kbay

Straight lines are comforting.

We looked like giants.

We heart good deals.

So here’s the haul from SGFLYER.

At this point I am seriously yearning for sharp lennssss. This one is a rather normal 50mm, F1.8.

These hearts we spotted at the SG Flyer.  Lovely props.

For some strange reason this shot below reminds me of K20. Alternate reality with Kaneshiro’s acrobatics.

Us six had dinner at Jerry’s.

This is Hong yi’s take. & I like because I looked deceptively skinny here. hyuk hyuks.

& I once aspired to work at this bldg. Along with dreams to be a stewardess and police officer. Who doesn’t dream of working at skyscrapers like this.

stars

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine I could watch Stars performed in Singapore. I always presume I was going to graduate, earn my own keeping & the pair of us, Xiaoyan & I, would follow them across continents, without missing an act. & this will probably take place a decade later?

So 2009 has already been so fortunate to me, even if its only the beginning. At 20 one my my dreams realised. It IS a big thing. We are the die-hard fans.

7th January 2009. Lovely Greenhorn Productions & their god-darned good choices.

The gig bang-started with The Night Starts Here; Amy Milan & Torquil Campbell’s vocals reducing me to a bawling mess. Forget your name, forget your fear. I couldn’t stop the tears.

Next up in line in the set was Take Me to The Riot. It was great. Torquil Campbell’s dramatic antics; his heart thumping, hopping around, dashing from one to the other, tossing petals & stalks up in the air (I had a stalk!) had us all enraptured & captivated. It was anything but a sedated, leg-crossed, polite-clapping performance.

Amy Milan, omg, what can I say. She sounded exactly as she did in the album. Those lovely vocals that completed the songs. They did a good mix from Set Yourself On Fire, Sad Robot & In Our Bedroom After The War. Sadly, no Heart, no On Peak Hill, no Better Be Heaven.

But nonetheless, we all cheered and paid rapt attention. Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, Soft Revolution, Calendar Girl, One More Night, What I’m trying to say, What The Snowman Learnt About Love, Reunion, Undertow, Elevator Love Letter, Midnight Coward were simply so mindblowing awesome. I kept crying, its such a shame.

Torquil Campbell walked into the crowd midway into the gig & at that moment I was cursing that I should have gotten central seats. It was the “I’m alive” part. Reminscent of Kevin Drew & the alive thing during their gig last March.

We are collapsed in the act of just being here ; Three blues, two greens & a beer

Evan Cranley (Above),Chris Seligman (below) Whenever I watched Evan Cranley I thinked about Cranley’s Gonna Make It.

Live through this and you won’t look back.

Post gig, we dashed out to queue for the autograph session. Made a few friends while waiting in line. Met Carisa, surprise surprise.

Alan Snoddy endorsing Tiger Beer.

Pat McGee

Had the back of my ipod adorned with all their signatures & it’s so precious now.><

Won’t be the last gig of theirs I’ve been, this is.

The revolution wasn’t bad
We hit the streets
With all we had

A tape recording of the sound
Of the Velvet Underground
A K-way jacket torn to shreds
And a dream inside our heads
And after changing everything
They couldn’t tell
We couldn’t sing
They couldn’t tell we couldn’t sing
And that changes everything

 

Why so quiet

CAMERA OBSCURA

Gig kicked off with Come Back Margaret, Tracyanne Campbell’s ethereal vocals and the rest of the band’s wonderful playing had us cheering and chill.

Come back Margaret he wants to adore you
Come back Margaret I’d like to explore you
Can’t you see the tears in my eyes
With love for him I disguise

I like the free days with no expectations
I like it my way with no limitation
Still you see there are tears in my eyes
With love for him I despise

I totally love the last 2 lines of the two verses. They captured the two very ironical yet so perfectly complementary & intertwined emotions. Clever. Camera Obscura’s defintely got to me when it comes to the sheer brilliance of their lyrics.

From circle 3 we could only see specks of figures swaying on the stage. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. But binoculars would have really come in handy. Stilll, camera obscura playing live, omg. Campbell & Carey Lander in what I called chic granny fashion, decked in white stockings, mod cut and tailored dresses. Kenny McKeeve & Gavin Dunbar wore suits & looked more in place as my lecturers than musicians. I made a ball I threw it at Gavin because he’s tall.

The Glasgow band performed many numbers from Let’s Get Out This Country. Following Come Back Margaret, there were Sister Social Agony, Country Mile, If Look Could Kill, False Contender, Llyod, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken, Suspended From Class, Keep It Clean, Super Trooper, Tears For Affairs, Let’s Get Out of This Country, Teenager & new tracks. It ended in spectacular style with Razzle Dazzle Rose; the final part truly magical. I was super darned excited when Suspended From Class & False Contender came on.

Suspended From Class

You’re such a beautiful writer
that’s not all you are
I’m sorry about making a pass
it was subtle but I think that you guess
the meaning intended

I can be a friend to you
I won’t pretend
I’m not interested in breaking your heart
it’s not love no it’s nothing like that
I’ll leave that to .. like him
oh, he’s such a delicate thing
now it’s such a fragile thing that we have

I should be suspended from class
I don’t know my elbow from my arse
I should be suspended from class

The concert ended so abrupt. For a moment I thought mr. technician was going to tune their strings but no, they were really gone. We made a madcap dash downstairs to queue for the autograph session. Quite disappointed when the tee shirts merchandise sold out. Times like this make me wished I’m plus size. No one would be hankering after size XL with me. Bought pretty badges & stickers I can’t bear to paste. It’s those things I would nursed carefully in the safe haverns of my drawers and occasionally take it out to stroke & admire.

When it finally got to us, throat ran dry & whatever I wanted to tell them slipped quietly as hisses through my teeth. Campbell stood up and placed her arm on my back as we took a photo. All I could mustered was a “helloooo” when I met every single one of them. I asked McKeeve if they would come back to singapore.

“We would love to.”

Camera Obscura we can’t get enough of you!

SINGAPORE BIENNALE:a second trip to City Hall

E Chen – Tropicana

Ben-David, Zadok – Blackfield

“The plants, which are etched out of metal, come from botanical drawings and are painted black on one side, while on the other, a myriad of colours is visible…(visitors) will see either a sea of coloured or black plants. The side with colour is extremely cheerful, while the black is stark, very much like a scorched landscape against an almost pure white background of white sand.”

Liew Kung Yu – Cermelang, Gemilang, Terbilang

Entered the room to a chirpy and cheery tune, setting the atmosphere unlike the rest of the exhibits in City Hall. Turned out that the tune is the Malaysia National Anthem. This is a Photoshop montage of various Malaysian Icons.

At the back of the montage are actually a perforated image of a Wayang Kulit, through which light pass through and the image is projected onto the wall.

The perforated wayang kulit (on the left) with the projected light image (on the right)

Leeroy New – Teratoma ll: War of the Worlds

It looked like some outgrowth to me.

Tremarama – Serigala Militia

450 plywood boards were used to create a woodcut animation video for Seringai, a thrash metal band hailing from Jakarta. Each plywood, etched tirelessly. This is one of my favourites, even though I don’t quite appreciate heavy metal. Or any subgenre.

Tse Su-Mei – The Yellow Mountain
I can still remember the accompanying song to this single channel video. Japanese female voice. Mournful & stirring.

Prasad, Srinivasa – I Wonder Why?

“It brings to mind a burning space, a burning society, a burning family, the end of the world, tragedy, passion and extinction.”

Pimkanchanapong, Wit – Singapore

Recreation of a Google-Earth image of Singapore, installed on the Chamber Room of City Hall. Visitors may placed tags of information about specific places. The funny thing was, I tried locating Fod and someone beat me to it! (do check facebook album for the photo)