Social Star Awards: Night of glitter and power performances

THE stars of the social media world congregated in Singapore yesterday for one glittery night of awards and live performances.

From American rock veterans Aerosmith and global Korean pop sensation Psy to humorous YouTube game commentator PewDiePie, the line-up was chock-a-block with marquee names.

They were all at Marina Bay Sands for the inaugural Social Star Awards gala, the climax of a 24-hour event which started at midnight on Wednesday and was streamed live over YouTube from 9pm to about 11pm last night.

Actors Jeremy Piven and Jessica Alba gave the event a shot of Hollywood glamour by hosting it.

Piven, looking dapper in black and white, and Alba, in eye-catching red pants, announced that the first award of the evening went to Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber for Most Popular Music Solo Artist.

Bieber was also later named winner of The Social Star Almighty, for the most popular celebrity or brand acrossall countries andcategories.

Aerosmith put on the first performance of the night. They electrified the audience with a performance of their hits Cryin' and I Don't Want To Miss A Thing.

Of the latter, the band's singer Steven Tyler said proudly: "95 million hits on that song."

The American veteran rockers then joined forces with Japanese beatboxer Hikakin for a searing rendition of their 1975 classic song Walk This Way. Towards the end of the song, Tyler pulled Alba and Piven on stage to shake some booty.

This led Alba to coo: "He still takes my breath away."

More shaking came from a live performance by the original Harlem Shake crew, which got some members of the audience off their seats to dance wildly.

Most Popular Music Group went to British boyband phenomenon One Direction.

Accepting their award via video link, the boys said something which would have their fans here all excited: "Thank you for our Starcount award and we will see you soon."

They have not performed a concert in Singapore before.

Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen, looking perky in a glittery purple top, kept up the mood with her performance of Tonight I'm Getting Over You.

A Singapore fan of hers got to go on stage to film her singing her biggest hit yet, Call Me Maybe.

The game Candy Crush Saga was named Most Popular Game, "also known as the Wasted Youth Award", quipped Piven.

Awards, called Social Stars, were given out in more than 280 categories, spanning different countries worldwide, to the most popular personalities and brands in fields such as music, movies, television, sports and games.

Most of the winners were notified on social media platforms such as Twitter.

The awards show and the related Singapore Social Concerts held at Gardens by the Bay tonight and tomorrow night are organised by Singapore-based company Starcount.

The company tracks the activities of 1.7 billion Internet users on the world's top 11 social media sites.

The Straits Times is the official Singapore media partner for the events, Hot FM 91.3 is the official radio station and Kiss 92FM, the supporting radio station.

The concert tonight features Jepsen, Psy and American soul-pop singer CeeLo Green, among others.

Tomorrow night, Aerosmith hold court, in their first full-length Singapore concert.

bchan@sph.com.sg

For more photographs of last night's party, go to straitstimes.com