Serdang Countdown 2013

31 December 2012

Around the beginning of December last year I received a call from my cousin who was the counsellor of MPSJ to do a band performance for their Serdang Countdown event at Seri Kembangan. After several discussions with our band members, we decided to go perform, but with a slight member change: Rhythm guitarist was Raee (Daniel's friend) and Drummer was Milo (borrowed from Dustin's band).

December was a really scary month for me last year, as half of the month I was occupied with my studies, and after that I went for a trip to Singapore, relatives came over to visit for Comic Fiesta and a 3 days continuous performance to end my year. Looking back it was seriously pretty hectic, I don't even know how the heck I survived. So back to the Countdown performance topic, our band was supposed to perform for a set of 45minutes. My cousin prefers a performance with mix of languages, so we decided to perform 2 english, 2 chinese, and 2 japanese songs for the countdown.

Event poster:

Preparation and Jamming

I couldn't recall how many times we jammed for this performance, maybe at most 3 times, since it's the CrestFall curse lol, we were always pretty rushed for almost everything. The final jamming was the night before the countdown event, which I have to go jamming right after my Christmas busking performance at sunway pyramid (see how messed up my schedule is--i'm copying what David always say haha).

As you can see from the pictures below, I was still wearing my performance outfit, the green mori-styled dress. For the final jamming, my sister decided to come along to listen (if i'm not wrong she joined us for two jamming sessions while we were preparing for the countdown event); and Acap came along to support too~ He went to Sunway to support me and Carlson's christmas busking during the day, and joined our jamming session at night. He even went to the Countdown event that day to support us, thanks soooo much! Carlson joined the jamming session helping us take pictures too~ It was the only session that has so many people joining, the merriest jamming ever.

 

Discussing some stuff..

Resting while discussing on our performance outfit

Group shot without flash

With flash

Performance day - Before performance

My mum and I went to the venue early in the morning to make sure we got the place right (plus testing out our new GPS). At that time the place was still really empty, and I thought it was just a really small event, nothing to worry about. But after reaching there, I knew I was kinda wrong. There was a huge crowd there, I couldn't even see the end of the crowd from the stage, haha. Apparently the whole street was closed for the event.

We all reached there rather early, but I somehow still felt really rushed. Probably due to the sound engineers being late, so we were unable to do our sound check on time. And when they did came, all other performers wanted to do sound check as well ==. Seriously can't believe that sound engineers could be late for their jobs; and not just that! Their knowledge with the props is seriously speechless--they plug on the cables wrongly ohmygod. And at first they don't even bother about us, trying to ignore us when we asked for help on the sound check. Many problems with the props for example there were no keyboard amps, the guitar amps did not have distortion, no monitors, many many more..i could use another blog post for that lol.

It was pretty much a huge challenge to perform on such a stage where everything is insufficient (even the cables were extremely short so my band members have to be stucked behind haha). I was kinda panic before performing arranging slots to do more sound checks because Daniel realised the problems on the cables, and also thinking how to drag our performance for at least 40 minutes hahaha.

The Crowd:

 

My parents were in this picture, my cousin too ^^.

View from the stage: you guys don't really get to see this view unless you are a performer lol. And I personally love seeing this from up the stage, sort of my drive to perform ^^

During Performance: 

To me, my time on stage always flies by so fast, this time was a little harder because I was seriously working hard on dragging our performance to fulfill the time slot given. The organisers wanted us to perform longer as they have not much performance left for the night, and they wanted the crowd to stay until 12am for the fireworks display. I asked help from the emcees, to chit chat with us during our performance break, and it kinda works lol.

 It's really hard to find picture that has all of our band members in it. I've been digging hard from my picture album and gotten a few to show ^^.

There's no me in this picture because I was standing further in front. The stage was really (really) huge BUT the cables were short ==. So you see our band lineup all behind hahaha. And Raee was covered by the smoke, can only see his leg.

One more thing about the performance is the smoke and spotlights. It's really cool since it was my first time performing which those effects and it looks kinda amazing haha, feels like a super star. I couldn't see the audience at all since the smokes were everywhere (but i heard comments from the audience and they said they could see us clearly haha), I guess it's good for people who wants to perform but has stage fright. The spotlights were really hot, but I'm kinda used to it because some other stage has it.

More pictures of us in action:

 This was when I was chatting with the emcees (to drag time). We talked many lame stuff, and I feel kinda stupid, but whatever works well works ^^. During the break Joee played To Zanarkand from FFX, and after that the emcee talking session for around 3-4 minutes.

 This was the guy who gave me that red flower lol. And I forgot the next line of lyrics hahahaha. but no one realise I guess so it's fine ^^

Song list:

1. Hirano Aya - God Knows : This was cool coz when we started off the audience faces was epic, all like "HUH?" hahaha. I purposely chose Japanese as the first song to give people a shock.)

2. Taylor Swift - Sparks Fly

3. Sun Yanzi - First Day

Break: To Zanarkand (Joee's Solo)

4. ZONE - Secret Base

5. Rainie Yang - Yu Ai

6. Aerosmith - I don't wanna miss a thing

Members:

 Lead Guitarist - Daniel

 Rhythm Guitarist - Raee

 Bassist - Dustin

 Keyboardist - Joee

 Drummer - Milo

 Members playing~

And lastly, me the Vocalist ^^

It was a really great experience for us, and I really hope we could get more chances to perform in future. Thanks for reading such a long post~ Just wanted to write down whatever I could remember for the event, so that I could look back in the future ^^

Here's the performance videos:



Sunway Christmas Busking for Charity 2012

29 and 30 December 2012

Around end of November last year, I somehow saw an email newsletter by Sunway Pyramid asking for Charity Buskers for Christmas, while so happen a friend of mine informed me about the same thing, and this is how I decided to just try applying to see if I got accepted to perform. To apply, we were supposed to send in a performance video related to christmas. I put "we" here because at that point of time I feel that a live acoustic performance would be better than a usual karaoke-backing solo performance, live performance is somehow warmer and has more christmas feel~ 

My first step(and problem) was to find a partner to either play the acoustic guitar or keyboard for me. It's definitely hard as most of my friends were busy towards the end of the year, or they have made plans etc etc. But! I was lucky enough to get an OK from Carlson and together we made a christmas video for event registration:

White Christmas - Soulful Version

White Christmas - Strumming Version

We did it this way: Carlson recorded some clips for his guitar parts, and I matched my voice recording to his guitar and finalized by adding my video clip beside his. I don't think I did a good job at the video because for some reason the video always got blurred after rendering, and this was my first time editing a video so I'm still pretty much blur about it. Carlson recorded two versions of White Christmas, and I ended up doing both because I couldn't decide which is better lol.

It took a week for Carlson for his videos to reach me, and plus another few more days for me to record vocals + video editing. We had to seriously rush for it because it was super near the video submission dateline, and we were busy with our own stuff (exams for me, I forgot what Carlson was busy with that time). After Sunway management saw our video they asked if we could perform for two days instead of one. And we agreed to just die die go for it, just for the sake of youth lol what a thing to say.

Our performance was set at 28 and 29 December 2012, 3.30-3.50pm and 4.00-4.20pm. We haven't got much time for practice because half of the December I was pretty occupied with my exams, and after that Carlson has camps to go, and many other activities as well. Our first meetup/practice was at MidValley, we found a nice cafe that was quiet and open air so we could strum and sing as we like haha. We didn't get to do much that day other than to go through what has to be done and decide on song choice for the event.

Our 2nd practice (which was our final practice =_=) was at Taylor's Lakeside, where we went into an empty classroom to practice. Practice that day was relatively progressing well, but there's still many hickups and stops along the way. Days before the performance we tried practicing through Skype, which I think was epic failure because we cannot play and sing at the same time lol. Meaning when I start singing the guitar sound won't be able to transmit to me, and when he start playing he can't hear me sing haha. Kind of a disaster. But we did discussed what to wear through skype, thinking of what accessories to add to have that christmassy feel.

On the performance day itself, we went Daiso to prep up ourselves, including buying a toy bell lol, safety pins and I can't remember what more. And after lunch we went to find a place for our final preparation.

Carlson took this picture while we were practicing lol

Here are some pictures during our performance:

Day 1: Main Concourse

Day 1 Ground Floor Water Feature Area

Donation box ^^

Day 2 Ground Floor Water Feature Area

We really loved the stage decorations at the Main Concourse, it was definitely one of the most beautiful stage I've performed on. The theme last December was Spanish Antoni Gaudi ceramic mosaics, I felt particularly amazed as I just went Spain for a holiday last July and saw many of Gaudi's work. The people working back stage were really friendly, they helped us a lot with the preparation and set ups, so that we wouldn't have to worry about any of those stuffs.

Overall I think we did an average job, mainly due to the serious lack of meetups, and of course, Carlson's busy schedule. Lots of funny and panic moments when we were on stage but we managed to survive at least lol. It was our first time pairing with each other, and yes I did enjoyed his company. Nevertheless we did have loads of fun performing, and it was kinda touching seeing people gave donations during our performance, we felt like we were contributing something to the society ^^. And of course some of our friends(and my family) who came over to support us for both the days, thank you very much as well.

Fashion wise; For day 1 I decided to be seriously on Christmas mode, so I wore a bright red knitted top, paired with full lace shorts + black leggings, while day 2 I wore something very mori-styled, a new layered green dress my mum bought for me on my birthday ^^. Carlson wore different for both days, but I guess there isn't much difference to be seen from the pictures lol, thats how guys usually wear ==. But he did put on a cute santa pin I bought from a christmas fair, and he is still keeping it now haha.

Our commemorative picture at the end of our performance:

I'll end the post with some videos taken for the two days, do enjoy~

 

Tong Pak Fu (糖百府) Desserts

Though I do admit I don't have a sweet tooth, but it's still fun to go for desserts with my family for tea (or sometimes we would replace meal times for dessert if we want to have something light). My family loves going to Tong Pak Fu ever since our first visit, mainly because there's a branch near where we stay, and also the choice of food available there (not justthe  usual hot desserts, but snow ice, western desserts and even some finger food as well).

The interior has the striking combination of orange x white, which gives the youthful feeling; I guess maybe it feels young to have desserts, I don't know lol.

 

I'll start with some hot desserts which have always been the hot pick for my mum and sis, not for me though as I prefer something "lighter" for the buds.

 

Almond Cream (RM5.80). I took this because my mum complained about me having too much cold drinks (bad for my health etc etc). Thought I could finish this because I love almond, but I had to force myself to gulp down in order not to waste it. Not to say that it's bad, it's very smooth and rich, very good for almond lovers; Just that I'm not used to having thick hot desserts, will feel "jelak" very fast.

 



Black Glutinous Rice Cream with Coconut Milk (RM5.80). This is the usual order for my mum and sis, I do sometimes take this as well. Don't know why, but I can somehow take this without feeling heavy, good when I'm feeling for some hot desserts~

 



 

 Black Sesame Cream (RM5.80). Haha, this. I have a serious dislike towards black sesame, just can't take the smell and the taste, BUT my whole family loves it =__=. They love red bean as well, which I don't understand why; but lately I can somehow accept grean beans, some sort of improvement i guess..

Apple Tart with Vanilla Ice Cream (forgotten the price). I've ordered this at least twice, loving the apple tart a lot! Although I sometimes don't get why most western desserts here have that vanilla ice cream there even though it doesn't really match.

 



 

Chocolate Lava Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream (RM12.80). This is one of their signature western dessert, and each order have to wait up to 15minutes (if i'm not mistaken) for preparation. Love the part where I take a bite of the lava cake together with the ice cream, that hot + cold feeling is great~ The outer part of the lava cake is rather crispy, and the inner part is soft with melted chocolate. Although I would recommend sharing if you can't take too much sweet at a time, or easily get overwhelmed with sweetness.

 



Chicken Cutlet (RM9.80). This one taste great for snacks (when your tongue gets so bored with all the sweets, and sweets and sweets), however I would prefer it to be boneless, like the ones in chatime or taiwan street food stalls.

 



 

Tempura (RM8.80). I do not really recommend this because I do not understand the taste lol. It's somewhat soft and doesn't have much flavor. 

 

 

Curry Chee Cheong Fun (Forgotten the price). The curry is good, medium spicyness, with sprinkles of dried prawn and fried onions; good for sharing ^^.

I did not take any pictures for the Snow Ice, but would definitely recommend that, especially the Green Tea flavored one. There's also durian flavor so you should definitely try some if you are a durian lover.

Would definitely keep visiting them for desserts~ Heard that they have some new menu so I'm looking forward to try them out too ^^