The Massive Music Weekend (by sg standards, anyway)
if all goes well i'll be giving some updates on the UK music scene and
the weird music i listen to, on an irregular basis.
basically the weekend of 15-17 July saw Baybeats as well as the Vibes
clubfest, which included the sg leg of the Paul Gilbert concert. not
much compared to more musically-developed countries, but i'm not
complaining - it's as good a start as any.
[Paul Gilbert Concert - Spaceship One World Tour 2005]
bagged some free entry-after-2200h tix from a fren of a fren. i'm not
that much of a paul gilbert fan myself, but i've heard plenty of
(positive!) things about him, so i decided to skip out on furniture
and surreal at Baybeats and go for the Paul Gilbert one instead.
the Paul Gilbert concert was supposed to have started at 2000h, so our
2200h tix gave us effectively the last hour (!) of his performance,
plus entry to the Vibes clubfest (more on that later). the venue was a
converted exhibition hall, so nothing short of 200 people would make
the place look very empty! at best i counted about 50+ people in front
of thestage, plus maybe 20 more in the VIP areas along the back and
side walls of the hall, which wasn't surprising, considering that
2000h tix cost $80 and mostly only hardcore guitar-lovers would bear
to shell out that kind of money for a shred (or so i believe?)
concert.
a quick word about the sound system: it was literally a wall of sound.
massively powered speakers - more powerful than the ones at baybeats,
i suspect - so loud that 15m away from the speaker stacks you can
palpably FEEL the pressure waves emanating. i'm no expert when it
comes to such setups and i didn't catch the make of the speakers, but
those certainly were quality stuff. couldn't detect any artefacts,
though this may be either because the music was too damn loud, or
because PG and his band were quite stellar!
picture the layout: huge exhibition hall, wall of sound flanking a
decently-large and well-lit stage, about 50 people enthusiasts
milling around the front of the stage, video projection of some inane
Paul Gilbert - Spaceship One (USA) text on loop, tall drinks tables
with really wobbly chairs (!) running the length of the hall. a decent
mix of guitar enthusiasts (seriously, who else would attend?) from the
very obviously in NS people to the geeky polo, jeans and big backpack
types (it's a stereotype, so don't sue me!) to the
definitely-must-have-a-band type to expats.
we walk in - me, jun and his friend jinsheng - and Paul Gilbert is
engaging in a little bit of banter with the audience, asking them for
'requests'. it's cacophony out there so it's more like he just picks
whatever he wants to play! he slips his huge ear protectors on - with
that wall of sound there's no doubt his hearing must be badly damaged
- and the first thing he plays as we enter is Racer X's "Technical
Difficulties".
i'm no shred fan, but even *i* know (make that can recognise)
"Technical Difficulties".. it's that insanely fast piece with plenty
of fingerboard fretwork and sounds really complicated, yet it somehow
ties together to form a coherent number. and of course, his
performance is flawless, not that i can tell the mistakes in it,
anyway.
the night's not all about shred though; the next song he opens with a
metallica riff, then launches into Mr Big's "To Be With You"!!! now
THAT is amazing, and they actually goes quite well together. there's a
bit where he and his backup guitarist play the same notes with a
slight interval between both guitars (am i making sense here?) - a bit
of improvisation, though i personally prefer the term 'live remixing'
due to my musical preferences.
there are some classics - something something rock & roll, it's
apparently a real classic rock song, but the title escapes me right
now, a van morrison number, plus a song from his new album, complete
with audience participation!apparently the singapore one-night-only
gig was the final leg of the Spaceship One World Tour (i could've
sworn he said asian tour during the concert) 2005, so he came back for
a reallllllllllllly long encore, and the audience totally appreciated
that.
there was a decent-sized queue by the side of the stage after the
encore, but i couldn't be bothered to go take a look, so it's possible
that he signed some autographs / guitars, whatever, though i'm not
sure myself.
[Vibes Clubfest 2005]
so the Paul Gilbert concert was part of this Vibes Clubfest
thingamajig at suntec. there's not much connection between Paul
Gilbert and the much-touted Ministry of Sound DJs (mind you, only 2
residents - not the best ones, too, where's Tom Neville?!! - and 1
producer or somesuch!!!) that make up the rest of the 'festival'; my
own guess is that both events needed a wall of sound, video projection
screens and a large venue, so they decided to pool resources.
well by the time the Paul Gilbert concert ended at 2245 (? can't
remember properly already), there were very very few ppl in the
audience, and by the time we left - around 2330 - only a few people
were trickling in. granted 2300 is too early and many places have a
slow start, but somehow i just didn't get the impression that the
place would be packed, even at 0100 or 0200.
the free drink was terrible, and very obviously watered down - i've
never had a worse vodka lemonade, but that's besides the point - what
was more shocking was the fact that there were paid dancers. one whole
line of skimpily dressed decent-looking dancers, who lined up nicely
in front of the stage for publicity shots taken by the official
photographer, before going on the raised platforms (not podiums..)
running along the sides of the exhibition hall. it was awful,
especially because there were wildly gyrating and had no feel for the
music at all - kind of like okay, i'll just go through my repertoire
of cool/supposedly sexy/asset-flaunting moves and try to keep pace to
the music kinda thing.. me and my friends happened to be sitting next
to one of the platforms, and let me tell you it wasn't a pleasant
experience.
it was especially sad because there were just too few people, and
nobody even ventured on the dancefloor! generally i've learnt that if
a place has to engage paid dancers, instead of attracting enough
Beautiful People (TM) to go dance on their own accord, chances are
it's gonna suck big time.
the tech crew did a good job of reconfiguring the stage for the DJs
very quickly, and it was a standard DJ setup - 2x turntables, couldn't
get close enough to see what make, 1x mixer and 2x CDJ units on a
separate row above the turntables. what was REALLY annoying, however,
was the propensity of the dry ice smoke machines to conveniently vent
some smoke whenever the DJ was going to physically change a record!!!
i only guessed turntables because i saw the faint outline of a 12"
through the smoke. couldn't even see the DJ actually adjusting the cue
position to line up the beats, so it's possible that there were 4x CDJ
units, too.
there was a pioneer VJ unit, meaning a DVD-CDJ that's capable of doing
to video what a CDJ does to music.. a bit choppy at times and rough
around the edges, but generally a welcome addition. i really didn't
expect a VJ unit to be installed - usually people just make do with
some laptop-based solutions to loop video and whatever. (i don't club
much locally, so it's quite possible that VJ units are widespread
here.. correct me if i'm wrong.)
as with all club nights the warm-up DJ (a local one, can't remember
his name) had the unenviable task of getting the crowd into the mood,
but i wanted to go back and catch the Baybeats Diskotheque (poptart
and twlight action girl) so i left before i managed to catch any of
the MoS DJs. generally the warm-up DJ was okay, but didn't manage to
get people on the dancefloor.. could've done with some more vocal
tracks. and the MoS DJs are a mixed bunch, really. Tom Neville (who
didn't come here) is real good.. but I felt a little out of place
during another resident's hard house/a bit of hard trance set (in the
London MoS).
overall i don't think the clubfest was a success.. and as for the Paul
Gilbert concert, he looked sorta happy even though the crowd wasn't
THAT big, so i suppose everyone was happy for that concert.
[Baybeats 2005]
a quick note about baybeats, because i only went for snippets of day 2
(sat). PS han you got the days mixed up, day 1 is actually friday, day
2 is sat and day 3 is sun.
the opening acts on day 2 weren't too bad. lunarin at the chill-out
stage were quite good, and set for glory at the arena were decent
technically, but struck too many stereotypical rock moves and poses
for my liking. disco biscuits weren't too bad either, but the whole
thing was postponed because of rain - probably because the speakers
were expensive? - and i wound up missing plush, freelove and love me
butch (which han has been singing praises about ever since. and
personally, with a name like that, how can the band go wrong? i
attended a Le Tigre concert in Gothenburg and the opening act was the
very electroclash Lesbians on Ecstasy from Montreal. again, with a
name like that, how can the band go wrong? i've got a cool badge -
"nobody knows i'm a lesbian on ecstasy" - if anybody's interested to
see it).
caught bits of vertical rush - i think that's where i finally met up
with han, not easy in a very very crowded place - again they're not
bad but neither are they terribly outstanding. rushed back from the
Vibes Clubfest to catch the Baybeats Diskotheque - first time in this
festival - only to find poptart being plagued by technical problems. i
suspect they were CDJ units, couldn't really tell from outside the
bowl of seats. wasn't particularly impressed by the track selection
during the remaining 20min and left soon after.
the merchandise stalls were quite good, though, and i bagged quite a
few band t-shirts and CDs. reviews to come if i can get down to doing
them.
-YF
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