Stereo

I think most of the local bloggers must have blogged about Muse’s recent gig in Malaysia by now. I have not read any of them, or even the articles on the newspapers, but here’s mine. A rather late and pointless one.

The Goods
1. Getting there was rather easy. It has been ages since I took the monorail.
2. Indoor and air-conditioned. I was afraid it would rain, but it didn’t. Did someone called in the bomoh?
3. Pretty well-behaved crowd, well at least on my side of stadium.
4. Colourful mat-rockers and their partners.
5. Obvious hits like Supermassive Black Hole, Starlight, Knights of Cydonia, Time is Running Out, New Born, Stockholm Syndrome, etc. Just looking at the crowd jumping to every song gives me the high.
6. An hour plus of solid rock performance.
7. A great company. Thanks again, you know who you are.

The Bads
1. Almost 4 hours of waiting. We went early because we were expecting long queues from my past experience at the Incubus concert. Too early this time.
2. Was asked 5 times to join a survey by the organizer just because I’m a male, Chinese.
3. No opening bands. Well, that could be a good thing, but the waiting was too long.
4. The band started late, like 50 minutes late of the scheduled time. But that’s the norm. Superstar mah.
5. Not knowing most of the song words to sing along.

The Verdict
Bring on more rock concerts, please!

Not the fanciest of seatings, but I got them tix and I’m going! See you guys there!

Download: Muse - Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (MP3 format, Smiths cover)

The nominees for this year’s Mercury Prize, or otherwise known as the only award I can remember that actually has good rock/indie bands/musicians (though limited to the Brits only) as winners, has been revealed.

Past winners of Mercury Prize include Antony and the Johnsons (2005), Franz Ferdinand (2004), Badly Drawn Boy (2000, love the album), Gomez (1998), Pulp (1996), Portishead (1995), Suede (1993, insanely infectious) and Primal Scream (the first Mercury Prize winner in 1992 for the album Screamadelica). Not impressed? Take a look at the previous nominees list, including Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Snow Patrol (!), The Darkness, Radiohead, David Bowie, Elbow, Goldfrapp, Super Furry Animals, Manic Street Preachers, Chemical Brothers, Blur, Stereophonics, Catatonia, The Verve, Oasis, Supergrass, etc. You get me point.

I have to admit I have never heard most of the names for this year’s list, but further readings show some familiarity.

Artic Monkeys, Muse and Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) need no introductions. The rest of the dozen includes Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Editors, Guillemots, Richard Hawley, Hot Chip, Zoe Rahman, Lou Rhodes, Scritti Politti and Sway. Who?

Mark Lanegan used to be the lead singer of Screaming Trees, part of the whole Seattle grunge era in the 1990s. Isobel Campbell is formerly from Belle & Sebastian, a favourite to some. Richard Hawley used to tour with the band Pulp (whose Jarvis Cocker once famously protested Wacko Jacko on stage during 1996’s Brit Awards).

Those are the names I know, or least heard of. The early favourite to take the award is of course Artic Monkeys. But I would fancy Thom Yorke to win it (Radiohead were nominated several times). But most likely neither of them will walk home with the award. We’ll see. The winner will be announced 5th September, 2006.

Mercury Prize 2006 Nominees:

• Artic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
• Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Ballad Of The Broken Seas
• Editors, The Back Room
• Guillemots, Through The Windowpane
• Richard Hawley, Coles Corner
• Hot Chip, The Warning
• Muse, Black Holes And Revelations
• Zoe Rahman, Melting Pot
• Lou Rhodes, Beloved One
• Scritti Politti, White Bread, Black Beer
• Sway, This Is My Demo
• Thom Yorke, The Eraser

Visit BBC’s Mercury Prize page or the official site for more readings and reviews and pictures and stuff.

I was at Planet Hollywood on Friday night. It was my first attempt at drinking without the purpose of celebrating someone’s birthday. I am not a drinker, I couldn’t even finish a glass of beer. But yesterday, I was raring to go anywhere with liquor and babes. Sad to say it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. We ended in Planet because we didn’t know our way in KL. 5 fucking years in KL and we’re still like headless chickens finding our way.

At the entrance we were greeted by 2 liquor babes. One of them happened to be Cherry, who used to work in Zoo Body Art. I couldn’t recall her name or where did I see her before then, but as she walked past I saw the cherries tattoo on her neck, and almost immediately I turned down and saw another tattoo on her left leg. Sweet, she was Cherry alright, who I last saw in Zoo when I went for my touch up from Spec Ung years ago. No I did not go and talk to her, I should have. I could have learned a few things about chatting girls up. And she was tempting in that skimpy liquor babe dress.

Moving on, we ordered a bottle of Jim Beam, paid the RM300 for it and made our way down. We were set to get drown in liqour and at least have our eyes feasted with babes who aren’t feng tao-ing. But I like said, it didn’t turn out the way we wanted. An event which I think is wise not to talk about it in here.

We only finished a quarter of Jim Beam, the mood to party and drink just weren’t there. But at 2am, The Big Band stepped up and saved the night, at least for me. I pitied my other 3 batangs who weren’t into English bands cover English rock songs. The Big Band found a new vocalist after Xara went to join M-Idol. Or was it in their cards to change vocalist every new season?

So anyways, they covered a few good sing-along tunes. I Will Survive, Sunday Morning, couple of Black Eyes Pea, a Peter Pan song which the crowd adored, etc. They then moved on to heavier tunes. Seether with Remedy, Muse with Time is Running Out, and Nirvana with Smells Like Teen Spirit were among the ones I remembered. They ended with Blind, by KoRn. So jamming session like. It reminded me of the times I went to see my friends jammed in SS15. I’ve seen The Big Band performed couple times over the years, and this was not their best of nights. Nor was ours.

The night out ended without our aims fulfilled. We felt cheated by the crowd, by the hopes and dreams hours before. But we couldn’t blame ourselves. We went to the wrong scene with our wrong purpose. But at least there’s a three-quarter Jim Beam waiting for us at Planet for a next time.

And on a brighter side, I was impressed by The Big Band covered Muse’s Time is Running Out. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the song being played on local radios. To play it on a commercial filled crowd is daring. And to that, I’m putting the song up for download.

Download: Muse - Time is Running Out (MP3 format)

I tried to give you up
But I’m addicted

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