A photo published in Overdope Online Magazine on 7 October showed four members of now disbanded Jungiery Stars singing act 183 Club posing together at a recent promotional event. This pic quickly reignited rumours of a reunion concert by the much loved Taiwanese boyband. Although it is now more than two long years since the expulsion of high octane but troubled lead singer, Jacky Zhu, over a conviction and a prison sentence for marijuana use, rumours of his reinstatement in the group have never entirely died away. Asian Fanatics stalwart, Mingdee, recently reported on the band’s  AF thread that in an interview earlier in the year Ming Dao might have unintentionally given the stories additional credibility. When asked about 183 Club and casting around for something to say that would not be too critical of Jacky, he said he favoured the idea of a reunion concert to mark the tenth or fifteenth anniversary of the group’s formation. (The tenth anniversary would be in 2012 or 13).

Johnny Yan, Ehlo Huang, Jacky Zhu and Ming Dao pose at a Nike launch party.

Of course since the breakup there have been photos of the boys in various combinations before now circulating on fan forums and in the blogosphere, including one or two of Ming Dao, Ehlo Huang Yu Rong and Sam Wang Shao Wei at a J-star dinner. What made this one different was that it included black sheep Jacky, now signed with Tangerine Entertainment, standing in his customary place between Ming Dao and second lead singer, Ehlo Huang. (The member missing that day was Sam Wang Shao Wei: neveridol does not know why he was not present).

Sadly, the reunion concert rumours have so far proved entirely groundless. So what was Jacky doing there with the other boys? Part of the answer may lie in his close association with basketball and his well-known predilection for sports shoes. The event in question was the launch of the Jordan Melo M6 Mens’ Basketball Shoe. Apparently, this high tech footwear is only sold through official Nike stores, and the event where the stars were photographed was the launch party of the shoe at the Taipei branch. Jacky, although his comeback as a singer and his creation of a still- cool-but-now-respectable status is well advanced, probably gained his entrée to the launch party through an unusual recent gig.

Culture broker: Jacky Zhu co-hosts a basketball based reality TV show with NBA legend Baron Davis.

In July, the versatile idol, who is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, hosted five episodes of a reality television show, each based in a different Chinese city. The series was produced by the NBA and Chinese promoters, after the US organisation noted a GFC-related decline in match attendance and merchandising sales in the US. To gain traction in the vast Chinese market where the game is very popular, the NBA arranged matches between teams of young Chinese hopefuls. NBA legends such as Shaquille O’Neill and Baron Davis were also on the scene, but I am uncertain whether they actually took to the court or not. The prize for the Chinese player who  accumulated the most points at the end of a series of matches (there were more than one hundred in all) was a flight to the US and an opportunity  to train with an NBA development league.

Jacky, who plays basketball regularly with a league in Hong Kong, reported on his blog his excitement at meeting his NBA idols. He professed himself to be less keen, however, on the telehosting experience, saying all the talking made his voice hoarse. He admitted he preferred singing. A photo from one of the shows caught him admiring a pair of formidable looking basketball shoes– but not the actual Nike Melo M6 only recently the subject of the Taipei launch.

Thus in the ongoing story of the rise and sudden demise of 183 Club there is nothing more substantial to report than that the news that the publication of the photo attracted a lot of interest among the group’s vestigial fanbase. Neveridol suspects that an adventurous entrepreneur could probably make a profit by staging a one-off reunion concert, to convert the boys’ obvious nostalgia at being seen together again and substantial lingering fangirl enthusiasm into a realistic business proposition. 183 Club were funny and warm practitioners of very pleasant mainstream Mandopop and there are still fans out there who remember them fondly.

Image credits: 1 and 2-3.