:: A Malaysian on Music, Gigs, Concerts. ::

Mass updates today.

Tributes go out to Heath Ledger (1979 - 2008) who was found dead in his NY Apartment. Drugs? He was a talented actor with memorable roles in The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale, Brokeback Mountain and coming up as the Joker in the next Batman film, The Dark Knight. I look forward to that.

Tributes also go out to Brad Renfro (1982 - 2008), best known to me for his role as Marty in Larry Clark film, Bully (2001).

No one will really know why these young and successful actors felt the need to end their life, whether it was accidental or with a purpose. What I do know is, their contributions to the film industry, whilst it may not be for that long will be remembered.

Brings back sordid memories of Johnathan Brandis, Brandon Lee and River Phoenix.

RIP Brad and Heath.

Since American Idol is one of my guilty pleasures and a big part of this blog was American Idol predictions for 2006, I thought I’ll recap the time that passed.

AI 2006: I predicted McPhee and the silver haired dude won it. Recently the rumour mill says that Taylor was dropped by his label. Hmm, guess one prediction that Daughtry would sell more albums turned out to be true.

AI2007: Pretty lousy year but my pick was Blake Lewis or Brandon Rogers. Dunno what he’s up to but Jordin and that Tattoo song? Who the hell writes lyrics like that? Shocker.

AI2008: There was some girl with the name firstname, leigh cook or something along those lines. I thought she was pretty good. Might turn out to be another Alaina from 2006? Who knows.

2007 wasn’t really a year for gigging and you could tell by the number of actual performances/concerts that I actually went for.

February 2007: Muse@Stadium Negara, KL
This was a superb concert. Crowd was into it. Muse played the classics such as Hysteria, Plug In Baby, New Born, etc. It was slightly disconcerting when the crowd reacted to Starlight and Supermassive Black Hole more than the older tracks. Quite possibly the best gig of the year for me.

March 2007: Rachael Yamagata@Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore
I absolutely adore Rachael and no way I was going to miss this. I did however regretfully miss quite a number of splendid acts such as Jose Gonzalez, Tristan Prettyman, Rosie Thomas, and tonnes more, but I live in Malaysia and not Singapore, hence the logistic issues. Back to Rachael. She was amazing and gave a compelling performance, engaging the crowd wherever she could. Despite loosing her voice for some parts of the performance, it was still special. Plus, the concert was a birthday gift. Lush. I took a moment to reflect on what great arena the Esplanade is and all we have are sporadic locations such as KLCC, Sentul West, some concert halls here and there, Stadium Negara, Bukit Jalil and pretty much nothing else in Malaysia.

April 2007: Kanye West@Stadium Negara, KL
This was a bloody west of time and money. Kanye’s a fantastic recording artiste but his arrongance and cockiness is way over the top. Sure, he beat out 50 cent but two ego-heads on an ego-trip battle is not really anything to talk about anyway. Kanye’s gig in KL suffered from two aspects, the organisers and his ego. Aside from hanging out at the mosh pit area and discovering people who spent less on tickets right next us and complete crowd mismanagement, the one that topped it all off was a bank advertisement that played over and over and over again for about an hour. Oh yeah, the gig started late too. Did I also mention that Kanye decided to stop singing/rapping and get his DJ to spin tunes that he liked. Not even the whole tune. Enough said. No more Kanye gigs for me.

November 2007: Live n’ Loud KL: James Morrison/Rick Price/Dayang Nurfaizah@KLCC, KL
Dayang opened. She was alright. Rick Price who most of us only knew one or two songs from him. Shocker: he was pretty alright, getting into his bluesy stuff and improv stuff. Capped the night off with Heaven Knows (duh). James Morrison was fantastic. He is a spectacular live performer and since this was the acoustic night, it was even better. He took awhile to come out and the crowd thought the audio guy was him. Curly locks and all. Funny stuff all around. I especially liked his covers of The Zuton’s Valerie, Ray LaMontagne’s Hold You in My Arms and Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

2007 Hits and (or) Misses
Gave Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas a miss. Why? Gwen was performing under strict control to not go overboard during the concert. Skimpy clothes and overboard performances are in Gwen’s forte. I hate censorship and I especially hate censorship in gigs. As for Black Eyed Peas, I missed the gig because of it being in Genting on Friday. Work reality.

In short, 2007 was mediocre, didn’t make it for any rock festivals or Jazz festivals or world music festivals. Maybe 2008.

After a hiatus of more than one year, I have decided to try to revive my blog.

Artiste of the mo’: Glen Hansard.

Check him out. He’s the musical genious behind the music in ONCE.