Saturday, August 12, 2006
We Are Scientists 09.08.06
so
bing finally blogged about the gig. if you haven't read his review on the concert yet, don't.
read mine first.
cos i didn't bring my cam so i'm using pix from him.
=p
anyway,
when bing first told me that
we are scientists were coming to malaysia a couple of months ago, i was so freakin excited and anxious and..and..i couldn't wait...couldn't wait..i peed my pants...
hahah.
so we started fantasizing about how we would be the only guys in the whole of M'sia who probably heard them before so it'll be an intimate gig between the trio and us.
things we were dreaming about at first:
- getting Keith to hang around with us before the gig and have some beers
- getting personal pix with them and their autographs and their personal bodyparts and whatnot
- interviewing the band
then our worst fears were realised:
- shitz.fm started playing them again and again and again. heh, what's new there?
- my r&b-listening fwens started singing W.A.S songs
- their videos start to appear on tv
- advertisements of the gig flood the dailies
that's when we realised we probably shouldn't have dreamt that much and shall just go enjoy the show.
then when i e-mailed
zouk to find out more about possible age restrictions due to
Tiger being the sponsor of the event, my worst nightmare came to life:
the show was for ages 21 and above only!
but it's not everyday that a band like this comes M'sia, our music scene is sad as it is already, with visits by
INXS and
strippers-who-try-to-pass-themselves-off-as-singers.
so we decided to go buy tickets anyway..only RM60!! compare that to INXS and PCD's prices...madness.
*INXS ranges from RM62 to RM382!! haha, even for cheapest RM62 tickets, all you can see of the band is properly just dots on the stage from where you would stand..and I got to stand right in front of Keith Murray!! muahahahajust several hours after getting my tickets from Rock Corner Midvalley, bing calls to tell me he just won 4 tickets to go in. GAH!!
ok, so we thought with the tickets won, they would surely let us in despite being underaged..i mean, they must let the contest winners in, right??
so on wednesday, after getting 2 full day's rest from college because of the bug, i hoped i was recovered and ready.
around 6plus, bing, his 2 sisters, gee and i got into a car all ready
(dressed in what we perceived 21-yr-olds would wear) for the gig. the daily rush hour traffic jam was there and it took us more than an hour to get to this..lame man's excuse for piece of architecture.
arrived half an hour before the show was scheduled to start (which was 8). so we were loitering around the entrance, eye-ing the couple of top-heavy bouncers manning the gates every now and then as the crowd steadily grew. we could hear them inside playing some songs already!! heard This Scene Is Dead and Be My Baby..probably soundchecking.
anyway, this guy from
Channel [V], JayP or sumting like that, from..remote control or sumting like that
(i dunno, i don't watch those thingies). anyway, he was asking some guy some questions in front of the zouk entrance, which was right where we 5 anxious, worried minors were. the sad dude couldn't answer, so he pulled me in front of the camera and asked me instead...
he asked me what artiste to request a video of, so i just said we are scientists' nobody move, nobody get hurt. in retrospect, i regret not asking for a better video but
hey, i didn't know what else to say, ok?? some stranger just pull you in front of the camera and ask you questions you sure shocked right??so after that, JPee comes over and offers me one of 2 cd's to grab for answering the question:
i was like, shit.
gee asked me to just grab the 40-yr-old slut's one cos he already has click five...yeah, HE HAS CLICK FIVE...don't ask me why.
so around 8.30, people started entering, so we thought to just try our luck with the bouncers. ahead of us in the line, we saw people being turned away, presumably for being underaged or muslim (beer was served). when it was our turn, i tried to look old and just handed him my IC after being asked..he takes my IC, looks at it for a moment, then, get this,
holds it up to his eyes to get a close look, and then waves me in!!!
AHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHH!!!
i was this freakin happy when i got in. no lah, i didn't actually laugh out loud like that. but i wanted to though. =p
they stamped some invisible glow-in-the-dark ink thing on our wrists, then we proceeded to collect our free beers and grabbed a seat. heh, we posed for this guys who wanted to take pix of us drinking Tiger beer.
after awhile, we went to the dancefloor in front of the stage before too many people came. there was this opening act by a local band,
the deserters. they weren't bad.
picture courtesy of junkonline.netsort of a muhibah band, i liked the drummer, he kept making crazy face expressions while playing. the guitarist's guitar strap gave way half way through the set and he had to kneel down and play, which was quite funny. anyway, i felt their set was probably 1 or 2 songs too long as the crowd was getting restless to see the band they came to see. so when W.A.S finally took the stage amidst triumphant cheers from the audience at 10.30, the party finally got started.
setlist posted on stagefloor
first thing i noticed, they were definitely skinnier than i expected....
wohoo!! skinny geeks shall inherit the earth!i was standing right in front of Keith, which was all good but he kept blocking my view of Michael, which was kind of annoying.
i have to say, the sound set-up was poor depite the balls-bursting bass. Keith's lead guitar was too soft and had some problems with static. his pedal was giving problems too and we had to strain our ears at some part just to hear his guitar-riffs like the guitar solo part in Inaction which was ruined because of this.
overall volume was too loud though, or maybe i shouldn't have stood right next to the amplifiers. =p it was the only way to stand right in front of stage.
lead singer/guitarist keith was looking
hawt great with the hair i've always wanted to have, his singing was fantastic, the band's playing was tight. anyway, the whole thing's sponsored by Tiger, so some bottles of beer were placed strategically on the stage for them to chug down between songs and i saw Michael take a sip before whipping out his own bottle of Jack Daniel's!
he never touched the Tiger after that.ahaha.
nothing compares to watching the real thing live
in between songs, keith and chris was making the crowd laugh with their witty exchanges about KFC grease as they traded blows making fun of each other, with chris being the easy target as keith taunted him about his love life. would have liked to hear michael talk though, he didn't say a word throughout.
expectedly, the crowd responded most to hits, Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt, It's A Hit, and Inaction.
the climax of the gig, the orgasm of the lovemaking, would probably be when they performed a cover of The Ronnettes' Be My Baby when Keith hopped on to the 7-ft amplifiers as he serenaded to the audience, after which he jumped into the crowd, right in front of me!!
the crowd went wild trying to get to him and molest him in a thousand and one places. all i did was ruffle his hair...twice....i ruffled his hair....twice!!
hahah, the crowd was trying to push past me as i tried to hold my ground and bing even reached his hand down keith's pocket looking for souvenirs!
picture courtesy of junkonline.nethe was out in the crowd for so long till a crew member
(was that his green-eyed girlfriend?) had to come out and reclaim him.hahah. some guys who tried to get on stage in the process were duly shoved off.
chris showing off his bass autographed by Kim Deal of The Pixies fame. it says "Chris Sucks", he proudly announced.
boy, he rocks.
the show ended on a high with an energetic performance of The Great Escape, with the crowd bobbing up and down and lots of pushing and shoving going on as some monkeys tried to make their way to the front, my glasses almost got knocked off twice.
picture courtesy of junkonline.netyou can see gee in this pic!
overall, despite some glitches here and there,
i LOVED it!!
didn't want the night to end, we hung around hopefully to catch another glimpse of them but alas, they never came out, not even when we waited where we thought was the back entrance to zouk. hahah.
Come on you can't go home
The night is young
I'm blacking out
But it's been fun
after the gig, i had this whirring sound in my ears non-stop, we were practically shouting at each other to communicate..outside zouk! it was still there the next day but i can't hear it anymore now. not sure if it's really gone or i've already grown so accustomed to it.gah
whoa, that's one hell of a long post, if you've been reading since the start, congratulations!!
and thank you.
Posted by ~z at 10:35 AM