Quick changing updates

Wanted to write about my Bangkok shoppping trip but ended up doing some housekeeping of the blog tags and categories. Don’t think it was even necessary.

I’ll write about Bangkok some other time. If I ever get to it that is. In the mean time, I’ll just give some random updates.

Think I’m on a slight streak of not so great luck. I was in Ipoh recently and I was blessed with the droppings of a pigeon, my slipper strap dislodged from its bottom in Bangkok and my laptop was plagued with the black screen of death when I returned from Bangkok. On the brightside, I didn’t get sick in Bangkok but 2 of my friends had food poisoning. Hopefully the remaining days of November will go smoothly and then its December and its the season to be Jolly!

On a very separate note, I’m liking Clazziquai Project a lot these days.

On an extremely separate note, I’ll be catching Shear Madness this Wednesday! Should be fun!

A Wedding Invitation (分手合約)

A friend had recommended me to watch “A Wedding Invitation” after the rather disappointing “The Stolen Years” (被偷走的那五年) and I finally got round to it.

A Wedding Invitation promotional poster

There’s leng chai Eddie Peng in this one and the same lead actress from “The Stolen Years”, Bai Baihe.

Won’t be talking bout the synopsis cause google or the trailer will help you with it.

For me, it was an…. emotional movie. I cried loads. More than “The Stolen Years” although this one wasn’t as depressing.

I do wanna share the song from the movie which I would say pretty much sums up the mood of movie.

Dashboard Confessional @ KL Live

Dear blog,

I’m sorry you’ve been abandoned for the first month or so of 2012. What a bad start to the year.

Sorry for almost forgetting your pw.

I’m also sorry for ditchin you for twitter, although to my defense I hardly tweet too.

Since I’m sure you’ve missed me I shall continue to tell mah story. 😀

In between the New Year and now. A friend left for London to further his studies, CNY came and went, an Airasia sale came and went by without me buying anything =( and of course the Lynas protests. (They shouldn’t have it here.. keep it in Oz)

Apart from that, there was also Dashboard Confessional’s solo acoustic show!

Dashboard Confessional @ KL Live!

Ok… It was Chris Carrabba only which was even better! The dude is WOW….

My fav musician and I would not have missed it for the world!

T’was the 22nd of February 2012 on a cool Wednesday (odd… would have preferred a weekend) night where we sort of rushed our way to reach KL Live at 8pm sharp when the concert should have started.

The turnout was pretty good I assume, considering it was a weekday and it was only for one man!

Managed to get a pretty “good” spot as the venue was probably 60% full?

Waited till about 8.30 or so before Zher of Fly fm came on stage to start off the show by introducing the opening act… who was none other than……..
Awi Rafael!

Honestly, I’ve never heard of him before. Maybe saw his name in passing but never really linked his name to a famous song.

His songs are not bad, his voice pretty deep.

He performed songs like “Bila Aku Jatuh Cinta”, “Pulanglah” *which is extremely familiar and catchy* and also covers of Adele’s “Someone Like You”, Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” and The Verve’s “A Bitter Sweet Symphony”. His hair however, stole the show. lol

It was combed ala Elvis, and shook every time he moved his head. There was even a girl in the crowd that screamed “I LIKE YOUR HAIR!!!!”

His set was about 30 mins and the crowd were a bit agitated that he was performing so long. Poor dude got a “No” when he asked if he could perform more songs. He continued anyway. But it was still quite kesian.

Awhile after he left the stage….. the man everyone waited for…

Chris Carabba!

Turned up by singing “The Good Fight”.

He is surprisingly quite a bundle of sunshine I would say… very different from the heartfelt songs he sings. He also looks exactly like the pictures. He made light banter and seemed in his element, asking the crowd what songs they wanted and happily answering “I’ll do all that!”

He continued to perform songs like “A Bitter Pill”, “So Long Sweet Summer”, “Saints and Sailors”, “Belle of Boulevard”, “Don’t Wait”, “Screaming Infidelities”, “As Lovers Go”, “Carry This Picture”, “The Places You’ve Come To Fear the Most”, “Hands Down”.

The crowd was pretty amazing as they almost knew all the words to the songs performed and gladly sang along with him. He even said “I actually felt tingles” “You guys can sing!” Chris was definitely in his element, his voice was amazing, crisp, clear and reaching those high notes and straight away went back down to a slower and deeper sound. You could feel the emotions he puts into each and every song. Very intimate indeed.

There was a point when he was performing where a girl screamed “I love you!” followed by a dude saying “I love you!”. He actually replied “I love you too!”. Gosh! I love this dude!

He also played my fav song “Dusk and Summer”, it’s honestly an extremely song if you really listen. Thank goodness I didn’t cry/shed tears though tears would have formed if…. forget it!

Soon he broke out to crowd favourite “Stolen”. My heart was definitely stolen. More like I gave it away. He followed up with “Vindicated” from the Spiderman soundtrack.

He left the stage after that but returned for the final song of the night “Best Deceptions”, which is supposedly his favourite song for concerts.

Overall, it was a terrific show! A night definitely to remember! It was simple and “intimate”, the sound system was good, the lightning too. The only grievance was that mah view was blocked by some pretty tall dudes. Disappointing. =(

It was a night that I could have only dreamed of. I’m even willing to fly to a different country to see Dashboard Confessional perform, but there he was, on that Wednesday night at KL Live performing the very songs that I listen to over and over again. A dream come true this was.

Seriously, Chris Carrabba, I love you!

Please do come back for more shows! 😀

 

Image of DC performing was taken from http://msn.goingout.com.my/dashboard-confessional-acoustic-showcase-kl-live-centre/

MO.A 2011 in Malaysia

MO.A 2011

Don’t know what’s with me and kpop these days. Anyway, I made my way to this one cause I’m a huge fan of…….. not Super Junior… but Miss A! Overall it would have been great if there wasn’t so many problems.

Major Problem list

1. Seating layout (false advertisment)

2. Security, awful

#1 – Seating Layout

Original seating plan

Since from the advertisement, the seats stretched out past the first gates. Me and me mates decided to get the seats right next to the gate. The rock zone tickets were a bit pricey.

So… excitedly we went into the stadium and my oh my the layout is entirely far off from the seating plan. The actual seating plan looked more like,

Actual Seating Plan

The stage barely even reached the first row of the seats at the side. Instead of seats occupying the whole stadium on the field, it was only half occupied and the side seats were mostly occupied which made the whole concert seem somewhat odd.

I’m sure the organizers faced some problems, most likely the lack of sales, that’s why they cut the stage into half, but WE as consumers have the right to know too! They could have offered us alternatives to upgrade our seats or just inform us so we can give our feedback. Just changing it without notifying us is plain wrong and definitely FALSE ADVERTISING!

It’s like buying a house. From the floor plan you see 3 rooms and 2 toilets for the house, so you purchase the house. After the house is built and the keys to the house is passed to you and you step into the house for the very first time, you find out that Hey! The house only have 2 rooms and 1 toilet!  That’s not acceptable right?

I’m pondering whether to complain to the NCCC. This is definitely false advertising in my books.

#2 – Security

This is by far the worst security I have ever seen. The crew doesn’t seem to know how to control crowds.

There were actually people at the side seats that ran to the rock zone because all the zones were not segregated with gates and fences.

Their “cure” was to close the gate to the seating zone which actually quite smart but a smarter move would have been to check all the tickets of the concertgoers that were moving to the field instead of closing the gate so the crew can watch the concert too. I’m sure there were people who managed to sneak in because the crew definitely did not check all tickets.

They also let vendors come in to sell glow sticks and other things which they were selling. Is that even possible? They even let them enter the field. Mind boggling, really!

I also read that there were people that fainted and the security didn’t help the person who fainted and just waited for the “paramedics”.

Recommendation: Segregate the zones properly and check people’s tickets. Close out each area and make just make a few entrances to those zones. There is no use giving verbal warnings. It’s like those do not litter signs. Malaysians still litter! Though not all.

Another really irritating thing at the back of my mind is…

As the concert was approaching, Groupon had a 50% discount for rock zone tickets! OMG! I could have went to the rockzone if I just waited till the last minute. Totally unfair! Totally!!!

Overall, I didn’t quite enjoy it. I’m sure the organizers worked really hard and definitely experience in organizing events, but this concert was overall a letdown. The sound system wasn’t every good either and the promotion was lacking. It seemed to be a word of mouth event.

My guess is the organizers did not have a local organizer so they faced obstacles which might have been difficult to overcome. I’m sure the Korean Music Wave had a local organizer, I feel that one was very well organized. I’m not even comparing this to MTV World Stage. This would have been an epic fail compared to MTV World Stage.

So, thank you CJ Entertainment for bringing Miss A here. I appreciated it but next time, get help from a local organizer. I’m sure they know how opportunistic Malaysians can get. They are Malaysians too!

2pm Hands Up Asia Tour 2011

Yowza! 2pm was here yesterday for their HANDS UP tour and man were they HOT! Sizzling! Ssssssssss….

Waded our way through the usual Friday Night jam to Stadium Negara and sat at our pretty far seats.

*No rock zone this time since didn’t quite feel the atmosphere last time round.. besides, it’s expensive*

Stadium Negara slowly filling up

Something good about Korean artist’s concerts, they almost always start on time.

Bursting on to stage

Yes. I can’t see their faces very clearly. Like I said, pretty far seats. =( I think their first song was “Electricity”, which sounded so much better live.

Something interesting about the concert, the live video being played actually has lyrics to them so U can sing along heehee. And whenever one of the men speaks in Korean, there is a English translated version on screen. Interesting.

Lyrics on screen ala karaoke

The men also performed some solo stages.

Junho and Wooyoung performed a song composed by Junho.

Chansung showed of his martial arts skills which reminded me of video games.

Junsu sang his “Alive” song and Nickhun and Tacyeon appeared in what look like pyjamas to sing “My Valentine”.

Junho which looks a lot like Rain

Singing “I Can’t”. Junsu looks super cute in tux. 🙂

Wooyoung and Chansung giving out flowers

After performing the uber dramatic “Heartbeat”,

Nickhun’s wings burned in flames before he ripped his shirt and “died”. Fuoah!

Concert ending soon after performing “Thank you”

After their goodbye speech, they continued to perform an encore with “10 out of 10 points” and “Hands Up”.

2pm’s final farewell!

Junsu got the cute panda stuff. How cute. =)

Before they left, Chansung removed his shirt and threw it into the crowd. Fuaaaooow!

Overall, it was an awesome concert! Wooyoung’s moves are super slick and their voices were so clear. Yowza!

They performed their signature dance moves from “Again & Again”, “Without You”, “I’ll Be Back” and also “I’m Your Man” which is super hot!

I feel the best song was “Heartbeat” though. Dramatic with the red lights and red curtains for effect. Not to mention their outrageous ways of dying, ie, Junho doing a backflip to die.

They definitely lived up to their name of “Beastly Idols”, with super strong dance moves and quite a few shirt ripping.

P.S. Should have bought more expensive tix. There’s always next time though. 🙂

Korean Music Wave in Malaysia 2011

Yeap! U read that right! Ur’s trully paid top dollar  just to see TOP and listen to Lee Hong Ki’s awesome voice! Gosh!

The line up is as below. Pretty good lineup actually.

Korean Music Wave Malaysia 2011 lineup

But, no 2ne1 & no Miss A as compared to Singapore but oh well, at least there was still F.T. Island, Park Jung Min and GD & TOP.

Now for a little recap. No pics cause well…. I was dumb not to bring a camera. *The ticket said no camera mar! It should have specifically said professional camera!*

This concert was a little different from the ones I’ve attended before. I expected a queue when I reached but looks like the doors were already opened when I arrived. As expected most of the crowd were pretty young. Some still in primary I think. Anyway, we’re all there for the same objective.

There were 4 MCs that night, Jeff (MY fm) Kevin & Dong Ho (U-Kiss) and a dude from Arirang TV. Kevin spoke really fluent english and Dong Ho spoke pretty good mandarin. Surprising! (the mandarin part)

The show started with a mini opening act with a beatboxer and a singer. The beatboxer was cool!

Then out popped up the MCs and soon F.T. Island was on!

They’re pretty rocking alright! Can’t say much about the crowd though. The lead singer, Lee Hong Ki, was hitting those sky high notes till his face went red. Seriously! He has a good voice. They performed 5 songs, “Hello, Hello”, “Love, Love, Love” “Bing, Bing, Bing” “I, Hope” and a slower song which I don’t know the title of. =)

F.T.ISland at a press conference?

Next up was Teen Top. Not my kinda stuff but some songs were catchy. For me the person that appeared to be the leader looked a little girlish. Male version of Angelina? The only song which I can remember them performing is “Supa Luv” cause they had a dance move that made them look like supermen.

3rd Act was 4minute!

Their moves are hot! and they seem much smaller in the flesh. They are what I call pint size, but still tall. Their legs, super slim! Ah… korean idols they are. Songs are catchy. They performed “Muzik”, “I My Me Mine”, “Mirror Mirror”, “Hear to Heart” & “Hot Issue”. Hey! I remembered.

Soon, it was U-Kiss. When they came on, I thought of Beast’s live performance. I think these korean boybands are getting quite similar to me. Only the songs are different. Anyway, they performed their latest song “Neverland”, much nicer sounding as compared to watching  through youtube. Other songs were “0330” “Man Man Ha Ni” “Binguel Binguel”. *Don’t ask me what they mean. I was just there to listen and appreciate. =D*

Dong Ho, the MC and U-Kiss member actually has this mushroom haircut and he actually raps in some of the songs which kinda contradicts his image. LOL

Next up was Park Jung Min!

This angle seems manlier. LOL

He is one pretty boy. Seriously. So darn pretty. I think most of them are actually. I would say he is a very sporting and charming singer. He knows how to entertain the crowd and knows what would make the crowd eat outta his palm! He performed “Not Alone”, a song I was looking forward to cause it has a nice orchestral background, and some other songs which I don’t know. There was a christmas song too. Hehehe.

Soon it will be the trio below…

Seung Ri, TOP & GD

with Seung Ri performing first.

Honestly I don’t really like Seung Ri’s songs. It’s not my kinda song. But it’s good for performing though, the kind that would get people up on their feet jiggy a little to the music. Not like that was what the crowd did, or least not where I was standing, but that’s besides the point. He only performed 3 songs. =( He left abruptly and the picture of GD & TOP appeared at the stage screen!.

The crowd went WILD and GD & TOP burst onto the stage with “Knockout!“. They soon proceeded to “Oh Yeah” without Park Bom. So GD & TOP sang the part where Park Bom was supposed to sing. TOP singing Park Bom’s park was a bit funny considering Park Bom’s voice is pretty high pitched and TOP’s is deep deep deep.

They stopped for a mo for the MCs to interview them. Most questions were answered by GD in English and TOP was a man of few words. :p He’s super good looking though. As evident from the picture above. LOL

Then they broke out to the crowd favourite “High High” The crowd went absolutely high! *figuratively speaking*

And they too like Seung Ri left abruptly after that.

Then the MCs appeared and said goodnite and that was it. “WHAT!? that’s it?” No encore nothing. That’s it. Just 3 songs? Disappointing really. They probably appeared like 15 mins? Maybe less.

Overall, the concert was filled with screaming fans! Haha no.. that’s not it. It was good overall but I guess I have 2 grievances?

#1– If there would be something like that again I think I’ll just sit in the stands. Standing in the “rock” zone only gets u a closer look. There’s no rock atmosphere whatsoever. They shouldn’t even name it the rock zone. They should name it the “standing” zone! Or rather I’ll just skip these kinda stuff and go straight for rock concerts.

#2 – Last 2 acts were too short. Come On! How come the first few acts had 5 songs but the last 2 only had 3. Plus they are the top acts! Aren’t they supposed to be performing the same length or longer? The concert started late and ended at 2210. Like.. what!?

Between World Stage and this, I prefer World Stage much much more. And that one was free! World Stage had Jared Leto performing and interacting with the crowd for at least 30 mins! And the crowd was much more awesome! World Stage rocks full stop.

Oh there was this girl who kept crouching in the “rock” zone next to me, during performances! Probably she’s not feeling well but crouching in the rock zone is freaking dangerous! It’s freaking dark! All anyone sees is a black hole to move into and take ur spot! No one can see u crouching there and people will jump, not in this case, fine.. move a lot and they might trip and fall over! If you’re not feeling well move to somewhere safer to rest!

 

Note: Pictures are not taken nor owned by me. Credit to whoever took them. I apologize if I used them inappropriately.

MTV World Stage

It’s been a pretty hectic month. With the traveling, mah birthday and of course…

This time round it’s held at i-City, the City of LED lights *which to me is a huge waste of electricity but in this scenario makes a very nice back drop for pictures*, instead of Sunway Lagoon’s surf beach.

The line up is more rock-ish this year as compared to Katy Perry’s pop last year which I would say is a welcome stage. We don’t get lots of rockers here. Sad but true.

Me and Vatty made our way there a little earlier than the time the gates were supposed to open. Can’t believe parking was RM10! RM10 for parking on stones. Poor car. But our car park was fairly near the registration booth so it was alright.

The area around i-City looked a little like wasteland. There use to be much more structures with LED lights. Maybe they are replacing them… Anyway, we scouted around for some food and decided on some random mamak. Worst Maggi Goreng I’ve eaten AND we got butchered too! 2 Maggi Goreng ayam and one teh o ais limau for RM20? Such enterprising businessmen… tsk tsk tsk…

*Since I didn’t bring my camera like any foolish law abiding citizen, I didn’t get to take any pictures of the awesome bands that performed. So the pictures below don’t belong to me. 🙂*

The first act Pop Shuvit started playing when we were filling our stomachs. They sounded pretty good actually but don’t really know their songs.

I was actually looking forward to Beast!

Beast! Gi Kwang!!! *He’s the dude on the left btw*

Hahaha.. no seriously I was looking forward to “Fiction“, which they performed. But couldn’t quite catch their “cold city man” move. Was blocked by random people at the front. Their performance seemed a little too perfect, probably due to the background music. The rap parts sounded live though.

They performed their hits “Shock“, “Fiction“, “On Rainy Days“, “Soom“, “Beautiful” and a few more which I’ve never heard of.

They were sweating like mad after performing. Hehehe… To be fair the other acts were sweating crazily too.. except maybe.. Jared Leto. He’s cool.

Beast’s performance was pretty good but I felt that it didn’t really suit the Rock theme that MTV was going for. I’m sure there are rockier kpop bands like F.T. Island or C.N. Blue *Who had the unfortunate opportunity of having their video being played when 30 Second to Mars was about to come on and hence was booed somewhat* to play at this event.Well to their defense “Shock” was pretty jump worthy.

Irregardless, on with the show!

Next up was Neon Trees!

Tyler performing his moves

They performed songs like “Your Surrender“, “1983“, the year Tyler saw the light, “In the next room“.

They brought the crowd back to the rocking atmosphere and I must say Tyler is quite a good singer. However, I feel the drummer, Elaine, stole the show. She is awesome!! Hats off to you!

Neon Trees was sort of a great opener for what was to come. They brought the crowd jumping albeit there were stoners and lazy people like me and Vats who just jumped for a few seconds… :p Oops…

They brought their performance to an end by performing “Animal” and the crowd had a huge sing along!

~ Oh ohhh…. I want some more! Oh Ohhh what are you waiting for! Take a bite outta my heart to NIGHT!!!!~

Good job guys!

During the break between acts VJ Holly & VJ Utt *he seem to have gotten hotter* entertains the crowd and gives out freebies like twisties pack and Celcom caps, why would anyone want a Celcom cap totally defeats me.

*hmmm.. my English vocabulary has definitely deteriorated*

The VJ’s released a giant balloon filled with confetti and powder for the crowd to move around, which was pretty fun until more came out later in the show and it burst and all the powder just went “pooF” and powder everywhere! It’s like being flour-ed with a foreign substance!

After a fairly short wait…. it was time for…..

Jared Leto!!!

Jared Leto!!! Ooops… 30 Seconds To Mars!

Wanted to find a picture where he removed his sunglasses and showed his amazing eyes. But couldn’t find any. ah well…

They opened their set list with “Escape” and continued with “Beautiful Lie“. He paused for awhile to have a little chat before continuing with songs like “Search and destroy” and “This is War“, which sounds extremely motivational to me.

Their songs were a jumping fest for most. He was definitely an entertainer! Extremely engaging!

He brought a fan from the crowd and asked the dude to teach him to say “Aku sayang kamu” but he ended up saying something like “Aku sayang Tomo”, which sounds a little wrong. I would say he definitely enjoys being on stage and in the spotlight which is great for us!

He performed “Hurricane” which was followed with crowd favourite “The Kill” which was also a huge crowd sing along…

~Come break me down….
Bury me! Bury me!
I am finished with yooooou….
Looooook in my eyes!
You’re killing me! killing me!
All I wanted was yoooooou….. ~

The next song they played was even better. It was “Closer to the Edge” and he asked everyone to jump and if there’s anyone that’s not jumping, just grab them by the ankles and pull em up! He is pretty funny!

Then they said bye bye and left the stage.

Of course the crowd ain’t gonna let them off that easily… They came back out after about 10 mins or so and performed “Kings & Queens“! I think he dragged about 1/4 of the fans in the mosh pit to join him on stage. There was a dude who was jumping fanatically but sadly wasn’t picked and he just got too exhausted from all that jumping. LOL

This would be the last time to gush at Jared. *Swoon…. he’s hot…..* So we made the most of it and got pretty near. But it was pretty squishy and there were a few people who fell which kinda threw people off their footing.

We left when it was about to end to avoid the jam. Wa-la! Success! No jam. =)

Overall, 30 Seconds to Mars was definitely the highlight of the show! The other acts mere openers for the awesomeness of the guitar riffs, drum beats and amazing vocals of 30 Seconds to Mars.

Throughout the show there were fireworks to complement the guitar riffs and drum beats which adds that awesome effect! Can’t quite remember which songs they were for cause I was too busy being amazed by the awesomeness of it all. Teehee…

Now, thy shall get ready for the next concert perhaps?

Note:  Picture of Beast taken from alwaysbeast.wordpress.com

Picture of Neon Trees & Jared Leto taken from blog.mtvasia.com

Hurts – Sunday

Last week’s “Song of the Week” was San E’s Please Don’t Go… this time round is….

Hurt’s Sunday.

I like the dude’s voice when he sings “show”, “come”, “always beeeeeeeee”. Basically the lower parts of the song. Good stuff! =)