked Mayday for making the reunion happen. "It's something I didn't think I would see again in my lifetime. It's made us feel like kids again," he said.

His bandmate Vanness Wu, 46, thanked the fans, "I would like to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for coming to see a beautiful evening with us."

All four members, who are now in their 40s, are still involved in entertainment, and the reunion excited fans who still wanted their favorites to return to tour.

Fans took to social media with emotional messages, expressing their happiness at being able to see their favourite group perform together once more.

There's a rumor of an F4 concert next year, marking 25 years of their debut, but no word from the band or their reps yet.