When I saw a poster advertising the Bootleg Beatles coming to Singapore, the first person I thought of was David. He's the biggest Beatles fan I know in Singapore, so I asked him if he'd like to go as well. My friends Wei Jing and Leong also wanted to go, so we bought tickets for relatively good seats.
I saw Paul McCartney live about seven years ago. It was one of the most special concert experiences I've ever had (I may or may not have violently kissed the kind friend who bought me the ticket afterwards), but Paul is not my favourite Beatle and he couldn't sing certain songs.
On the other hand, I'm not big on Beatles tribute bands. I've never seen one in my life. But for some reason, the little "and orchestra" tagline got me. I kept picturing the sweeping violins of Eleanor Rigby and the wild trumpet solos in Penny Lane. And I thought: if there is going to be one good way to listen to the Fab Four for an evening, surely this must be it.
For a change, I wore a frilly dress, heels and a pendant my mother made for me. The heels (New Look) are about three inches high but surprisingly comfortable - I danced at least half the night!
Apart from some slight traffic and timing snafus, the concert was WONDERFUL. First of all:
I know, right? That's not the actual Beatles. I just made that photo black and white for comparison and had to do a double take. Obviously they didn't look completely alike. "Paul" was a little too chinny and "George" didn't have quite the same bone structure. "Ringo" sounded nothing like the real Mr Parkin, but he was an amazing drummer. The resemblance was close enough that I could watch them for two hours and not feel like it was a fraud.
They had all the mannerisms down, right to Paul's cheesy head shaking and John's wide-legged stance, and I spent the whole night doing what I would have done anyway - staring at "John". That they spoke in Liverpudlian accents and did the same types of riffs and jokes ("Let's see your hands above your heads!" "Paul" shouted, to which "John" replied, "Now let's see yer feet above yer 'eads!") made it feel even more authentic.
And the music. Oh, the music.
They went through their Rock and Roll period (my favourite type of music) and ended with Twist and Shout and just the right amount of "linen tearing" in their voices. Then, they moved on to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. Gotta love the costumes!
Obviously there was no way they could play all the Beatles hits in one evening, let alone touch every album, so they skipped Revolver and Rubber Soul, but thankfully, Abbey Road was kept in the mix. (It's my favourite album and each time I listen to it, my mind is blown a different way).
The orchestra was brilliant. If you've never heard All You Need Is Love with the live opening of La Marseillaise, please do. Also, listening to I Am The Walrus in person was not something I ever imagined I would get the chance to do.
(Look at "John"! He's a dead ringer.) The acoustic version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was lovely, and Wei Jing and I were pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of Don't Let Me Down. There were so many songs I would loved to have heard (Revolution 9, David quipped), but with a catalogue of something like 600 numbers it was inevitable that many got left out. Anyway, we still got to "Na-na-na" our asses off to Hey Jude and I sang till my throat was raw.
Right at the end, on the fast songs, the string quartet actually got up and starting dancing with their instruments, which was both refreshing and funny. I saw the trumpet player jitterbugging with the violinist. We did our fair shair of dancing, and as nights go, it was warm, fun, happy and filled with lots of Beatlesque love.
Two other things that cheered me up yesterday:
I love fluid looking sculptures like this one at Promenade station.
And two drenched mynahs, friends of my house, sat on the air-conditioning unit outside my room while waiting for the torrential rain to stop. The one on the left has a bad leg and he often chills out on my balcony or outside my room since I don't have the heart to chase him away.
This picture cracks me up especially because at that very moment, I was writing a bit in Nanowrimo where two mynahs - you guessed it - sit on someone's window sill to ride out a storm. The universe works in mysterious ways.
I saw Paul McCartney live about seven years ago. It was one of the most special concert experiences I've ever had (I may or may not have violently kissed the kind friend who bought me the ticket afterwards), but Paul is not my favourite Beatle and he couldn't sing certain songs.
On the other hand, I'm not big on Beatles tribute bands. I've never seen one in my life. But for some reason, the little "and orchestra" tagline got me. I kept picturing the sweeping violins of Eleanor Rigby and the wild trumpet solos in Penny Lane. And I thought: if there is going to be one good way to listen to the Fab Four for an evening, surely this must be it.
For a change, I wore a frilly dress, heels and a pendant my mother made for me. The heels (New Look) are about three inches high but surprisingly comfortable - I danced at least half the night!
Apart from some slight traffic and timing snafus, the concert was WONDERFUL. First of all:
I know, right? That's not the actual Beatles. I just made that photo black and white for comparison and had to do a double take. Obviously they didn't look completely alike. "Paul" was a little too chinny and "George" didn't have quite the same bone structure. "Ringo" sounded nothing like the real Mr Parkin, but he was an amazing drummer. The resemblance was close enough that I could watch them for two hours and not feel like it was a fraud.
They had all the mannerisms down, right to Paul's cheesy head shaking and John's wide-legged stance, and I spent the whole night doing what I would have done anyway - staring at "John". That they spoke in Liverpudlian accents and did the same types of riffs and jokes ("Let's see your hands above your heads!" "Paul" shouted, to which "John" replied, "Now let's see yer feet above yer 'eads!") made it feel even more authentic.
And the music. Oh, the music.
They went through their Rock and Roll period (my favourite type of music) and ended with Twist and Shout and just the right amount of "linen tearing" in their voices. Then, they moved on to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. Gotta love the costumes!
Obviously there was no way they could play all the Beatles hits in one evening, let alone touch every album, so they skipped Revolver and Rubber Soul, but thankfully, Abbey Road was kept in the mix. (It's my favourite album and each time I listen to it, my mind is blown a different way).
The orchestra was brilliant. If you've never heard All You Need Is Love with the live opening of La Marseillaise, please do. Also, listening to I Am The Walrus in person was not something I ever imagined I would get the chance to do.
(Look at "John"! He's a dead ringer.) The acoustic version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was lovely, and Wei Jing and I were pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of Don't Let Me Down. There were so many songs I would loved to have heard (Revolution 9, David quipped), but with a catalogue of something like 600 numbers it was inevitable that many got left out. Anyway, we still got to "Na-na-na" our asses off to Hey Jude and I sang till my throat was raw.
Right at the end, on the fast songs, the string quartet actually got up and starting dancing with their instruments, which was both refreshing and funny. I saw the trumpet player jitterbugging with the violinist. We did our fair shair of dancing, and as nights go, it was warm, fun, happy and filled with lots of Beatlesque love.
Two other things that cheered me up yesterday:
I love fluid looking sculptures like this one at Promenade station.
And two drenched mynahs, friends of my house, sat on the air-conditioning unit outside my room while waiting for the torrential rain to stop. The one on the left has a bad leg and he often chills out on my balcony or outside my room since I don't have the heart to chase him away.
This picture cracks me up especially because at that very moment, I was writing a bit in Nanowrimo where two mynahs - you guessed it - sit on someone's window sill to ride out a storm. The universe works in mysterious ways.
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