Top stars from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan have taken to the stage every weekend in the capital since late August. And after Friday's concert at the Workers' Stadium by Warner Music China singers, it's now the turn of Nicholas Tse, the so-called worst boy on the Cantonese pop scene.

He will appear at the Capital Gymnasium Saturday night.

Last year, the 22-year-old actor and singer was convicted for letting his driver take the rap after he slammed his sports car into a guard rail. But with his new album "Reborn" released in June, he has been resurrected on the pop scene.

Before Saturday night's gig in Beijing, he performed three sell-out concerts in Guangzhou, Foshan and Shenzhen.

Some people say that Tse let down his fans by being a poor role model. Tse responded in an interview with Kate Drake from Time magazine, "Who's perfect? I've never been that perfect-idol guy. For me, there is no perfect. There's always something better."

Although he acknowledged that he does not discipline himself, he does want to improve himself. In the same interview, he said: "I want to reach a higher level of thinking. If you don't have that mental discipline to improve you won't push yourself harder and harder."

Tse was given his first musical instrument, a set of drums, at the age of 14. When his growing pains set in, compounded by his parents' divorce, he found he could beat nothing but the drums.

He wrote his first song "Guji Cuowu (Wrong Estimation)" at the age of 15 when he was leading a vagrant life in Japan. With a rock melody played on guitar and drums, it is a song filled with a 15-year-old boy's depression about his situation and confusion about the future.

The song, which was later added to his hit album "Believer" in 1999, is one of his favourites and he sings it at many concerts.

He signed a contract with Hong Kong record company Emperor Entertainment Group in 1997. By the end of 1998, he had parted company and returned to Canada where he was born because he had different ideas for his music from his boss, who preferred to turn him into a good-looking idol.

But he resumed the contract with the company three months later.

Tse is also a talented song writer and has written a dozen hit songs for Hong Kong singers such as Kelly Chen and his girlfriend Faye Wong.

Though some critics think his latest album "Reborn" fails to live up to expectations, Tse needs time to recover.

At the Beijing press conference for the concert, Tse told his fans he would insist on writing his own music, which he described as "comfortable music."

"I will produce the music that rightly expresses where I am at that time and place," he said.

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