Much Ado About TingTings

My camera, my ol' reliable Ixus of five long and lovely years, has finally raised the white flag and died on me. Well, more like jammed the lens, froze on the spot, blacked-out the screen and then died on me!

As much as I'm saddened at it's demise, it really could have chosen a better time to go belly-up. After all we've been through, it left me at a time I needed it most. And right in front of a cocky dude with an autobot DSLR! Talk about bad timing!

And it was even worse timing that it was during The TingTings' high-powered, maximum-energy and full-on sweatfest of a concert I brought my sister to more than a week ago, on the 13th of January, the thing I was going on and on about being her first something. Yes, it was her first ever concert! And an outdoor one, at that!

Outdoor concerts are the best kind. I can never understand a sit-down audience plan at live music performances -an exception I'm willing to make for presentations of classical, jazz, soul, slow rock and the like. And for talents like Jason Mraz -he of the genre I cannot define (rock? alternative adult? blue-eyed soul?) but surely the type of music I'd love to listen to while seated comfortably. Even Duffy would warrant a jiggy with her music so I'm indignant that she'd be at the Indoor Stadium when she's here later.

More on my dead camera later. ...or next post. I need to put this down for the record: I totally surprised my sister! Initially, I planned to spill the beans only when we're at Fort Canning itself, convincing her to be home from school early that day under the ruse that I needed her to follow me to some friend's house. But she thwarted my plans when she called me as soon as she reached home at 5pm and informed me that she was going to quickly change and meet me at my house. I simply had to let the cat out of the bag earlier because no way was she going to an armpit of a concert already smelling like an armpit! You know, the post-school smell.....remember? Remember how terrible that was!? I'm sure we've all been through the post-school stink before...you know, the way your uniform smells like after a long, hot day at school? Yes....THAT smell. The smell no overspraying of Versace Red Jeans back then could mask.


So.....I needed her to take a shower. Which she finally did after making absolutely sure I wasn't kidding about the concert. Which was just after she shrieked my eardums into oblivion after I told her we're actually going to The TingTings concert, instead of to someone's house to catch up on goss. Heh.

Finally, at around 9pm, we found ourselves at the open concert arena at Fort Canning. And just in time for the second opening act (unfortunately, we missed the first one..Force Vomit! Siti! Aarrrggh!) .....Wiley!

Not like I know who he is very well but hey...I've seen his video on MTV before and it was pretty good! And his performance was excellent too! Got the crowd properly riled up for The TingTings. Yes, us included!

Finally, after much ado on the grassy dance floor and more ado on stage, the lights dimmed, the atmosphere changed and the crowd hushed some -collectively and suddenly awed by the unannounced appearance of Jules De Martino....

....who coolly walked to his drums and started tapping out some beats....oh-so-smooth like that! I daresay the girls (and boys!) in the crowd who felt a little stirring in their loins when he did all that would trade in their weight in gold to have Jules tap them out like that! Aiyah..it's the drummer thing lah, really! Hands down, drummers the world over are just tres cool! They have this inherent ability to, like the Midas of coolness, make everything they do, touch, see and say become the thing you just need/want/have to do, touch, see and say but you can't coz you just ain't got the drumsticks, hunny!

But when Katie finally came out of the darkness...

....the crowd went wild and the drummer's spell was somewhat broken. But nothing was lost as it simply meant that The TingTings spell has just begun.

For 60 crazy minutes, the duo pumped it up while Zihan and I and a slimy melting pot of a crowd of teenagers, twenty-somethings and even thirty-somethings completely let loose and bopped, bounced and bumped our way through all The TingTings tunes from Be The One till the very last one, That's Not My Name. I was completely embracing monyet behaviour. So unbecoming of a three-years-to-thirty y.o. stewardess...tsk tsk! All the more unbecoming if you'd seen the way I pushed this fat guy from trying to shove my sister aside and take her place at the front row of the crowd! How dare he?! After all we did to GET to that front row from the back row! :P

Needless to say, we all traded more than our fair share of perspiration -what with all the butt maneuvers, the elbow jabs and the shoulder rams! By the end of the night, while waiting for TheLaki to come pick us up, I was a sorry sight of shared sweat:

Look closely and you'll see the leather strap of my lovely LV Thompson Street sling stained with sweat too because it was hung from my neck...which was clearly a bad idea because till today, a more than a week after the concert, there's still a slight stain which doesn't seem to want to go away! Any ideas, anyone? How to get rid of such a thing? Serves me right for choosing to go armpit jiggy with an LV. Wrong time to be hoity-toity, really!

Oh well...regardless of one of my favourite bags getting stained, I enjoyed myself. Even though the objective of the whole thing was to bring my sister out to enjoy herself before she throws herself into the throes of O'level preps. Even though I don't consider myself a fan of The TingTings per se despite enjoying their music. Even though I smelled like someone else's natural smell after that. Heck...I just love live performances, especially mad ones like these! I don't think you have to be a die-hard fan of the performers to be at their performances! And methinks concerts are waaaayyy better than going clubbing. Not that I am much of a clubber to begin with so I don't think I can validate that claim with much credibility. Maybe I've always just loved it when good music is played live and loud but could never afford the tickets for concerts when I was a student and even when I could afford them as a working adult, I saw it as a luxury I could do without, saving up instead for luxuries I could carry on my arm. Heh. Furthermore, relatively speaking, going clubbing is much cheaper since on some nights, entrance is free and I don't drink so I don't have to spend chunks of money on chugs of alcohol.

In Dubai, with exhorbitant ticket prices always the order of the live music scene, I still didn't feel the urge to splurge half my basic pay on a musical outing so I've pretty much been quiet on that front. And the past concerts in Singapore so far I've missed were mostly all due to my then-unchangeable flying roster! Now that probation's over and I can change flights till kingdom come, I'd better get my eardrums ready for all that live booming from the big-assed speakers!

Because next stop, it's going to be The Prodigy with TheLaki!

Can you say Smack My B*tch Up?!

PS: I'm sorry if the pictures are kecik macam kutu. I don't know why. However, you can click on them to view them in bigger-than-kutu size.