Singapore: Baybeats 2005 review!

yoyoyo wassup yo !!!!

Guess its time for Baybeats 2005 gig review ! for those of you who don't know what baybeats is, it's this annual indie music festival held in Singapore @ Esplanade. This year was a 3 day event, lasting from Friday till Sunday. I went down there on Saturday and Sunday ... so here are my thoughts n comments. Oh BTW downtown on Saturday was a flurry of action. there was baybeats, there's this Paul Gilbert (Mr Big n Racer X guitarist) concert in Suntec, as well as the NDP rehearsal. so it was really really vibrant in town. This's what a good weekend should be heh =)

Day 1
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Arrived at about 7.30... There were 2 main stages .. the back theatre known as the Chillout Stage, the one nearer the glutton square is called the Arena. generally, Chillout songs were more instrumental kinds ... to be frank not really my kinda music. Arena's way more rockish ! The sound system setup at Arena was way better than Chillout (which din do some Chillout bands justice at all man ....). all the bands brought along their effects and gear, lotsa Gibsons n Fenders heh. cool shit. Although I thought the yamaha (?) drum on Saturday sounded VERY weird... like a bit off. but again, im not a drummer .. so who knows ....
anyways each band played 30 mins ... alternating btwn chillout n arena ... so I was walking to n fro to catch the action

onto the bands
1st I managed to catch Love me Butch @ Arena , a hard rock band from Malaysia... omg there were really good. I've heard a lot abt them before I came, and they were really solid. tight and crowd savvy, this bunch. what can i say man. I'm in love with hard rock. Unfortunately i wasnt in the mosh pit to enjoy the crowd.... they were doing crowd surfing !! (a sure sign of a great band) until the authorities had to step in n stop it. damn sian la. i tot the crowd surfing waas harmless n really fun.... such a downer the security team. oh well. this is singapore. oh yeah, at the end of the show, there were actually fireworks !! (at first i thought they were baybeats fireworks .. haha . )( so they were NDP ones.... a boat in the bay shot up the fireworks ... very nice ! think this yrs ndp fireworks shld be a blast !

2nd band i caught Vertical Rush. Oh and I met Yifan and friends there!! it's been a while eh. (still waiting for ur PG review) .. Vertical Rush ... din really impress on me that much , mainly due to the reason that it was so crowded and I couldnt really see them performing (chillout stage v small) ... and i was catching up with Yifan as well ... yup. decent music ... but just so so only

then i went on to Arena again to catch Brand New Sunset from Thailand. I left vertical rush early so i could get a front space at the mosh pit ... yeah i was the 5th row from the front so u can imagine the music was like damnnn loud. so the organisers were playing some CD songs b4 the actual band came on stage... heh .. so it played Metallica's "Master of Puppets" and this already got the crowd started already .. al started to headbang n sing along n went a bit siao. i knew i was in for a rowdy time =) So Brand New Sunset came on to a packed mosh pit. and this is ONE HELLUVA band !!!! they played metal music ... altho i already kinda stopped listening to metal for some time ... wow ... they brought the rush back. within 20 secs of warming up their gear, the crowd was literally push n shoving each other in the pit (high already ...) some even fell n got trampled ....until the authorities came in again to deal with them (from what i remember they shoved a total of 3 times throughout the entire performance! ) Man. anyways, BNS really blew me away. I really liked one called the process of self destruction hah. the crowd was like clappin a long to their beat n headbanging. was really really cool man. I'm gonna check this band out more.

Went to Chillout for Furniture. Instrumental band .... hmmm really very different from BNS i guess .. and they werent very tight. somemore someone (cant rem who) was telling me they were one to look out for .... well. kinda disappointing . Met Hildra n Luther n Xianhua (wasted sia they missed a great show at BNS) oh well yeah then we hung out together. Then jun n ong came along as well heh so its was goin to be a fun night !

Next up was Surreal, a local band . heh i really liked the way their frontman talked and stirred up the crowd. their bassist was also some madman .... asking the crowd to say "cuckaw cuckaw" if we liked their performance ... and yeah we all did the cuckaw thingy. it was madness. Surreals very tight ..... n quite catchy as well. a cross btwn hard rock n funk ... cool shit. n my fren had to wear heels and kept sinking into the gravel . DOH haha . it was really enjoyable tho =) oh and i saw Ross n his gf as well =)

eh... i kinda gave I Am David Sparkle a miss. They shld get themselves a better band name huh

and the headliner for Saturday == Brandtson !! heh.... this is a band from Ohio, USA ... playiung what i would think a mix of styles .... a bit of funk, bit of alternative . kinda like radiohead meets red hot chili peppers meet nirvana. they had a 45 min set ... and lived up to their rep . and entertaining as well heh. The crowd din seem too receptive at times.... but diff ppl appreciate diff music la so maybe its cos of that. anyways i do think that the lightings always seem to favour the american bands (as confimed on sunday) .... the regional bands dont seem to get the kinda superstar treatment ... heh. anyways , when they played finihs it was pretty late abt 1145. then the whole crowd started to leave in droves... either they've never been to a concert or they really just wanted to catch the last train back (by tt time already miss lo) cos no one's asking for an encore .... n i was still waiting for the encore. luckily the MC came out to save the day and asked the crowd if they wanna have encore. yeah. so brandtson did 2 more songs i think ... to finish a great night on a high !

after tt me n Hil n Lut went to glutton square to have supper ... nice food as well ! just very ex ....

this year, theres a new feature Diskotheque. basically 3 grps of DJs took stage at Chillout and DJ-ed from midnight to 3am .we managed to catch Twilight Action Girl and Poptart in action ... haha. i on-ed my GAYDAR big time man. cos there was this gay DJ. never mind. anwyays they played retro stuff... not really mambo style ... but retro rock ... stuff of 10-20 yrs ago. and modern rock as well with franz ferdinand n offspring thrown in .... from, afar i heard some Interpol as well . and the crowd danced and headbanged .. really enjoyable man. never thought i would be doin tt at esplanade haha. and for free as well ! guess i really get high on hard rock eh. so since i stayed till 3am i tot i might as well hang out wif my frens till the next morning .....

PROPs on saturday : definitely Brand New Sunset ! blew me away ! and Love me Butch as well. and of cos the wonderfully crrazy crowd!
NOTs : furniture was a let down . oh well. there are good gig days and bad gig days .


Day 2
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I reached abt 7.30 as well ... met kelvin n chermaine n got my DVDs woohoo lotsa stuff to watch (with a new TV coming in !!) tho they left shortly .... jun n ek were there as well .... heh so we hung out together for the night

caught tempered mental at arena 1st ... erm ...... i wasnt feeling it at all. tts the nicest i can put it ... heh. nice name tho. tempered mental, temperamental. the band wif a female bassist/vocalist.

anyways .... we just hung around to catch the BIGGEST band in Singapore hehe. ok la its electrico. anyways sunday's crowd was so much bigger than saturday's and they really packed the place for Electrico's performance. So it has quite a decent following in Singapore ! or is it because of Amanda Ling only. HMMM
oh i met Damon and his friends as well ... man . its been a while rite hehe. Electrico played their usual pop rock stuff... which seems to suit the crowd v much. obviously very different crowd from yesterday ... heh. today's more family oriented... no f-words on stage or whatever. BTW Surreal's frontman did MC-ing and was damn cool sia haha. well pop rock dont induce the shoving n body surfing like the day b4 ... nonetheless a very power entertaining performance .... played many of their singalongs. when I Want You came the crowd was totally into it. heh. so it's a power 98 no.1 hit. which i just knew when the frontman shamelessly introduced the song heh. nice song anyhow. to end it off, Electrico did a rendition of "we're not made in the USA" ... directed at someone who refunded her CD when she realised Electrico's a Singapore band. hurhur. suckers. anyways . its a cool song... it goes something like this "we're not made in the USA...rock n roll is what we do ...."we're the red and the white ... but without the blue .. the blue .. the blue .. " tot that was really witty. (i hope u guys get it)

so went on to Concave Scream next .. another local quartet. pretty decent but i was standing at this really bad place so i couldnt catch the sounds properly. as i said. the system at chillout stage did the bands no favour. still, concave scream did pack the crowd..... sounds quite rockish too so it wasnt too bad. but me n damon went to arena to get a good place for the headlining Copeland

and so onto the headliner. This USA band also had a 45 min set ... with driving chords and sounded like a hard rocking travis. tight ... and the frontman was entertaining as well. he tried to crack a joke abt the merlion and how he doesnt have one back home. DOH. tts y its Uniquely Singapore ma. anyhow the highlight of their performance was the vocalists solo singing n strumming alone. his voice is really nice. very smooth singing. anyways they had the stage presence of rock veterans . not too showy (like electrico's guitairist) . but still retained the rocker sei. so , thumbs up !

PROPs: Electrico bar the guitarist, Copeland
NOTs: the crowd ... was so .... off . really tot today would be better . oh well. good crowd days, bad crowd days


Overall >> really enjoyable. the best gig i've been to Singapore thus far !! next yr, im definitely going baybeats again. You shld too !


oh, if u wanna see pictures and videos taken at baybeats, here's the link!

anwyays apologies cos most of the pics are damn dark .. and of cos video is low quality cos taken on camera one. maybe i shld buy a new camera soon ba.


rock on
han