What do you get when rival clubs like Zouk and Ministry of  Sound beef  up their playlists with international DJs and big-name bands? You get someone coming up with an alternative, as I found out on my trip to Dragonfly. After opening inside St James Power Station in September last year, it didn’t take long for word to get around about the club’s catchy Cantonese pop line-up and even less time for it to sign up a multitude of  members.

Even now, newbies are regularly outnumbered by the long queue of  insiders. What was I, a music-blog-loving indie chick missing? I had to find out. ‘What’s this Cantopop? Do you even know any Cantonese?’ my friends uttered under their breaths when I asked if  they’d join me on a recent Wednesday night. Not a single one wanted to come, even after I offered to buy the drinks. I ended up going alone. But really, how bad could it be? It turns out it was so bad it was good.

Before Dragonfly opened its doors, there hadn’t been a club of  this genre and magnitude for a while. For devotees, the golden age of  Cantopop was during the ’80s and early ’90s, when the Four Heavenly Kings of  Cantopop – Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau and Leon Lai – ruled,  and continued afterwards when Chinese boy bands such as Beyond and Grasshopper took over the crown. Along with that came venues like Club 1997, Canto, Club Chinos, Gold Leaf  Esteem Salon and Utopia. But all these went downhill with the rise of  Zouk and other more western-centric clubs.

So when it was announced that icons Celeste, Skye, Alex, Sylvester Sim and William Scorpion would headline weekly residences at Dragonfly it seemed that C-pop was back.

Scorpion has been an integral part of  the scene since his first performances in 1993 . ‘At that time, I was still an aspiring fashion designer,’ says Scorpion, now 46. ‘One night a friend and I decided to go to Utopia for drinks, and I went up on stage and sang a song. The owner liked my performance so much that he offered me a nightly gig.’ That lucky break led to regular appearances at Canto, Club 1997 and Club Chinois. ‘The stigma with Cantonese music is that most of  its listeners are ah bengs and ah lians who get rowdy and create trouble,’ Scorpion notes. ‘But the crowd today at Dragonfly is different.’

Publicity manager Cheryl Kong agrees: ‘It’s a very different clubbing culture here at Dragonfly. Our customers are not here to be seen, they’re here to have fun. A lady once spent $5,000 in just one night!’ On what, you might ask – bottles and bottles of  Martell VSOP of  course. It is common knowledge in Canto culture that when a patron decides to buy a bottle, tag it and leave it in the club for the next time she comes back, she has marked her territory.

Most of  Dragonfly’s customers are  Chinese speakers in their late thirties and early forties, and most are very familiar with the genre. Take David, 32, a businessman and regular, who has been following Scorpion’s career since he was a teenager. ‘I used to accompany my parents to Club 1997, that’s when I got to know of  William,’ he says. ‘When I heard he was performing here, I just had to come and see’. And of  course there is the novelty factor. ‘The idea is to provide entertainment,’ Khong says. ‘And if  you do it with the right amount of  sincerity, people will buy into it.’ She adds that  there are at least ten expats a night who come to the club eager to experience something completely different from what they know. ‘I’m not going to mention names but even notable socialites drop by once in a while to let loose. They like the performances even though they don’t understand a single word.’ Perfect! I may not be an ang moh or a socialite, but if  they can have fun then so can I.

On the night I went to see Scorpion’s act, he and fellow troubadour Alex performed a medley of  hits by the late Cantonese singer Leslie Chung. Back-up dancers Jie, Yan, Tiger and Jasper were decked out in retro, tight-fitting costumes topped with bombastic hair-dos. Almost immediately, people hustled to the front of  the stage holding up drinks to the singers as a sign of  respect and adoration. The energy was infectious and it was clear the performers had a connection with the audience not seen in other clubs.

It was also clear they didn’t take themselves too seriously. At one point during the show, Celeste hopped on stage with Skye’s Shitzu puppy, Nariko, and performed the song ‘Chi Wa Wa’. Something about a dog wearing checkered booties and prancing around the stage moved me to hysterics. When I thought it couldn’t get any funnier, it did. Imagine, if  you will, men in tight, shiny black pants and matching wife beaters. That’s what Scorpion and his pair of  dancing boys donned in their closing number, ‘Tuo Diao’, popularised by hunky Mandarin singer Alex To. Super-cheesy but nonetheless visually stunning, it was a sight to behold – especially when, in the final moments of  the song, Scorpion shed his singlet to reveal a brawny and tattooed torso. At this point, I was half-expecting women to start throwing their panties onto the stage. What happened wasn’t too far off; frenzied, slightly lower-pitched screaming and numerous women using their mobile phones to snap personal  mementos. The sweet dizziness caused by the singers’ vocals (and the bottles of  Martell VSOP) was evident in the faces of  the crowd. And though they were strangers to me, I found myself  swaying, shouting ‘yo-ah-yo’ along with them.

I thought to myself: I’m one of  them. Whatever deluded state I was in, at that moment I realised that although I arrived as the biggest sceptic, I was going to leave with a smile on my face and one of  those annoying ring-tone tunes stuck in my head. Yo-ah-yo!