A little Pooh Bear told me that Mayday was in town last sunday for a showcase.
hello!
The Taiwanese rock band is in town to promote their upcoming concert on Dec 10. To date more than 40% of tickets have been snapped up. The most expensive of the lot costing $148 was gone in 2 days. A nominee for Best Group in the Singapore Hit Awards and by far my favourite Chinese band, I decided to check them out.
Luckily for me, unlike other artistes, tickets to the showcase were not won through lame lucky draws which informed the winners two days before the event. In fact, tickets were not even needed. Admission was free.
Some original CDs, however , come bundled with tickets to the artiste's showcase, obviously a bid to combat competitively-priced China imports. At a particular TS video outlet however, this became a glaring problem.
Clueless Uncle (pointing to ticket enclosed) : Padan is wheeere ah?
Equally Clueless Cashier : I think this is a China-import .I don't think this ticket is valid in Singapore.
The Cashier who seemed unconvinced of her own theory then turns to me and asks,
Equally Clueless Cashier : Do you know where the Padang is?
Me: The Padang is at CityHall.
Both still look as lost as puppies.
Me: National Day Parade there.
Finally enlightened, the elated uncle decied to buy the CD.
For the record, I bought the all original CD with the bonus AVCD , I believe , is present only in the Singapore version . It turned out to be a short movie inspired by Mayday which I barely understood.
Being free, I did not expect the showcase to be some glamarous fireworks extravaganza held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Hell , I did not even expect to get their autographs judging from their 30,000 strong sell-out concerts in Taiwan.
When I arrived there though, the crowd looked so feeble I expected that the POSB everyday card event beside it attracted more people. In fact, when I arrived at 3p.m that afternoon, I thought my friend had got the time and place wrong. It turned out that the POSB tentage strategically covered the Hello! shop and conveniently the crowd. The english speaking emcee at the POSB booth did little to help matters. The place was literally swarming with people.
On duty
This essentially explained the presence of about 5 of our friendly neighbourhood policemen. Not that it mattered that about 80 percent of the crowd were teenage girls. Somehow I suspected that these law enforcers went down a few days before for a special mission.
Even the advertisements were strategically placed
Besides the policemen, large burly guys in black sunglasses sporting polo tees with 'security' printed on them help to deter potentially hazardous fans. They even come complete with cool ear pieces.
Who wants their CDs autographed?
The showcase itself was nothing short of amazing.
The band members themselves played their guitars and drums and boy do they sound good live. They played a total of five songs, an extra two songs thrown in for a particuarly enthusiastic crowd. Crowd favourties include their new singles, Zhi Zu, the theme song of the Channel 8 serial drama ' Yong Bao Ming Tian', Ya Guan, a favourite on my mp3 player and an all time classic Xiao hu shi. They were so good, they almost had me dancing at the end. *cough*
low gravity conditions in Singapore
It must be evident now that I posted no pictures of the band itself. It is my humble opinion that to be fans of these guys, you either have to be a really big fan who comes 3 hours before their gig or a really tall one. If you were to sit on the fence like me , well , you end up with shots like these.
Not. Good.
with the back of strangers' heads making half your picture.
The only presentable picture I took is probably one of the lead singer, Ashin.
at least there are less heads.
And so the showcase ended at an all time high and the time came for the autogragh session. We were spilt into two groups, 'A' and 'B' , with A being the priority queue for SingTel subscribers since this was a SingTel sponsered event.
Behind me, only about ten people stood. I was among the last of the people queueing for the Taiwanese band's signatures which more or less explained how I got to take another one of Ashin's picture up-close.
A marred shot
The security guys ( i.e. the ones in black polo tees) tackled me down the stage and I realised with a horror that something was seriously wrong with the CD.
Not. good. at. all.
Count with me will you.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Fiv...
Wait a minute, I got only four out of five signatures. There goes my plan to auction it off at a high price at Ebay.
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