Corrine May for NDP song 2010

Only Corrine May has the ability to move and stir a person's heart with her voice and music, no matter what she sings. Kudos to Corrine May!!

Walk through the 'hood

It's the weekend. I was supposed to have spent a nice day walking at Macritchie. Instead, I walked to Balestier Road to eat not-so-nice mee pok and took a bus to Pek Kio Hawker Centre for coffee and marketing after that.

Why? Because I overslept. But I am not really complaining coz I spent the morning with Dad. I also realised that I started the new year's blog on a depressing note, but I could not help it. I was. With God's grace though, I am learning to regulate and cope with everything on my plate.

I seem to be disliked and shunned at most places but at least work wise, I got a confirmation and a slight pay rise, which is cause for celebration.

What's more? I am planning a trip to Amsterdam to visit my friend and to the A-Ha! farewell concert! How exciting can that be?? Very exciting. Only thing I have to straighten out now is my practicum for my course as I am not sure whether it will end the same time my course date ends or it will commence after my end of course date. No one, until now, can give me a straight answer. Anyhows, I will keep my fingers crossed and plan with caution first.

As the Lunar year is coming to an end, I hope all the bad stuff will go off soon and the good stuff will come soon.

Chyi, Tiger Huang, Pan Yue Yun & Wan Fang

Went Genting to see their concert. Out of the 4, love Chyi the most. Love her "Olive Tree" (gan lan shu) song and "Stories". Perhaps that is why I am what I am called today because of her song. Haha.

Tiger Huang Xiao Hu was my Dad's favourite and mine in a way. I love her song, "More than just friends". The song is about this woman who is always there by this guy's side, sharing his pains and happiness and when he has anything, he will go to her, be it happy or sad. Little does he know that that the woman actually wants to be more than just friends. It describes my feelings totally. More so now than ever and when she sang this song, I let go and cried myself silly. It actually felt good. And Tiger Huang sings very well in live situations!

I cried yet again when Chyi sang her songs. She has a voice of an angel and she has a way of touching one's heart with her voice. What's more, this was my first time listening to her live and being so close to her. She said that this concert was about treasuring and loving women and who should treasure and love them? Ourselves. Powerful.

It was a good end to a horrible day but no sooner had we enjoyed ourselves, did we have to leave the place in a hurry so that I can get back to work on Monday, which is now!

Slash and MJ

Was doing some major packing and arrangement of stuff when I dug out loads and loads of photos and several files full of posters that I have torn out from the then Radio and TV Times (now 8 Days). I had painstakingly filed them but thought that my mum had but thrown them all away. You can imagine my surprise when I saw them again!

One of the posters was of Michael Jackson and Slash (former guitarist of Guns & Roses). I was just wondering to myself as to why they took a picture when I found my answer over the TV programme. After all, the whole world is reporting about MJ. Slash was playing the guitar on his song "Black or White".

Coincidentally, that is also my favourite song. Correction: that is my second favourite. My favourite would be "We are the World".

2 legends

Today, 2 legendary greats died today. One is Farah Fawcett, the other is Michael Jackson.

MJ's death came as a real shock to me. There was no warning whatsoever. He was preparing for his comeback tour in England and then this happened. He died of cardiac arrest. While for Farah (like I knew her so well), news about her not being well has already been out for awhile, so it did not come as too big a shock.

Nevertheless, it still took me by surprise as the last I heard about her was that she had amputated one leg. Well, I suppose this is better for them as they do not need to suffer any longer.

Night-night Michael. Night-night Farah.

p/s: Farah was Brad Pitt's idol.

Much ado about nothing

You must be wondering why I am writing the same topic as my blog title. Well, the truth is, I went to watch a Shakespearean play at the Fort Canning Park. It was a fantastically wonderful experience.

It was a casual affair with free seating all round. Luckily we arrived early though. There was already a long queue at 6pm when gates only open at 6.30pm. When the gates finally did open, we rushed to get a spot. It was not the centre of the stage but no matter. For who was to sit near me but my local idol, DICK LEE!!!!

It seems that the area we sat in was the media section (actually there were no marked areas, just that they happened to sit there). Michelle Chia and hubby was directly next to us and there were a bunch of other actors that I did not even know who were sitting around us. How did I know they were famous? There were these squealing girls who could not stop speaking as loudly as they could before the show and during the interval.

Love the picnic thing that is so casual and yet so fulfilling. We had bought the usual, ham, cheese, country loaf and drinks. I brought the picnic mat, mosquito repellent, mosquito repellent patches and wet wipes from home. Kiasu right? Well, better be prepared than to get bitten. I even lent my repellent to this lady who forgot to pack hers.

Repellents can also act as temporary deodorants. There was this really huge person (could not make out whether the person was a guy or gal). Had really bad B.O. and so I sprayed a generous lot where the person was sitting. Worked quite well! :)

All in all, I enjoyed myself and wouldn't mind doing it all over again when the next play in the park happens. Oh yes, I will promise myself to have more picnics at one park or another.

Another song that I like. This is the original version.

Song of the moment

This is my favourite song of the moment.

Une belle soiree

I had a very wonderful evening last night. I went to watch Melanie Pain sing at the Esplanade. It was a belated birthday present from a very nice friend.

For those of you who do not know who Melanie Pain is, she is the lead singer for Nouvelle Vague who has this very nice whispery sort of voice when she wants to. The sort that French singers are so good at.

We even got an autographed sampler for a mere $10. Some of our friends who went for the second session, did not get any. Apparently it was a while stocks last thingy.

We were very early in the queue and got front row seats-best seats in the house! The pianist, bassist and guitarist were all so cute!! Most importantly though, she had a very good voice, and very nice shoes! :P

As the night was still young after a short one hour odd mini concert, we went to have some drinks and cakes at what I like to call "that anal place". I would not say the name now but you will definitely see it if you were taking the bus or walking to Esplanade from Marina Square.

Food and tea was good though, except my dear friend almost lost her copy of autographed of the sampler. Thankfully, a cleaner found it for her (she left it in the toilet together with some other stuff). What a relieve to have found it back!

Concert tonight

SANDY LAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going for her concert tonight! Bought the tix like two to three months back I had to remind myself to keep it in the bag that I carry and once in awhile, check that it was really there! Haha!

If I manage to time myself efficiently, I would be taking one straight bus to the Indoor Stadium. Sigh...got to make sure that the shoes that I wear are comfortable. Can't be wearing stilettos.

Well, that does not mean that I cannot dress up! Hee... .Can't wait!

Silly me :(

Just went to double check on the date of the Hit Awards and it is the Deepavali weekend that I would not be around. Silly, silly, silly.

Nevertheless, I can still let my colleague know the price and see if she wants to go with someone else.

One down, three more to go.

Concerts, musicals, awards and such

Gosh!!! There are so many performances coming to town that I really do not know which one to go to. Worse of all is that I cannot go for all of them!

First of all, Rihanna is coming to town!! Not sure if any of my friends would be that interested to want to go and see her but I am prepared to go alone. The price is a little steep though. I am also waiting a little longer before purchasing the tix. I do not want them to pull a Robbie Williams on me. You see, he was supposed to come and we bought tix and all only to hear that he was cancelling his tour to this part of the world. There were refunds and all that but it was quite a big disappointment.

Then, another friend wants to see Kylie. Her, I am ok. Won't die if I don't see her concert. Besides, she cancelled before too! That was only coz she found out she had breast cancer just then.

To tell you the truth, the last time I saw one of these pop/ contemporary Western singers come, was when New Kids on the Block came to Town. Hahahahaha!!!! Don't laugh alright? They just came out with their comeback album and my childhood schoolmate, who now lives in the States, just went for their concert! I can't believe that after all these years, she is still so into them.

Then there is the musical, Cinderella, which is performed by Lea Salonga and a whole stellar cast from Broadway. That, I would very much like to watch too.

There is also the Singapore Hit Awards which my colleague is very interested in going.

Sigh...decisions, decisions. I would give Rihanna 90% affirmity of going and Cinderella 80%. As for Hit Awards, I will see what my colleague says tomorrow.

More on Natasha

Forgot to say that it is strange and yet coincidental that Natasha Bedingfield will be going on tour in the US with none other than, New Kids on the Block (NKOTB). Hahahahaha!!!!

They were my favouritest boy band during my time. NKOTB, Take That, EMF and a little more. Hmm....



Oh! By the way, I feel that she looks like a bigger version of Hilary Duff, whom I happen to like, due to her positive image.

Natasha Bedingfield

Quite a mouthful, I would say, for a star/singer. But this name has stuck with me. More like her voice has stuck with me.

I first saw her MV on MTV and I was thinking "who in the right mind would write a song that has lyrics so tacky that it made me hair stand?"

It was the song I want to have your babies. Now on hindsight, I think she did a great job for this as it is not an easy phrase to write into a song. What really caught my attention was the song Soulmate. It was like writing about how I was (and perhaps, is) feeling and when I fund out the name of the singer and put one and one together, I almost wanted to faint. How could I go out there and buy an album whereby I totally loved one song but totally had goosebumps when listening to another??

I eventually bought it anyway and did not look back. I find that her voice has this uniqueness about it. A little edgy but not too edgy like Duffy or Amy Winehouse and her lyrics have got meaning. Meanings that I like.

Just bought her US-released album, Pocketful of Sunshine a few days back. No regrets even though half of it were songs were from the previous album that I had (called N.B.)

Well, here is the URL for her MV on Soulmate (since the embedding was disabled):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEzbkGj7EaQ

p/s: Sorry, please cut and paste as either, there seems to be something wrong with the function at Blogger or my computer is too security-tight. Link doesn't seem o appear when I publish.

Updates to the film, In the name of God

Did a search over the Net and found that there were lots of buzz about this film and how it almost did not come to be. Here are the links:

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068956/
2. http://www.inthenameofgod.com/
3. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0731/p01s03-wosc.html
4. http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/07/rohail_hyatt.html

And here is the very beautiful piece of music/song sung by Shaan (character: Mansoor) when he was attending school in Chicago.


Here's another video of the actual scene where Mansoor was practising the song with Janie. The cinematography was wonderful:

Fei Fei

Lydia Sum died yesterday at the age of 60:
Please see full report at CNA.

Anthony Lun

Remember I said that this person, Anthony Lun, was a great show producer and arranger for music? Well at least I mentioned it in one of my Sandy Lam postings. Here he is.

He was actaully a singer, and still is, but he found his forte by being in the back-end, becoming a song writer and producer. With him as producer for big shows and concerts, it is always a treat for audiences to watch.

Cool arrangement

I went for Sandy Lam' concert when she came in December 2006. I felt that the new arrangement for this song is so cool. Anthony, the person who did the arrangements for this song and the producer for the whole concert, did a fantastic job.

Too bad, the (I suspect) illegal recording of this video did not do justice to the music, plus there was actaully a part where he played solo on the piano, which is not shown. Pity, for that was the most fantastic part.

My favourite French singer!

She was the first French singer whose CD I bought while I was studying in Suisse. The second singer I listened to was Patricia Kaas. Segara's voice has not 'failed' me, in the sense that I did not make the right choice in listening to her.

It was also recently that I found out, she was the one who acted as Esmeralda in Hunchback of Notre Dame: le musicale, and I have already heard one of the songs even before I watched the musical at the Indoor Stadium. The song is "Vivre".