A blog specially for Anime & the occasional...regular...frequent...possibly non-existant rantings of Eneeli. Created & maintained by the Real Anime Freak. All Freaks Allowed.
Alright. Due to too many incomplete drafts piling up I hate emb-ing photos, this list is there just so it'll be easier to refer to previous events which I took my own sweet time over are finally finished.
Note: It'll not be done in chronological order since they're all in varying stages of (in)completion.
**Note: THE CANCELLATIONS ARE CLICKABLE! THEY ARE LINKS! CLICKY-CLICK!
1] S'pore StreetFest 2008 - D'J Party *DONE 03/04!* 2] NOMAD Preview 3] S'pore StreetFest 2008 - Hidama *DONE 06/04!* 4] S'pore StreetFest 2008 - WoW! Band Finals 5] NOMAD Fringe Festival 6] Superheroes Songs @ Esplanade Flipside *DONE 04/04!* 7] Miyuki Red White Animation Song Battle 8] S'pore Toy & Comic Convention *DONE 06/05* 9] NOMAD @ AMKSS 10] Cosfest @ D'Marquee 11] End of O' Levels 12] Prom Night! 13] TPRAWKS 2008 14] Bitch Rant of DOOM 15] First Job Ever 16] Farewell Assembly 17] Anime Festival Asia 2008 18] Project Breakout 2: A Japanesque Christmas 19] SOYA 2009 20] Ongaku Avenue 2009 21] Haute D'Horreur Camp *(PARTIALLY DONE) 22] Licensed to Play event 23] S'pore Streetfest 2009 - D'J Party 24] JCC Camp 25] SPP Camp
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Although I couldn’t make it for the cosplay event yesterday, I decided to give License2play 2009 a shot anyway. It wasn’t anything like AFA (Anime Festival Asia) or even the S’pore Toy & Comic Convention. Not to insult it, but it seems like a really scaled-down event meant for heart-land gamers. Especially considering online games such as World of Warcraft (WOW) & Maple Story had made their presences known in the hall.
Not surprisingly, there was an (alarmingly) large number of KIDS present. When I say kids, I refer to brats ranging from those still being pushed around in prams to the pre-pubescent mummy boys. Of course, that meant everyone and their grandma came along (I swear I’m not joking. I saw more than just a few grannies hobbling along in there). This made the atmosphere feel more like a pasar malam than an actual event.
Yukinko Akira. Looking at his sheer exuberance made me feel exhausted.
On the 30th of August 2008, I went for the Music Matsuri @ Vivocity. It was even more awesome than the Matsuri-The Butterfly Effect- waaay back in March. Let's recap anyway.
Back in March, I was first exposed to local J-rock bands such as Hellven & ethe'Real. The former of which entered Anugerah Band & the latter who is currently in Channel U's Superband competition and going strong. GO 异世界!!! MORE INFO HERE!!!
The wet weather was a doubled-edged sword for the event. On one hand, it kept people from leaving the shopping mall to go to the sheltered Amphitheatre where the stage is. But then it also prevented those who seeked shelter at said Amphitheatre from leaving. So those not inclined to knowing new things are exposed to these bands while it rained, thus giving them (The Bands & The Audience) greater exposure.
From the Sheltered Amphitheatre
Looking At The Audience Within
Needless to say, the Amphitheatre was full up. But thanks to the Singaporeans' aversion to sitting at the front when facing the unknown, I managed to get a good seat.
There were 3 bands and a solo singer in total. First up...
Cloud Sef
...Pretty Boy Guitarist.
That was the first thing I noticed of Cloud Sef. There is hope for Singapore after all...We DO have pretty boys in our midst. Anyway, their vocalist actually introduced said guitarist like this:
"And this is our guitarist Melvin, WHO IS A GUY." Lolz.
Cloud Sef - Shunkashuutou (Alice Nine Cover)
Online Videos by Veoh.com Then they started off with an Alice Nine cover, Shunkashuutou. Their vocalist was GOOOOOOD. But it didn't really make a good first impression when he kept referring to lyrics for the first song. At least, he sorta apologised later when he frankly admitted that they weren't quite prepared. Which is questionable since he didn't need any lyric help with the subsequent songs
That unwanted first impression was later cleared up by their AWESOME rendition of Haruka Kanata (by Asian Kung Fu Generation). Personally, I think Haruka Kanata is one of the harder songs to cover. There are parts where you have to singshout but not too much of "singing" and "shouting". Not to mention the high energy level must be shown in the singshouting. Although there is one part at 2.41 when the vocalist suddenly ROARED and...Well...I went "WTF" coz it was utterly random. But the little "drag" he did at 2.06 was nice. That is, if nice can be used to describe J-rock.
Cloud Sef - Lost My Music (Aya Hirano Cover)
For this they invited a female vocalist on stage. She started off a little low, then went into "Kawaii Voice" mode. Which was a tad bit much for me at times. But at least she hadn't shrieked or something like that. Note that the female vocalist is attired in matching outfits with the keyboardist. Who looks like he's cosplaying Raito from Death Note. If he's doing Raito...Then she's Misa?! O_O"
Cloud Sef - GO!! (FLOW cover)
Like Haruka Kanata, this is kinda hard to pull off too, since it also requires the singer(s) to be a giant leaping ball of PURE ENERGY active throughout the whole song. Cloud Sef seem a little "sianz" initially (after FOUR STRAIGHT SONGS IN A ROW, WHO WOULDN'T BE?) but quickly picked up the pace and sure enough, they packed some "oomph" into it. You can see the whole band is singing along and enjoying themselves there. =)
From what I heard, Cloud Sef is only a few months old. But they are quite good despite their age. The vocalist chose a rather interesting mike though. It's like the ancient ones from the 1960s.
The very name of Cloud Sef also intrigued me when I heard it coz it reminded me of Final Fantasy's Cloud Strife & Sephiroth which led to a half-thought that there was a Yaoi fan within Cloud Sef's line-up (Y'know, like Cloud X Sephiroth). But that was banished when I realised all but one of the band members was male. Though there is still a slight possibility about a Yaoi fan there....
Either way, Cloud Sef is good. I'm definately gonna watch out for them again.
MERFURY
When the MC introduced them, I kept hearing McFlurry at first.
Which was rather disturbing imagery since we're talking about a J-ROCK band here. But anyway that was ,thankfully , cleared up once the first song started. They covered mostly Dir en Grey songs with a little Gazette on the side.
Yep. Definately J-rock.
MERFURY - Yurameki (Dir en Grey Cover)
Frankly I haven't the faintest idea what song this is. Thanks to some kind Youtube souls who identified the song for me. Anyway, from here you can tell the vocalist had this richly deep voice (I prefer his voice to the original Dir en Grey vocalist's). It's pretty good, even though my cam doesn't exactly show that.
MERFURY - Yokan (Dir en Grey cover)
The next song, Yokan, was pretty good too. There were some Yokan MV cosplayers present, so the vocalist happily pointed them out and asked them to get down from the audience seats and dance! Lolz. Too bad they didn't do so.
MERFURY - Raison D'etre (Dir en Grey Cover)
He tried to invite the Yokan cosplayers to dance again XD. Anyway, he missed out on phrases here and there. Is it just me? Or does the way he keeps holding his chest hints at illness?
MERFURY - The Final (Dir en Grey cover)
I don't know what's with the low-slung guitar-playing stance the guitarists exhibited here. Perhaps it looked cooler with flashing lights and at special camera angles, but it doesn't quite work out here.
I pity & applaud the vocalist for roaring so often to keep to the feel of the song. He manages to sing rather richly while breaking into a roar for every other song. Here, he roared at 1.25 & at 3.05. It's good for the song, bad for his throat.
The vocalist kept with the audience interaction, advertising the band members'ages and marital status at one point
Today I did a normal fangirl-thing which I usually don't do - I went to a Meet & Greet Session....Sorta. They basically played games with the band people, while we watch.
It was a mistake that led to my being there in the first place. I thought there would be performances like the IMM event, but it turned out to be a mere Meet&Greet kinda thing. Yeah. It's high time I learn to read Chinese words instead of ignoring them in plain sight. I even brought a mini-tripod stand so my cam wouldn't wobble too much while I record stuff. T_T But anyway, it turned out to be a pleasant event, though some of the bands featured don't look too happy to be there. Frankly, I don't mind it but the atmosphere wasn't that all lively. Games were played, supposedly bringing the bands closer to the fans. We got a brief idea of who's who & who's what.
异世界 (ethe'Real)
The first game played was something like Charades, except the person who's describing can only do so in Chinese & cannot direct-translate the English phrase given. His bandmates were to guess the English idiom/proverb as it is. Frankly, I winced inwardly when they announced 异世界 (ethe'Real) was to play this. Making the transition from English/Japanese to Chinese was clearly uncomfortable for the orignally J-rock band. Imagine the possibly mangled translations in Charades that could happen. The first player from 异世界 was their bassist, Sam.
The phrase: "Pot Calling The Kettle Black". He tried to describe as 那个煮汤的和那个煮水的讲话。Which translated to "The thing which cooks soup talks to the thing which boils water". WTF? And his bandmates actually succeeded in guessing it correctly...O_o"
Next up was Kunio, their vocalist.
His phrase was "Birds of The Same Feather Flock Together". By far, he took the shortest time of the three members who played.
Finally, it was their drummer Jun who took the stage.
The phrase was "Building Castles In The Air". Coincidentally, they know an organizer on the sgcafe forums called "Castle-In-The-Sky". So he tried to use that. The fans (including LiangYi & I) helped out by yelling clues. But he still took quite a while though.
异世界 (ethe'Real)'s command of Chinese, while still better than mine at any rate, made me feel a tad less apologetic for my poor grasp of Chinese. They are years older than me & they aren't pros either. So there, all you CHEE-NA people! I ain't the only one who is not as Chinese as I should be! XP
Next game was Musical Statues. When the music plays, they can do as they like. When the music stops, they have to freeze. But two sporting members of 大风吹 acted as villans as they went around the "statues" and tried to make them laugh. No prize on who Channel U's gonna pick for their next gameshow hosts. Those who smiled/laughed were outed. The bands participating were Screamm & 三月. The guys were just quite spontaneous. They pole-danced around the victim, tickled them & made the usual funny faces. As a result, only one member of Screamm was left with three of 三月. The sole female member of Screamm was pretty good. She remained stone-faced even though the two guys kept picking on her to work on.
Third game involved 森林帖, 大风吹 & 兔子. They had a sticker each, stuck on varying body parts from the butt to the armpit to the back of the knee. The MC read a Chinese passage. The moment they hear a numeral being read, they have to put their stickered body part to another (e.g. Butt to armpit which unfortunately didn't happen).
Finally, the vocalists of all the bands were called upon to compete for the longest breath. It was obvious the vocalists of 异世界 (ethe'Real) & Screamm weren't really trying. I have seen them sing live before & they are defintately capable of much, much more than what they shown here (clocking at under 10s for both this time).
The others...Well, they did try. Whether or not it was their best, I don't know.
And throughout the whole time, I was standing next to this annoying fellow who supported every band and made a nuisance of himself when he cheered out at the most inappropriate times. I'm guessing he is one of the backstage crew since some of the bands knew him. Or he could be your friendly neighbourhood stalker? Whoever he was, I don't like him. From his behaviour, I get the feeling that he's like those wannable No. 1 fan kinda person who takes fanship to a whole new COMPETITIVE level. Like he's only out to prove he is their No.1 supporter to the bands and to us fans. Humph. Since when did fans have different classes eh?
The games would have been lame in a normal context, but they seem interesting here. If I were to ever plan any games, it'll be the latter two. They're recipes for sabotage and Fun!humiliation.
But all in all...I don't really want to go to another of this kind of event. I rather watch live performances...Even though I kept forgetting to watch 异世界 (ethe'Real) on the Superband episodes. -_-"
Group Photo But still, I'm anticipating the episode where they can get sing a song of their choice (NO THEME/Restrictions). Hopefully, 异世界 (ethe'Real) will go back to their J-rock roots again.
And I found out that 异世界 (ethe'Real) is not the only band with ties to J-rock. These duo from Screamm were once members of the local J-rock band, Hidama.
The guy was an excellent drummer in Hidama & the girl was their vocalist. I remembered being awed by how such a petite frame could carry off this big voice so effortlessly. But once again, let us be reminded that J-rockers can't switch to Mando-Pop so easily. Their styles are vastly different, y'know. The Hidama vocalist remained the vocalist in Screamm, but somehow, I find that the quality has suffered somewhat. Then the Hidama drummer became a guitarist in Screamm. Which was wasted coz I still think his drumming skills should be shown off properly on national TV.
On my way home, I saw this rather cute guitar in the display windows of CashConverters (AMK branch). Then the image of Sam from 异世界 (ethe'Real) playing it just struck me out of the blue. Which was half-way between downright disturbing and utterly gay. Or both actually.
Although if I could play the guitar, I'll want it for myself despite the sheer...gayness (NOT in that homosexual way) of it. It costs a whopping S$388, by the way.
P.S. I took 70+ photos which were majority clear for once! ^_^ But unfortunately they can't be post up here since they're mostly candids with unglam shots of the bands picking noses, leering perversely at their own male band members and being uttterly sian during the whole event. It's bad publicity, y'know? XD
Choosing a place so far from the heartlands for study sessions does have its benefits after all...On one of my many trips to the Esplanade library, I chanced upon their free performances programme @ the Concourse. It was at first, this duo playing acoustic guitars (whose names I can't remember) and covering pop tunes. They made me look more closely at acoustic music in the end.
Because of this, I returned on the 20th of June (Before my birthday) to check out Jack, Rai & Alvin and their superhero-themed performance. Which lasted three days btw.
By now, I'm sure most people (in Singapore at least) should be familiar with the names Jack & Rai already. But this was before the Fa La La song played on radios.
They covered songs related to superhero shows (e.g. Kiss From A Rose by Seal from some Batman movie/show) and their own spoofs. These vids are from different days of their performances.
Spiderpig [Spiderman parody]
...Ok, so this was kinda lame.
Hero Songs in E Minor (Transformers/Captain Planet/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
They actually brought out an Optimus Prime plushie ("SOFTimus Prime!") and started advertising the transformability of it.
One Week [Barenaked Ladies cover]
Crazy speed singing! This is probably the only song which sounds better with speed. I was gaping at the speed at which he sung at 1.00.
It's a bit faster than usual, but didn't lose the innate wry cheeriness of the song. That I like =) And Jack is not singing backing vocals for once!
Towards the end of their 2nd set, the boys tried (in vain) to distract the audience with an age-old trick ("Hey, look over there" *points in opposite direction*). Jack then ran off to nowhere. Which gave them some room to make up a story about how Jack got kidnapped and how they need to call on various superheroes for help. They used that as an opening to sing some superhero-related songs. Like the next one.
Superman (Five For Fighting cover)
This was the Smallville theme song. Jack's soulful rendition of this song lulled me into a somewhat peaceful mood i guess.
In the end, Jack still didn't appear. Shame though. I was half-expecting him to suddenly burst on the scene in some cheesy cape+external underwear suit.
Throughout the show, they kept making references to that line from Spiderman ("With great power comes great responsibility"). Somehow, their show had a really casual atmosphere. It's like a small gathering amongst friends with the boys clowning around (hence, the lame jokes) and just...having fun. They didn't seem to worry about showmanship or anything in front of the public. It's cool that way =)
In between the main events (ala D'J Party, WoW! Band Finals), there are days when each individual bands are to come down to the stage area to familiarize themselves with it as well as to perform for the public. Having heard the band Hidama at a previous event before, I made a special trip down to Plaza Singapura to watch them again.
And for once, I was early. Too early.
To the point that I ended up people-watching for a good hour+. The seating was all set though.
Besides the band performances, Streetfest also featured graffiti since it's all about the street culture. There were three large blank walls for the art to be displayed. But it was sorta "art in motion". The graffiti wasn't completed and just displayed there. It is to be finished during the course of the S'pore Streetfest. Which was kinda cool since we got to see exactly how good they were at spray-painting.
This is the first panel. It looked a lot like Johnny Depp, doesn't it? Incidentally, it is by far, the most artistic-looking of the three. Ok, they're all artistic. But this one looks like a piece of pop art which belonged in some fancy-smancy art gallery.
This one reminds me of the Gorilliaz's cartoon band art. Here's a sample. ...Ok. Maybe not. But the first thing that came to my mind was the Gorilliaz band. Both are kinda distorted in a way anyway.
My favourite amongst the three. I really like the vibrancy of the colours and how they used it. With just spraycans alone, the artists made it so the tiger seem to be glaringly bright. It ain't complete though.
Btw, did you know that the artists are actually secondary school students? The school's name started with an "S", but I can't remember anymore. I think they're collaborating with a few other graffiti pros for this project (Seeing that some of the older-looking ones were smoking...).
Then I managed to catch the artists in action and through a lucky combo of inadequate wobbly hands + sheer luck, succeeded in getting this. Personally, I think it looks kinda surreal =)
Hidama arrived in a hurry (Later, it was known that they had only been informed on the day itself about their scheduled performance ) much later. Thank god man. It only takes so long before people-watching becomes obsessive.
Because of my wobbly hands, I couldn't get anything that wasn't a blur and so, shall substitute them with grainy screencaps. Yeah, I think I recorded all but one of their performances.
The band members, as I heard, are all from LaSalle. For your info, LaSalle is a fancy arts school in Singapore. Something like the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, but fancier-sounding.
This is the vocalist (Her name's Kai Li, I think) & their guitarist. (Damn. Unglam screenshot here coz she was walking, but at least it's remotely presentable)
So far, this is the video with the least amount of static in the background. I would have uploaded the rest, but it hardly be audible (the vocals, I mean) since Youtube typically screws up the quality further.
Here's the full songset anyway (The links lead to live performances by the original band).
The last song which Hidama performed before really left an impression on me. Hidama's rendition of it was different from the original band. The song itself was kinda quirky too, I admit. Especially since the ending of the choras goes "Rai rai rai rai rai rai rai Oooh Rai rai rai rai rai rai rai". Yeah. It sounds like a demented Raichu.
But it's pleasant in its odd little way. The lyrics btw, talks about some tragic Japanese lady (Ukifune) from the Tale of Genji (which is some classical Jap novel).
Hidama - Jusui Negai 入水願い (Tokyo Jihen Cover)
Despite having a sore throat, the vocalist did pretty well. She walked (more like struted) around the stage, acting coy when she should be, and commanded attention all round. Which makes taking screenshots difficult for an amauteur like me.
I'm watching out for Hidama now. Even though they've only covered Japanese songs so far (no originals yet), they manage to put a little of their own style in. Not to mention their members are all good at their instruments. A friend commended that the drummer was insanely fast on a single-pedal drumset, despite a double-pedal drumset being usually used.
