First of all,on behalf of Band 93,I'd like to thank the organizers of Step Up! for Charity Concert (Taylor's School of Architecture & Design - Foundation in Natural Build Environment) for allowing us to get a spot to perform in the Talent Show to raise fund for the Malaysian Kidney Foundation.'twas an event held for a good cause whereby admission tickets are priced at RM15,proceeds were to go to the health foundation itself.as usual,Band 93 being Band 93,we wouldn't wanna miss a single opportunity to gain both experience AND exposure,however,there were only 5 of us instead of our usual 6 because Adam decided to perform on his own this time.also,a few changes have been made,not on the line-up but more to what the line-up does.
- Neo remained the vocalist.
-I remained the guitarist,but this time i'm only playing rhythm and i had to backup Neo's singing.
-Ken Yue remained the drummer and ever-so-stressed-out manager.
-Nadzmi went from bassist to lead guitarist.
-Josh went from keyboardist to bassist.Interesting story here,he messed up the date on his mind and thought yesterday was only gonna be our band meeting day and the event was on some other day.The best part was he had a pre-baptism course AND a complimentary dinner to attend,all on the same night.Solution?We borrowed a bass from one of the guest performers and Josh skipped his other events to be our bassist.Things we'd do for the band :') Passion is indeed power.
Back to the story,all of us had to stay back in uni until nightfall.Ken Yue and I had classes until 12-ish.For a second,when our lecturer almost made us stay back to finish up our Asian level context diagram and Level Zero Diagram,she actually let us out earlier than we expected.We then moved on to our little 'headquarters',SLC (Student Life Centre-where us students go during our free time to get a life,thus the name,lol) for our band meeting.Nadzmi had been around since 10am considering the fact that he no longer had classes to worry about.Josh and Neo showed up a few minutes later and the discussion began.Then again,song arrangement only took 1% of the discussion time,the remaining 99% was all about 9Gag jokes and other unrelated stuff.Eventually at about 1pm,the meeting ended and Nadzmi left for Friday prayers while me,Ken Yue and Mahirah went for lunch in Subway.Neo had classes and Josh stayed in SLC to catch up some foosball and pool sessions with Adam.When we came back to SLC,Mahirah left for her classes and we decided to have a little 'warm-up' while waiting for Neo to come.Let's just say our band has our own way of chilling before a performance.
Josh taking a chill pill as we had our meeting.
Ken Yue and I had a little friendly pool match,I almost got him but I lost the game by one ball,dammit!
And then Neo showed up earlier than expected and helped me own Ken Yue.
Nadzmi's intense foosball match with Josh.no idea who won,but they pretty much stalled us from going to the studio on time,lol.worth it though,the more stressful the game went,the more thrilling it was.
According to Ken Yue,he booked the studio at 3pm,but he then postponed it to 3.30pm because Neo had classes from 2.00-3.30pm.After goofing off until about 3:45pm,we only showed up in the studio at about 4.30pm LOL.We hitched Josh's ride and there was coincidentally a massive jam along the way.We then had a super rapid run-through of the song,altered some parts (which sparked some silly,childish argument among one another) and finally met a point of agreement when we had only 10 minutes left before we're supposed to return to uni for soundcheck at 5pm.Obviously we didn't make it on time and ended up soundchecking at 6.30pm++ instead of the actual time.There was yet another traffic clog up on our way back to uni considering the fact that we made a move at the exact same time the office staffs are going home.More 9Gag jokes to kill time,and some other crappy topics. Oh,did I mention Ken Yue accidentally leaving his phone in the studio and I lost my guitar tuner?
We reached the venue at about 6-ish and had to wait for the other bands to soundcheck first.Meanwhile,we managed to rehearse a little bit,grab some free food from the organizers as dinner and some other private businesses.Staircase rehearsal FTW! The show started at 8pm with the awesome Rhythm Nation and Seconds to Collide (which made Josh slept soundly like a baby).Then there was this speech by the dude from Malaysian Kidney Foundation and the show began.
Highlights of the night were:
1. The dancers who did a dance medley. (couldn't tell if the other dancer was a male or a female until we saw... whatever that needs to be seen to identify her identity LOOOOOOOL)
2.Ping (Lady gaga) who nailed Bad Romance with her showmanship and somewhat vocal strength.
3.An acoustic band consisting a guitarist (who reminded me of Sasi the Don,in terms of hairstyle) a really powerful singer and a cajon player (whom the audience deemed as 'box guy').The minute they were requested an encore,we knew they were gonna win something.
Then it finally came to our turn.I met one of the Sharifah sisters (Sharifah Alesha) and her bf backstage,they were to perform after us.The dude mentioned the fact that he seldom saw tudung girls such as myself picking up electric guitar,and I predicted that he might compare me to Yuna or Najwa Latiff,so I beat him to it,pointing out that i started guitar way before it was cool.Alesha wished us luck and we went into the limelight.We did a little set-up while Neo stalls the crowd and the show began! Long story short,Bad Romance intro was epic,until the bridge came when I rapped in the wrong key and Neo was somewhat influenced by me.It was then when the rest of us started to fuck up as well,Ken Yue's drum beats were everywhere,Josh played the wrong bass notes (or perhaps he forgot to retune the bass) and Nadzmi also did a minor error in his guitar solo.I guess Ping pretty much saved the show when she showed up on stage with us as we planned,so I figured maybe no one noticed all the fuck ups we made.This is where showmanship comes in handy ;) at that particular point,i knew we had no chance to win,so we decided that we were doing it for fun.Adam had the finale spot and nailed Sunday Morning & Rolling In The Deep.
Next there was this awesome band called The Metaphor.Hands down,the tightest instrumental band ever! Nadzmi bought their CD for RM18 and we agreed to share it with him.
We then had a little band photography session before I ran to Starbucks where my brother had been waiting for me for the past 45minutes.So fucked but so fun,LOL.
That was it people,one of the best shows I've had in my life in spite of lack of practice and alot of other fucked up factors.Still,I got to experience Line 6 Spider III amp,for fuck's sake it was damn amazing!
More pictures and footage of the performance coming soon.Stay tuned,I'll make an all visual version of this post later.Toodles folks!
