homeboy, who? mayday i say!

i attended a concert organised by abc stout last night. the tickets did not come easy - 28 bottle caps for a pair of tickets - but thanks to shoe slut and her 江湖朋友, i didn't have to drink a single bottle.

i arrived at the concert at about 7.00pm and managed to snag very decent seats in the centre block, just behind the rock zone.

chen sheng opened the concert with quite a few of his more well-known numbers. his performance was a lot more entertaining than i had expected, mainly cos' i knew more songs of his than i thought i did. pin guan was up next, and whilst our malaysian boy had a really nice and soothing voice, he was very frankly, quite boring.

last but definitely not least, was chinese rock group, and the reason for my attendance, mayday. the energy that ran through the stadium before they even stepped onto the stage was amazing, and my heart just started pounding harder in my chest. i rather pity pin guan who probably knew that he was just preparing the audience for a much bigger act that would follow his. mayday finally took the stage, and opened with the fast number "孙悟空", and followed it with the equally "high-inducing" song, "john lennon", a tribute to the long-deceased beatle. i was up and standing by this time, bobbing enthusiastically to the songs, and singing with the band. the idiots behind me chose to remain sedate and act cool by sitting down (honestly, it's a rock concert!), but i really could care less if i were blocking their view of the stage. my cousin tried to "act cool" too but after a while, she couldn't contain herself and started bobbing together with the rest (and the best) of us.

the band then took a break from singing and spoke briefly about, and toasted drummer guan you's new baby daughter, guitarist stone's impending fatherhood, and lead singer ashin's birthday. long story short, they were just using all these recent developments in their lives to drink on the job. next up were the very effervescent "恋爱ING" (pronounced "lian ai eye-ern-gee"), the mayday classic beng song "轧车", the soothing love number "温柔", the inspiring and motivating "倔强" as well as some other songs which i don't remember. an encore was (naturally) called for when the band left the stage, and they finished off with a relatively less performed song "透露". chen sheng and pin guan then came on stage to celebrate ashin's birthday and of course, more stout had to be drunk.

i was quite disappointed that the band didn't perform the song which made them famous "志明与春娇" but all in all, the concert was mind-blowingly fantastic! i couldn't have asked for a better concert considering it was free, and it went on for 3.5 hours with mayday performing at least a good hour and a half of it. i left the concert on such a high i had trouble winding down and getting to sleep when i got home.

i recently watched a concert by my favourite homeboy, lee hom, and whilst that was an awesome concert, i must say i'd watch mayday over lee hom any time, any day. lee hom is mesmerising when he plays his musical instruments, but the pure energy and charisma exuded by mayday when they perform is simply unbeatable. their concert has to be experienced to be believed.

AWESOME.