My Four `Entertaining' Weekends..

It's been a month of Chinese entertainment overload..!! Ya, I think I've had enough of Chinese live-shows and concerts for a while - for the last four weekends, I've attended four shows! Half of them for work and half for leisure.

This should be the record since I left my life as a entertainment (read: Chinese entertainment) journalist with the paper almost three years ago..

No, i'm not complaining - it can be tiring but I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of them.. and would have wanted to watch it anyway and ended up I didn't pay a cent for it.. :p

1.
The first one - Astro Star Quest Finals - would not be something I would have watched live - maybe on television. And this year I didn't even follow the competition at all... Then just a day before the finals in Putra Stadium, Bukit Jalil, an ed called me up and since I do need jobs and money, of course I made myself available..

I was seated in the comfort of Putra Stadium press seat with a table.. and it was actually quite entertaining and enjoyable despite I had no knowledge of these up-and-coming youngsters were. Must say I was quite impressed in particular by two of them - Kah Fai and Min - who eventually emerged as first runner-up and the winner!! The only grouses was the whole thing was pretty long as there were many rounds of contests - and all those commerical breaks in between since it was aired live on Astro.. And as the responsible (ahem) writer that I am, I also stayed back to interview the winners although I had not much space for the write-up anyway..

2.
Then the following weekend.. was a show I really wanted to watch. Although no one asked me to review it, I was fortunate to obtain two comp tickets from the organiser of SuperBand - that's made up of four unique and talented musicians/singers from Taiwan - Lo Ta-yu, Jonathan Lee, Wakin Chau and Chang Chen-yue.


My sis in HK has watched this concert and told me it was really good (and she is the picky type when it comes to concerts) and so I was really looking forward to it and definitely I was not disappointed. In fact, I rated it as the best concert I've been to this year and maybe even in recent years!! Their repertoire was splended and nostalgic (ok, I'm from some their eras) and they really showcased what they could do with their voices and instruments individually and as a band. And boy, just loved the way they jammed together.. Their combined age was 190! But to me, they beat any young hot boyband hands down. :) And so ya, myself and my friend really enjoyed it.. the bonus was I daringly mingled myself into the press seats (which were better than my ticket seats) after there were extra seats there!

3.
I attended the Michael Hui's press conference a few weeks earlier and was quite keen to catch his talk show in Genting Highland. Unfortunately, the editor I was contributing to did not want a review but fortunately I know the organiser's boss whom I've covered quite a no. of his shows and he has asked me to just go. But because it was a hot sold-out show - Michael Hui's first ever show in Malaysia or outside HK for that matter - I was told in the last minute that I could get into the stadium but there were no seats allocated for me!!


But again, my lucky (entertainment) star was shining and my friend and I who specially drove up to Genting were `rewarded' with seats - quite good ones too - among the photographers. And we had such a good time laughing our heads off with his jokes. Michael Hui has many interesting stories and anacdotes to tell.. The audience loved it so much that he obliged by even singing a song at the end.. And like I put on my FB, it is a refreshing change from the usual concerts! Great show :)

4.
Finally.. (I really hope I don't have any concert next week.. :S) I thought I would have given Eason Chan a miss this time as I mistakenly thought the concert was on Saturday and I was on worship duty on early Sunday morning. But turn out I was asked to do a review and the concert was Sunday evening.. at Sunway Lagoon Surf Pool - the same stage of MTV World Stage Live the night before.


For once, I was shocked to find out that they did not allocate any areas, let alone, any seats for the press! I was ushered to this `red zone area' - already jam packed with people right in front of the stage.. I squeezed myself through but guess what, I was blocked by a few tall guys and hardly had space to move let alone jot down notes for my review! The speakers were blaring and made my heart thump. Seriously, I'm not fit nor young enough to stand in such condition for 3 hours!!

To cut a long story short, I squeezed my way out of that crazy zone and stood at the side where some reporters were.. but 20 mins later, I already felt tired and spotted some chairs by some food stalls so there was where I sat by myself the whole night..

Fortunately, Eason's wonderful performance and music redeemed that earlier terrible experience.. Although i could only see the screen from side way and hardly the stage.. I still enjoyed the concert. He even did a medley of the 80s classics including Alan Tam's Love Trap and his own beautiful numbers.. It was even better than his first concert I watched I felt.. so much so I stayed till last song and as I walked out, fireworks broke into the sky.. a very long and elaborate one.

I guess Eason's concert - plus all the three previous ones had inspired me to blog despite my tiredness.. (got up at 6:50am this morning!)

What a crazy life for a aging freelance (entertaiment) writer who should actually settle for less `exciting' jobs :p But no, I'm not complaining.. :)

Festival of Incidents

What a trip!

It was a truly unforgettable first `Rainforest World Music Festival' for me - well, not for all the right reasons unfortunately. And some of the incidents would probably be stuck in my mind..

Maybe because I've heard such raves about it and had conjured some kind of expectation.. Or maybe I'm not a true lover of world/ethnic music after all.. But what really put a damper on it was our choice of accommodation..

Living in the long house was a terrible experience for me. So I ended up forgoing the second and third night stay (which was paid) and checked into Tune Hotel in Kuching instead.

To post the whole account of the three days would probably end up like a loooong article that no one will read.. So I shall just share some highlights here:

The Dampers:

• The shuttle from Kuching to Sarawak Cultural Village (where the RWMF was held) was pretty badly organised - the staff could not speak English and worse, gave different instructions everyday making things so complicated and frustrating! Sometimes we were told to book beforehand while other time just buy tickets at the bus.
  

• Since my friend and I are virgins at Kuching, we did a boo-boo ended up taking a cab from a hotel to another that is just opposite side of the road!! And the sly cab driver charged us RM8 for that ride!

• It started pouring just before the shows began on the first night - we ended up watching more than half of it on the screen at a sheltered place. The ground in front of the stage was so muddy and hadn't dried up by the 3rd day!
  

• This would take the icing of the cake - the deplorable condition of the Iban longhouse! - we're charged RM120 a night for a double room - and what we got were

1. really basic (read: primitive) room with just two beds - a hard pillow and thin dirty-looking blanket, a cupboard and a wall fan that could not even rotate..
   
2. a wet, dirty-looking toilet downstairs to be shared by four rooms. Cold-water shower, tiny basin and a WC. what's worse was there was NO water during `peak periods'! The first night, most of us bathed by scooping water from a a big pail - while the second night there was no water from 9pm to 3am - but by then I was gone.

• There was an opening that overlooked the common area and a large group of people were chatting and laughing away till about 4am! Sleepless first night for me..

• Staying in three different rooms for the three nights! Well, at least the second and third nights were in the same hotel though different rooms.

• Not used to oily food, I suffered stomach ache on the first night - causing me to miss the finale which is one of the best bands!

• My friends' room next door was `broken into'. Thankfully they didn't lose anything - we still unsure if it was a drunkard guest from outside or the longhouse who claimed to see that who was the culprit. They lodged a report and since I was the witness - who saw the worker coming out of their room - I went with them and also missed a good band playing.

• There were more incidents but better not rant on...
  

The Delights

• The Cultural Village was pretty - with a lake, mountain and forest, and the two concert stages had tall trees of rainforest as back drops. In the night with lighting, it looked romantic and surreal in a way.

• The atmosphere was quite vibrant - it had a multi-national, multi-racial crowd, there were craft bazaars and various activities and festivities going on. Managed to buy something for mom and my nephews and niece, and even had henna done too!

• Got some time to explore Kuching but just around the Waterfront touristy area and ate some local food (but suffered stomach problem :(

The photos by themselves are pretty interesting and `exotic' though..

Two other longhouses up for visits

Outside our Iban longhouse

the activities that go on in our longhouse

Our very basic room

The pathetic toiletMy room for the 2nd and 3rd night at Tune Hotel

Finally, if the music had been awesome, I think that would have cheered us up a bit.

Unfortunately most of the music, especially by Malaysian and Asian bands, were so monotonous - perhaps something you see in a cultural show! But there were some pretty good ones too - like the French, the NewZealand and Hungary were some of my favourites. The Tanzania group's bongo dance was a riot though music there was hardly any.

Overall I think I only enjoyed less than 30 per cent of all performances.. the final night was the best of all and our Malaysian band from KL - Akasha - was great and most enjoyable! :)

The finale show

nb. wanted to upload more concert pix but Blogger fails me!! maybe later..

Longhouse, rainforest and world music

I'll be in the Sarawak Rainforest for the next three days!! :)

After hearing so much about the annual Rainforest World Music Festival, finally I'll be experiencing it first-hand! Being the kiasu Malaysians we're , we planned this almost a year ago and I secured the air-tickets, accommodation and tickets all well in advance.. So, I'll be flying off tomorrow morning and four of us will be staying in a long house! It's part of the Theme Stay in Sarawak Cultural Village - right in amidst the forest.

So it'll be my first time staying in a long house, in the rainforest, and attending an world music festival! Cool music with great atmoshere.. but to be honest, I don't really know what to expect but I know it would be fun, and an experience of a life time!!

Got to go and pack now.. oh yes, i will remember the insect repellent :p

Lee Hom's Harassing Concert!!

Warning: rant post - not a concert review


This was my 4th time watching the extremely talented, uber-cute `music-man' in concert. And the first time I paid for it. But.. it would go down to be the most `memorable' one - for the wrong reasons.

No no, not that I didn't like this concert - Lee Hom was still in his element and the concert was in anyway a success. And it was fun watching with friends than going alone as member of the media. But throughout the concert, we were so disturbed and harassed by some inconsiderate audience as well as securities and organiser's staff!!

This is my ticket. It's the 2nd most expensive at RM318 but I got a slight discount. With that amount of money we paid, the seat was so far away from the stage! Initially I thought I got pretty good seats as they were in the centre - BUT our views were partially blocked by a huge fan which was not even on, AND by people who chose to lean against the barricades..

It was so frustrating when our limited view was kept being blocked by people walking across the aisle and in between sections.. It's hard to explain how the seating was like but trust me, I kinda regretted getting those seats and not the ones more towards the sides.. we were totally EXPOSED to disturbances!

Shortly after the concert proper start - there were opening acts by local artistes (Danelle Lee was ok but I could not stand the other new female artiste whose voice was shrilling ) I had to start telling some people that they were blocking our views. But not long after, other people did the same.. I think I ended up going up three times, and Lynn did it once.

And throughout the concert, people in front of us were sneaking to take photographs - which were strictly prohibited. And each time some security guards saw people with their camera up, they walked along the aisle and shone a torch light to them. From where we sat, people walking along the aisle unfortunately blocked us!! And other time, the staff and securities just stood where ever they liked, never thinking that they could be blocking some of us who have paid a hefty amount to watch our `idol' perform!

I was thinking if they really wanted to be so strict about it, they should have consficated their cameras before hand. Well, they did say no camera allowed but there wasn't proper search and even three of us got our cameras inside just that we were decent enough to comply with the rules and not cause trouble for others.

Then came the `highlight' of the evening.. suddenly about 3/4 through the concert, a whole gang of securities suddenly surrounded the barricades near where we sat. And guess what, our view of the stage was COMPLETELY blocked!! This arouse the anger of not just us but also some other audience in the area. And trusting yours truly being the vocal one, I immediately walked forward and told one of them. But the reply I got was they were told to do so and I could talk to Galaxy (the organiser) if I wanted. Sure, I demanded to see Galaxy staff and I found a girl near by and as I complaint to her, she was courteous enough and told me the reason was that Lee Hom was going to appear inside the fenced up barricade area soon. And it's only for a short while those securities had to be there. Ok, point taken, I went back to my seat.

But guess what, some inconsiderate people in front decided to stand up and further blocked our view even of the screen! I was so cheesed by then that I decided to stand near the barricade myself.. but not blocking anyone, and getting a good standing room to see Lee Hom when he appeared there. But straight away one security asked me sternly to sit down. I ignored him. And then another tall one just walked towards me, stood so close to me where his stomach almost touched my chest (yes, he was tall), with a menacing look, he growled and shouted rudely at me to sit down.

How dare he, I looked back at him and shouted back that he was too rude. Well, not wanting to provoke further as he definitely was much bigger size than me, I returned to my seat but not before I said I was going to report him. The Galaxy girl came to pacify me but I told her I demanded an apology. The guard was unmoved - real cocky!! So i took note of his name on his name tag.

Then shortly after, Lee Hom did appear and everyone scrambled forward and surrounded the barricade. At least that half a minute or so of seeing Lee Hom close-up was a consolation of sort. But inside, I was still fuming and my mood definitely spoilted to certain extent. I missed almost one entire song and dance because of the rude security guard!!

I felt I have the right to complain to Galaxy the organiser (where I know some of the ppl there from work) - since it was not comp tix but I bought three tickets from them!

After the Encore, all hell broke loose. We could not see anything seated down as people all stood up and some even walked to the front. So I turned and told my friends - `if we can't beat them, join them'. So we walked to just behind the most expensive seating area and found a spot where we could see the stage.

And now, even the securities are finally taking their break and not asking people to sit down or shooed them when they take photos. So finally I also snapped some pix but effect was bad.

Lynn and Evonne were totally enamoured by Lee Hom as you can see.. ;)

Oh well, all in all it was a good concert and Lee Hom certainly did not disappoint, although some how I remembered enjoying his `Heroes on Earth' concert better. It would have been much enjoyable for me (and my friends too) if not for all those disturbances and some explosive moments - and I don't mean the many fireworks they had.

Actually i am dead tired but somehow I just had to let it all out.. Although the concert production was pretty much flawless, the same cannot be said about the floor organising - especially the type of staff and security the organiser had employed. Oh another thing, the music was blaring loud and really deafening for the 1st part of the show!!

I think I will still complain but in a calm manner - as a customer and not as member of the press for once. I'll think twice now before being so enthusiastic to fork out money to get so called expensive seats that were actually lousy!

Ok, i can go sleep in peace now..

p.s. for a proper review but from a swooned fan, go to Lynn's blog ;)