Westlife: Gravity Tour

The only Westlife CD that I ever bought was the "When You're Looking Like That" single. I was all for upbeat tunes, I was the kid who was anti-ballads. I was fond of Westlife but I was never a huge fan. They were formidable and were insanely popular. As I always say, you don't argue with popularity.

Back in Singapore for their fourth concert yesterday, it was the first time I've seen them live and I promise that I will watch them when they're back again. They were that good.

Of course I've to thank my sister for giving me the tickets and Singapore Sports Council for giving her the tickets. And Edric for being game and going with me.

You see, Westlife appeals to a certain kind of audience. They no longer have a huge teen fanbase. Their biggest hits were definitely in the past. They started the concert with really nostalgic tracks... They did World of Our Own, My Love and Seasons in the Sun. They weren't overly choreographed and looked delighted to be performing. In the past I'd have brushed them off as an act that you'd hear on the CD but never want to see them on stage. I take that back. They were like The Warblers, but better. Amazing stuff.

They did a medley of covers, Viva La Vida, Only Girl (In The World), The Time (Dirty Bit) (WHAT A CRAZY/CHEESY DANCE THEY DID FOR THIS) and ended it off with Bad Romance. Unexpected. My mind was blown.

They ended with What About Now, an awesome track, which was their own, but maybe Daughtry did a slightly better job of it, and then Uptown Girl, which I thought was a waste. No Swear It Again?

They looked as charmismatic as ever, and there's a certain magic about a band that can stick together since the release of their first single in 1999. They have my respect and I'll be a Fool Again if I don't attend their concert the next time they drop by Singapore.

Chase You Down Until You Love Me

What can I say that hasn't already been said?

That Lady Gaga's magical and so real, as a personality and as an artiste. She does what she believes in, lives it and breathes it. And she really works her ass off. It was special as it was her first time headlining a 10,000-crowd concert. I liked how she constantly engaged the crowd, knowing that the her being awesome wasn't good enough and the audience's reaction was what she had to evoke. Plenty of fucks, middle fingers, outrageous posing and a 15-minute Pokerface certainly did that.

At the end everyone was proud of Chilli Crab, astounded to have sung "I Love Singapore" 3 days after National Day and changed their facebook status to "Lady Gaga said to fuck off!" .

I was inspired by her boundless energy and work ethic. She's not just a blonde bitch in a buncha bubbles. She's Lady Gaga.

Hectic Week

This is another entry of ranting with not much purpose, in fact none at all till I get to watch Spiderman 3. Everybody's talking about. I'll be watching it tomorrow, so... what the hell.

On Monday I went for lunch with Jie Yu and we couldn't help but notice how the public has been bombarded with advertisements for the new Spiderman 3. We went for lunch at the BK at Raffles Place, and we the cups and the holder for the fries had Spiderman printed on them. And I upsized my meal because I wanted to acquire a Spiderman card. Childish I know, but it's once in awhile! I'm a big fan of Spiderman. Ooh, and we had a drink from Boost. That never fails to make me happy. It tastes so good, yet it's healthy!

At night, I met up with Ryan and Shermaine, who had tickets for a Harmonica performance at the Esplanade Recital Hall. I enjoyed myself a lot. I think it's times when you watch other people perform that you relight your passion for music. I was really stunned at how good the second half of the concert was. The first half was performed by a group which was more interested in being technically challenged than actually making music that touches the heart. Not that they succeeded very well in being technically-challenged either. They had one thing going for them though - the pieces they played were rather famous Mozart pieces. The second-half was packed with unique performances. Harmonica with piano backing, harmonica with CD-"orchestra" backing, amazing solos, and tight, small groups of three, each wielding a different harmonica. It's been a long time since I've seen a harmonica performance, so I really have to thank Shermaine for offering me tickets to watch it.

On Tuesday I went for for a haircut with Guo Fei at Kimage. I kinda like my hair but I thought 30 bucks for the it was a little steep.



After that we met Samuel at Paragon for some top-secret thing that I'm not supposed to reveal. We had our dinner at Lucky Plaza, where I'd used to have lunch so often when I was working at Wisma. I stopped by my former workplace to say hi to a couple of people before heading over to Wheelock place, where Samuel got a laptop case (actually it'll fit A4 papers too) from Crumpler. Our last stop was Lido where we took a chance and actually went to see if there were any Spiderman 3 tickets left. If there were, we'd watch it straightaway. As expected, there wasn't any, and they even had an A4 printout just before the queue for the tickets that said "Spiderman 3 tickets SOLD OUT". Guo Fei left for home while Samuel and I had a chat about his job that I was going to take over.

On Wednesday night I met Wee Lee after tuition for a drink and a little chat. It's also been some time since I stopped by Causeway Point. I suppose it's due to the place being in such close proximity to mine that I've always ignored it. To me it's like heading to the coffee shop downstairs. Anyway, we had iced tea at Mos Burger and talked about lives. Actually more of his, because he was stuck in a rather interesting predicament, but it'm sure it'll be rewarding in the long run.

On Thursday was my first day of work. More on that later! After my tuition at Sengkang which ended at 9PM, my family went to this coffee shop at Merdien LRT station for dinner in celebration of Mothers' Day! Haha, it's really way in advance but it's kind of cool. I enjoyed stuffing myself with black pepper crab. It was amazing.

I met Zhenhui on Friday, when Shuming became MIA all of sudden after informing us of her trip to Sentosa. We went to return the car that was rented at Punggol, took a bus to his place where he went to get his Ikea Friends Card (while I went to use the toilet at Compasspoint and listened to Thnks Fr Th Mmrs on repeat). It was another bus ride to Tampiness Ikea, which I went for the first time. It was very spacious. I guess the land on which it was built was cheap, and this Courts, Ikea and Giant each had their own buildings with lots of free parking lots! The layout made it look a whole lot like Malaysia! The meatballs at Ikea were tasty as usual and we started shopping.



I actually bought clothes hangers again. They were going for 5 at $1.50, when I discinctly remember getting them for a tad more money. So according to a certain warped logic of mine of averages, I just had to get them. (After a quick search on my blog I just realised that I got them for the same price! Oops!)

Saturday was a KBox session with Ryan. It was one of the best sessions I've had, probably because we went crazier this time around, and there weren't any expectations of what we were going to sing. I'm wondering whether I should put up my version of Everytime. It does sound a bit forced at some places though. Hmmm.

I should really cut down on meeting people because it seems like it's the only way to save money! I don't know yet, but I've only got 2 more months to save for Uni and I've only got a measly amount of money in the bank. To add to that, I've got a trip to Taiwan in July. Gosh. It's quite a headache. I'm considering working at the upcoming PC show, but it starts on a Thursday, which I have work commitments. I've just been struck by the painful realisation that it's probably never going to be enough.

Alright, time for tuition!

唯舞獨尊

I apologise for the bad quality of pictures and rushing through this entry again. Ryan and Colin have already blogged about their experiences and I've got nothing else to offer, other than the photos! Muahaha!



I was very excited to be in the Indoor Stadium once again, but this time to be in the presence of an artiste that I can understand (Rain was good, but there was still a language barrier!). Having bought the tickets 3 months before, I've been waiting for this day since then! Colin got us seats with an amazing view with sufficient space to jump/dance around and also, good "leg space".



The 5 of us waited about 1.5 hours for the show to start, almost till the point that we got really bored. But as the lights got turned off one by one, the atmosphere started to get really tense. But then I'll let the photos speak for themselves.



The Indoor Stadium was fully packed.



She rose up on these two rings to a great height, and there was no support. So all of us were pretty freaked out by the fact that she was hanging upside down (you try it!) and doing her gymnastic things. It seems that she's making a habit of starting off every concert showing off her moves. Must be the yoga.



She kicked off with Wan Mei, and then Mr Q. I was somewhat surprised to hear the gem being performed so early in the concert but the crowd seemed to love it. Everyone was holding up their huge red... stick things and waving them to the rhythm. She then went into the dream mode with Le Yuan, which didn't go down too well with the crowd, but was great for the mood. I mean, you can't be that high for the entire 2 hours right?



The special guests were Energy. We were all very disappointed when we heard it was them and not Edison Chen, Show Luo or Stanley Huang. However they gave their best shot and sang Come On and Fang Shou, arguably their biggest hits to date. Which really is kind of sad if you consider that both songs were from their first album! Anyway, I guess they did really well because the crowd went ballistic (dare I say even crazier than when Jolin did the first 5 songs). I sort of lost interest in them especially after Milk left, and I haven't heard a single bloody song from their first album as a threesome. My favourite guy on there was Shu Wei, although he's a B-grade singer compared to Ah Di. They still have potential I guess, it'll be up to them to make the most of it. Their ballad was boring, but it's good to take a breather such high-energy tracks.

Bad pun. Arhm. And Colin was shouting, "Toro!" at them.



Now this get up was fabulous. And she also did some show-stopping ballads. If I'm not wrong (I think I'm already mixed up with the 2 ballad sections) she did Kai Chang Bai and Lin Mong Chao De Wei Dao.



Here's a little recording of it, starting from the second chorus I think!

After that she did the Kallang wave twice and then got everybody up on their feet before getting everyone insanely high on her biggest hits - Kan Wo 72 Bian, Ye Man You Xi and Ai Qing 36 Ji. Almost everyone was standing, grooving and having a good time. I'm quite happy that most of the audience seemed like they were enjoying themselves tremendously too. It seemed like a huge party.



This was the performance that made it worth the ticket price. The live performance of Wu Niang was super electrifying. Everyone got on their feet again. The part of the dance which was featured in the MV and also at last year's MTV Asia Awards came alive right before my very eyes and it was heart-stoppingly good. I'm going to get the DVD of the concert because of this performance.



She ended the concert with Dao Dai, something she has been doing since her last concert. I think the choice of song was apt, because everyone knew it really well and we all had such a good time I wished that we could "Rewind" and experience the entire thing again.

It was brilliant, despite what the Life! article said.

They should publish Colin's aritcle instead.

Ooh, and thanks to Weetz for the ride to Somerset!

Freedom Writers

After the previous day's insane 5 hour K Box session with Zhenhui and Shuming that ended at 3AM (and I've to take this chance to thank my dad who was driving his cab to take me to supper before sending me home), I got a mere 4 hours of sleep and went to meet Ryan for Freedom Writers.

The movie was very good and it there were parts that almost moved me to tears. As they say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and this story is certainly uniquely inspiring and interesting seeing how it's based on a true story. I can't even think of the words to describe it so I'm going to copy and paste the sypnosis directly from the yahoo! webpage, just to get you interested!

Fresh–faced, idealistic twenty–three–year–old Erin Gruwell is ready to take on the world as she steps inside Wilson High School for her first day of teaching. Her class, a diverse group of racially charged teenagers from different walks of life--African Americans, Latinos, Asians, juvenile delinquents, gang members, and underprivileged students from poor neighborhoods--hope for nothing more than to make it through the day. On the surface, the only thing they share is their hatred for each other and the understanding that they are simply being warehoused in the educational system until they are old enough to disappear.

So check out the movie, it's really good.

After that we went for lunch at the food court before prodeeding to get ourselves a nice spot for the SK Red Party. There was only one special guest and she turned out to be Sun Yan Zi. We waited for an hour or so, and there was this annoying mother with her annoying children standing behind us, creating a din, and putting her hand on the rail above my head, which made me uncomfortable. She was standing so close to me I wanted to elbow her in the knee.



But all was made right as Jean Danker came on stage, did her MC-ing and kicked off the show with a models modelling the latest creations from SK jewellery. After that she introduced Sun Yan Zi, who managed to sneak into the place while we were not looking, and she knew that 90% of the people in the crowd were waiting for her. I was surprised that she would be performing two songs (when I've only heard that she'd be performing Ni Guang) and was taut in suspense, wondering what the other one would be.



Ni Guang was well performed; she had an amazingly powerful voice. Here's a recording of part of the performance, forgive me for my singing in between!



The second song was Gu Ji Gu Ji, my favourite track off her latest album and it got me on a high. I got the entire song on video but it sucks because for the most of it, you get to hear me singing along. Then there was this part when she looked up at us and saw us singing along with her and she waved, and we waved frantically back! I was pretty ecstatic!

And then we met Colin and his two friends for the Jolin concert.



We were there pretty damn early and we waited for the entire place to be filled.



It was a bloody fantastic concert, and worth my every cent. There's nobody who can do it as well as she did! She's at the top of her game in the Mandopop scene. Jaw-droppingly good. As such, it deserves an entry of its own. Probably tomorrow, after a night's sleep from the work I'd be doing today, I guess there'd be an entry!

Dear Rain

Dear Rain,

Your concert kicked off with a huge bang - brilliant displays of pyrotechnics timed to precision with your complex dance moves. I particularly loved the song you kicked off with - It's Raining - and wondered if you would be able to better it since I'm not very familiar with the rest of your works. But you kept it coming, be it the cheeky smile, demanding for louder cheers in exchange for taking off your sunglasses, or just flexing your famously well-muscled torso while being drenched by an overhead shower.

I was in awe of your singing too. It wasn't that amazing technically, but it was in tune and emotionally charged, especially In My Bed. The songs did come alive with your live singing - something I see as a huge bonus when tonnes of young acts mime their stuff like nobody's business.

They say that heroes are a reflection of who we want to be. They are our ideals of perfection. But you showed me that pain is not a weakness, and your determination to keep the show going was glaringly evident. When you clutched your arm in the middle of the furiously high-tempo choreography of I'm Coming, it casted some doubt in my mind if you would continue with the insane dance moves you did in the MV. Your right elbow was dressed in a painfully obvious flesh-coloured bandage. But you didn't once let your voice quiver; the look on your face was one of calm and cool. After another perfectly-excuted dance sequence, you held on to your arm again and again at intervals. My respect for you as a person and a performer multiplied a hundred-fold.

I left the concert entertained by the seemingly-endless pyrotechnics, awesome dance music and slick dance moves. I was impressed by your efforts to communicate with the aundience in complete English. You impressed upon us that this was the result of combined efforts of an entire team, and plenty of hard work. It's very easy to dismiss your success as a consequence of a whole lot of hype, but I think otherwise after being in attendance of your concert. I feel that I know you. You're a man who has his priorities right, with virtues and principles to match. The Asian qualities that are inspiring and lacking in many entertainers (yes, Britney I'm talking about you) right now are the things that I've gained from watching your performance.

May we meet again.

Yours sincerely (awed),
Jason