Not Quite An Arms Race
March 5th, 2007
it was definitely a scene at the Singapore Expo last Saturday, when punk rock band Fall Out Boy were in the Lion City to promote their 4th and latest album, Infinity On High.
prior to the night of the event, publicity of the show was almost non-existent in KL. even in Singapore, news of the concert went around mostly by radio and word-of-mouth. however,
okay so it seems i no longer have to do a write-up on Fall Out Boy’s gig in Singapore. so to hell with the customary sanguine politeness of mainstream media reviews! i shall tell it like it is! it is no holds barred from hereon! (unless of course, you are a publication who didnt send anyone to cover the event, but think it may be nice to feature the gig. in which case, you can email amateur ol’ me.)
anyway yes, i dont know why the publicity and advertising for FOB were so paltry. i would think that for a band so big, the concert would be touted all over the streets of Singapore and KL, especially now that FOB have managed to tap into mainstream audiences (though i’m not sure if that is a good thing). and what with Singapore being the only Asian stop in their 4 month long worldwide tour! if i were the organizers, i would have been more than happy to spend a few extra bucks just to blow the event out of the water. i mean, it’s Fall Out Boy! dude!
when i got to the Expo, i must say the initial sentiment i had was one of disappointment. walking into the enclosed concert hall, there were kids as far as the eye could see. i dont mean kids like kids my age, i mean kids like kids aged 10-13!!! see lah, this is what you get when good bands go mainstream. you have all these fake-eyelashed preteen girls going to rock concerts in glittery high heels and boys who think they’re cool if they’re wearing a tshirt that says ‘I’m A Sex Instructor’. upon sight of 2 such tshirts and too many prom-queen girls, i started to prepare myself for the fact that this would not be a good concert.
at 8.10pm, Malaysian band One Buck Short opened for Fall Out Boy! that was a very pleasant surprise, coz i thought it was just a rumour that they were going to be the opening act. so amidst the crowd of some 5000 (teenybopper) Singaporeans, there was 1 Malaysian pinkpau that night feeling very bangga for the Malaysian local music scene. heehee.
i like the fact that One Buck Short are totally laidback and not image-driven as some bands can be. Izal came onstage in a purple shirt that said Fart Wars… hahaha wtf so cute. lead vocalist Mooky wore this jacket that you’d wear out to get a pack of smokes or something. that’s keeping it real. i loved that they didnt try too hard to impress, which is the case most of the time for opening acts. but is it just me or has One Buck Short’s musical style taken a new Simple Plan-esque direction? i remember listening to their EP songs and they weren’t anything like what i heard at the concert.
Saw Loser, a Singaporean hybrid band, was the 2nd opening act of the night. man, they are one good example of image-driven bands who try too hard. i’ve only heard of Saw Loser in passing, but i did not expect to see what was clearly a Greenday-’inspired’ band walking onstage to perform. white spiky hair, red necktie, black shirt .. all present. aiyo. their music was okay, i thought it wasnt too bad, but i really was just eying their very VERY dishy guitarist the whole time :D
but apparently Greenday hairstyles and sexy guitarists are not enough to win over the Singaporeans. throughout Saw Loser’s set, people kept booing and there were scattered yells of ‘get off the stage!’. i thought it was just a case of impatience on the crowd’s part, but then i asked around, and it turns out that Saw Loser is not very well-liked in Singapore. ‘arrogant’ and ‘lame’ were some of the adjectives i got. well, okay. but they got lengchai guitarist wor.
anyway, bla bla bla, insert 20-minute wait while roadies did sound checks .. and finally Fall Out Boy comes on stage!!!!! but big yawn for opening gambit, we got the same ole same ole Smoke Machine and Blinding White Light ‘do. geez. is a little bit of creativity too much to ask for?
i wish i could give you a long detailed blog about the awesomeness of the whole gig, but i honestly dont have a lot to say about Fall Out Boy’s 1-hour performance. the whole thing just fell a little bit short of my expectations. they performed as if they were barely there; only guitarist Joe Trohman made attempts to muster up some semblance of showmanship. it was all very lacklustre. the crowd went wildest only when they played old tracks like Dance Dance and Sugar, We’re Going Down. even when they did This Ain’t A Scene, the hall wasnt exploding as it should have. and i didnt like the light engineering either - it was poorly done, and just didnt maximize the performances the way good light engineering would.
i have something i want to say about my experience in this concert. from the very start of the show even before the opening acts came on, it was very clear that this crowd was an exceptionally pushy and rude one. throughout the event, my brother and i witnessed more than several tussles between people who were trying to shoulder their way to the front. all these vicious white girls were shoving small angsty asian girls, and in return the small angsty asian girls were bitching back in Mandarin. even the boys werent giving face to girls who were tiptoeing to get a better view; they had the nerve to push the girls’ heads down, and on a few occasions called them less than savoury names.
momentarily i was confused. the last standing-pit concert i went for was the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival, where as i recall, everyone was very friendly and they were all there to have a good time as one crowd. people were passing joints around and giving you space to move ahead if you wanted. even when Hoobastank and Simple Plan came to KL, the crowd was friendly and cooperative. Linkin Park was a little bit unpleasant thanks to a few jakun groups in the pit area, but overall it was bearable.
Fall Out Boy, on the other hand, was just oh my gawd. i was so bewildered, wondering what the hell is going on, is this not supposed to be a civilized country that has international acts coming to perform all the time? i mean, coming to a rock concert with high heels is pardonable, but this is a freaking ROCK CONCERT.. isnt there some unwritten rule that you are not allowed to be uptight at a rock concert?? just chill out and enjoy the music lah right. what’s with all the animosity and this massive free-for-all to get to the front??
the answer to that only dawned on me much much later when i was in my hotel room drinking diet coke and pondering the intricacies of contemporary concert-goer behavioural patterns : i kinda forgot that i was in the land that invented the word ‘kiasu’. haha.
there’s also a more universal problem about concerts these days. because we’re smack in the middle of the camera-phone and digital camera revolution, the typical average concert pit has now become a massive 3-hour congregation of people sticking their arms up in the air to take pictures. yeah sure, taking pictures is fine, but how do you have fun at a pit concert when you’re taking photos all the damn time? must worry about stability lah, must worry about composition lah, must worry about changing shutter speed lah .. aiyoh. it just gets in the way of personal satisfaction, and when too many people do it, it affects the concert crowd as a whole. have people forgotten how to enjoy music?
Fall Out Boy eventually sent a friend down to the pit to start a mosh. it was not bad at all, my brother was in it and he reports that it was a good mosh. haha i remember when these bunch of white guys tried to start a mosh pit when Incubus came to KL, and security came to stop them. kudos to Singaporean concert organizers for being happening!
the night ended with Fall Out Boy’s extremely gorgeous bassist Pete Wentz going down to the crowd for his dose of ego-inflating. that man is unbelievably hot despite his cockiness (at one point, girls were screaming his name, and he just rolled his eyes at them. gasp, the nerve), and how can a girl not swoon at his lyrical genius? for the uninformed, Pete Wentz is the one who pens the lyrics to FOB’s songs and comes up with their infamous song titles like ‘Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued’ and ‘I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me’.
and he’s sexy. which would explain why girls literally tore the shirt off his back when he was held over the crowd at the end of the show. and believe you me, catfights ensued after the show, over bits and shreds of his blue tshirt that ironically read, ‘Leave Me Alone’. hahaha oh girls. why do you feed such sarcasm!
and i must admit that the very moment Pete Wentz came onstage, the first thing i thought was, dude, i’ve seen your penis in all its shaved glory.
this is me sitting on the floor of the concert hall after the concert was over, on which i spotted bra cups, remains of sweat-stained clothing, a soiled sanitary pad and lots and lots and lots of discarded shoes.
i apologise, george, i have no videos! wait, actually i do. but you can barely hear anything from all the fuzz :(
34 Comments Add your own
1. turquoise | March 5th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
bra cups, sanitary pads ?! ewww.
2. reallybites | March 5th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
and u sumore can sit on the dirty floor!
3. anon | March 5th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
FOB=teen rock - didn’t you realise earlier? =)
4. songjun | March 5th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
you’re getting too cryptic already la haha
5. k0k | March 5th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Pete Wentz look so happy with his shirt torn off. WHat a hypocritical teeshirt.
6. clem | March 5th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
completely unrelated to your entry, but you’ve watched mukhsin!? wasn’t it due to be released on 8th march?
most importantly, how was it? :)
7. vvens | March 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
you look very cute in that picture. hehehehe.
and eeeeeeeeeeew. how come there are bra cups and sanitary pads? what the the ladies did. *_*
8. entwined | March 5th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
wtf. soiled sanitary pads? how the hell does one actually manage to throw away a soiled sanitary pad in a concert arena packed with ppl?
and i like your shoes. are they adidas?
9. Jen | March 6th, 2007 at 1:00 am
lyrical genius indeed!! i do partial cringes whenever i mention that i fancy the stylings of FOB and so-called music conoisseurs throw me that “ugh, mainstream bimbo” look. but oh well, it cant be helped.
curses upon technology. look what it did to Our Lady Peace. they were totally rocking it. ‘were’.
and i am totally envious of you. getting to see them live and up close? one can only dream!
10. melvin | March 6th, 2007 at 1:20 am
nice combination for concert..white shoes with a lil pink(pau), black attire and white over it..kissing to the camera, reminds me of guppy (kissing) fish, cute!
11. Jay | March 6th, 2007 at 1:54 am
The last rock concert I went to was Tenacious D at Madison Square Garden. That was a rock concert! There were three acts to the concert. First was some local (and by local I mean nyc guy) who was a rapper. He was booed off after 15 mins. Following him, like all Tenacious D concerts was Neil Hamburger! Most people hate him, but I love his act. Finally, The D came out in a creative Tenacious D kinda of way. The D were on stage for about 2 1/2 hours total. It was an awesome concert. Clips from the show
12. Albert Ng | March 6th, 2007 at 2:20 am
I’m going downtown in a looleelurah!
I have a friend studying in Singapore who returned to Malaysia so he could MOSH at Rock The World concerts.
But hey hooray you got excellent pictures!
13. tze | March 6th, 2007 at 2:37 am
okay i’m 20 and i’m a fake eyelashed glittery heeled 20 year old.
am i behind my age T_______________T do u still like me T__________T
yer pete wentz is not cute ok he’s an attention whore la whole life posting pictures of his penis on his myspace or emailing them to the whole world!
14. percy | March 6th, 2007 at 3:28 am
fabulous pic!….bra cups, soiled…, gosh i cant imagine what had actually happen there o.O”
15. pinkpau | March 6th, 2007 at 11:52 am
turquoise : i know! -__- so teruk
reallybites : tired ok =(
anon : no i didnt.. :)
songjun : a post on FOB being cryptic?? or do u mean the below post? in which case it’s not so much cryptic than it is vague!
k0k : haha a little bit of irony never hurt anyone
clem : i went for a special screening, and it was fantastic :) my favourite of the 3. this is one for the Sepet fans rather than Gubra fans. very touching.
vvens : terlalu excited oredi, so i guess all those things fell out.. haha
entwined : was discussing with a friend, and we concluded that the girl was probably wearing a skirt, and the pad fell out. hahaha. and yes they are adidas
jen : man, FOB has some of the coolest lyrics, esp their previous albums. wait, Our Lady Peace has gone commercial???
melvin : im beginning to think i was a guppy in my past life
jay : what is a creative Tenacious D kind of way?
albert : RTW got mosh pit meh! i thought they’re always very antsy about their safety measures?
tze : haha dont worry babe, im a glittery high heeled 18 yr old myself, albeit no fake eyelashes. but as long as we both dont wear them to rock concerts, we’re ok! hahaha he’s a cute attention-seeking whore then!
percy : they fell out, i suppose!
16. carew888 | March 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Swish Lah. My chum refer me to this site. I have to agree w. him. U is cute, but in the end a vacuous rich kid with minimal positive input. We also agreed that the majority of ppl login’ in r after more flesh shots. Sorry…
17. Jay | March 6th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
“what is a creative Tenacious D kind of way?”
Somebody has seen the Pick of Destiny or for that matter any Tenacious D content! The D always come up with this silly yet entertaining way for an introduction. Usually, it starts with this man dressed in all black and he introduces the band by reading of a card. The description of the band is always very silly. Some examples:
“Ok, this next act asked me to read this. “Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Molly Hatchet could not be here tonight, but they all had sex and are proud to announce the birth of their two-headed baby, Tenacious D.”
“Ok, the next band asked me to read this. “Caution: The surgeon general of rock warns that viewing this band is equal to 29 orgasms.” Here they are, Tenacious D. ”
Anyways, with the concert. The guy introduces them, and the light come on stage and there is a giant curtain which drops and you see a living room. And your going “wtf? A living room?” But we don’t care, we are cheering, and yelling, “Tenacious D! Tenacious D! D! D! D! D!” And then all of a sudden, from the cough in the living room, under the blanket, JB and KG look with fear in their eyes as they don’t know how a fucking 30,000+ audience appeared in their living room. But they don’t care, they get up, look at each other and then JAM!
You know what..just watch it
The D opening
Second opening
18. george | March 6th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
lol i get an honorable mention (don’t mind the pun lol)
if this concert happened a few years ago or they weren’t promoting infinity on high, i would’ve probably gotten tickets to go rightaway! did they play Grand Theft Autumn for the encore?
19. MichelleSY | March 6th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Bra cups - is this the latest permutation of kiasu-ness, to inflate once’s chest even when attending a rock concert
Sanitary pads - ewwww. Everyone should pick up their own waste. Literally.
But yeah, it sucks they FOB did not rock, not even when they did ‘this ain’t a scene’. What a letdown hey?
ps: To those bratty kids with ’sex instructor’ t-shirts on, maybe you could have said: “Is this a case of those who can, do; those who can’t, teach?’
But then they in their kiasu-ness would have probably competed to see who could beat your adorable self to a pulp 0_o
20. MichelleSY | March 6th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Argh, this should read:
But yeah, it sucks *that* FOB did not rock,
21. pinkpau | March 7th, 2007 at 12:46 am
carew88 : i’m sure the little agreement between you and your chum has a huge impact on my life.. thanks for taking the time to drop a comment in between ogling whatever ‘flesh shots’ i seem to not know i have
jay : wow that’s awesome! see, that’s what all bands should do..
george : actually, they didnt play that many songs from IoH. like maybe 3 or 4? most of the songs were from Under The Cork Tree. and there was no encore, but they did play GTA
michellesy : no, it’s those type of cups u wear when you’re wearing a tube top? so that ur nipples dont show. i guess they fell out of the girl’s top.. haha. yeah FOB didnt rock that hard.. the crowd didnt have much energy actually. and the guys wearing those tshirts did not look like they could beat me to a pulp … im thinking my 7 year old kid cousin could take them out easily!
22. alea | March 7th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
sanitary pads?! wtf. hardcore yaw.
23. madeline | March 8th, 2007 at 2:43 am
argh!!!!!!i wanna go 2 d FOB n MUSE concert!!!!!fuck my sch test man!!!i hate u!!!!lol…u get 2 go but i was stuck in penang d whole time!!!
24. Albert Ng | March 8th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Oh no, RTW is always moshing. If you crowdsurf and end up at the barriers however, the guards will rudely usher you back to the crowd.
25. kiasu andrew | March 8th, 2007 at 11:52 am
:)
26. T.U | March 8th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
That must be one heck of a concert. Bra cups everywhere? hmmm…
27. violet | March 8th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
wait. Fall Out Boy is spose to be ROCK? hahahahahahahaha *continues laughing*
28. ArtificiallyVerbose | March 9th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Fact: Bassists are always the cooler & hotter ;)
29. entwined | March 9th, 2007 at 1:25 am
speaking of customary sanguine politeness of mainstream media, did you read the review of the concert in startwo on wed? lol. complete contrast from yours! now i know that not all concerts are as fun and exciting as the writer makes them out to be.
30. pinkpau | March 9th, 2007 at 3:56 am
alea : gross, more like @_@
madeline : well, u can rock out after exams, mah dear :D
albert : ooh, that is news to me!
kiasu andrew : :( refer to latest post, part 3
TU : not everywhere lah
violet : pop rock would be a good way to describe their style :)
artificially : i especially like bassists who will walk me to the esplanade and take me to max brenner.. :D
entwined : aiya! it just had to be wednesday! that was the day Star Two was miraculously missing from my newspaper. but i just read it online.. aiyo i dunno why the writer said the vocalist performed well.. at so many points he wasnt even really singing properly. he would just mumble into the mic and let the audience do the singing.
31. kristof | March 9th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
With mp3 and shit, I thought noone goes to concerts anymore.
I don’t get the sanitary pad thing.
32. Aimee | March 9th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
whoa.
it’s great to have someone telling it like it is.
newspapers and mags have nothing but praise for the concert. almost like they were paid to do so
33. hanna | March 14th, 2007 at 9:21 am
this is why I think that Malaysia has so much potential in the whole live-concerts-scene; our crowd is awesome!
34. pinkpau | October 5th, 2008 at 4:00 am
testing… tamtim is weird
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed