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

For the longest time I have been raving on and on about Zee Avi @ Kokokaina. She finally had her homecoming gig in Malaysia since getting signed. About time!

50 minute set. Short but sweet. Well she doesn’t have that many songs. Zee started the night off with Poppy. Good way to get the crowd going. And it was a pretty decent crowd. About 3 thousand people made the night merry. Zee continued with Slow Hands, The Childhood. She followed that up with Honey Bee, Bitter Heart, You and Me and finally Kantoi! Her final song (yeah that was fast), The First Of The Gang, which incidentally was not written by her came up the block pretty fast.

Then came some dramatics. She thanked the crowd the organisers, brought her dad up there, Gold certification was awarded (probably Malaysia or Taiwan certification). Then it was done. The crowd (some of them) started leaving but I knew there was no way I was leaving till I heard my favourite, Monte. After some feeble attempts to calm the demanding crowd down, Adam the MC saved his head when Zee stepped out and performed, wait for it….Monte

That just wrapped up the night for me. Check out some pictures that the organiser Red Tix shared with me.

Some old Zee Avi postings of mine

http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=254
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=241
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=215
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=211
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=199
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=181
http://www.yumchar.net/otb/?p=57

Sorry folks, this is a bit outdated :).

I’ve never been a fan of KL Live because it was never meant to be a gig arena. First, it’s where Warp used to be. Secondly, it was where Ruums was and I’ve attended Akon there before. But, since it’s probably the only other intimate arena that KL has, let’s not be too demanding yeah?

I got there pretty early. Around 7pm for some dinner and drinks and was greeted by a tremendously LONG line. So, no way I was going to wait in line, I’ll just wait till later. The crowd was generally youngish and all look all prepped for some RAWKING.

When I decided to stroll into the arena, managed to cut a very long queue thanks to some mates of mine in the organising team. Parked myself upstairs but before long I went downstairs. It’s absolutely not conducive to be upstairs as it’s a stand concert and everyone’s at the same level.

As the band came out and Brian Molko started belting away Placebo tunes, it was evident that this was going to be a good night. However, they played most of their newer stuff. Not the end of the world but the crowd lapped it up anyway. Placebo started the night off with clearly the best song of their new album, Battle For The Sun.

The night progressed on and a couple of cult classics, Special K and Every You Every Me came on but that was it. No Pure Morning, no Nancy Boy, c’mon! When the crowd cheered louder for Bright Lights instead of their classics, it was pretty clear - Placebo were formed in 1994, perhaps some of this crowd weren’t even into music in Placebo’s early days.

Overall a good night but no alcoholic beverages.

Since Paramore were not coming to Malaysia, I had to watch them in Singapore. Another day, another roadtrip. Not too long ago, I was on the Florence & The Machine + The Xx roadtrip, so it has become a natural thing to do.

As I got to the stadium, what a crowd. A very young crowd who I predict are Twilight fans as well. Paramore’s debut and sophomore album catered more for the young ones. Brand New Eyes is a bit more matured in sound.

The night festivities kicked off at about 8pm, with an opening band, which I didn’t catch their name. They were pretty awful, the sound setup was poor and the lead vocalist can’t rawk out.

When Paramore came on, the lights went off - the crowd went MENTAL. They kicked the night off with Ignorance, then slayed Crushcrushcrush. What a way to start their gig. To tone the night down a little bit if it’s possible, Paramore queued up That’s What You Get and Looking Up. Careful and Let the Flames Begin before the infamous “This song is about Love, gone terribly wrong” line was screamed out by Hayley and everyone knew Never Let This Go was next.

Paramore then went back to a couple of songs from their first album, which were Pressure and For A Pessimist….

Then, all of a sudden, Decode came on and it was good night. But we all knew there was an encore. There always is and they hadn’t played the song that got them on the radar.

Hayley and her boys returned to belt out Misery Business and end the night for real this time with Brick By Boring Brick. Throughout the night Hayley engaged the crowd and everyone lapped it all up. It was an image of wholesome bringing the house down with some serious rock tunes. They partied like a rockstar. It was undeniably one of best gigs I have been too throughout my gigging life. I haven’t been to THAT many concerts, but I think I’m in the region of just under 100. So it was that good.

On another note, I have other reviews to post, mainly Florence & The Machine but I have not felt inspired of late to do anything about it. Tough.