Sunday, December 4, 2016

Mayday or Wu Yeh Tian (五月天) ... 突然好想你 (suddenly miss you so much)

Hi all !! Greetings from SingaporeDramaMama. Sorry it has been almost 6 mths since my last post. Honestly, Les Mis was the last thing I caught in the theatre. Since then I have been busy with real life to watch anything much.

What I DID catch was Mayday concert in August and Jay Chou concert in September. The less I say about the Jay Chou concert the better. All I wanna say is I will never watch a Jay Chou concert again and no more concerts in National Stadium as well.



Which brings us to the Mayday concert. Most of you may not know who Mayday is. Mayday is a Taiwanese rock band. More information about them can be found here. They have been around for ages but I only knew about them about 8 years ago as introduce by S. Only in the last 1-2 years have I started actively listening to them. I heard that their concerts were super so when they were coming here for concert, I thought I had to see them. This year, they came to Singapore for two nights (5th & 6th August). I only managed to get 1 single ticket for the 5th August and so I couldn’t bring S with me. They were here for their “Just Rock It” tour.

I will not be going into full details of the concert as you can easily read more about the concerts on the internet. All I can say is IT WAS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC !!! It was so good that I did my best to get another two tickets for the 2nd day concert and took S along. IT WAS INCREDIBLE !!!! BOTH NIGHTS !!! I have never been so entertained at any show, any concert, any play and any event in my entire life. Every minute of the 3 hours per concert was filled with joy. Over the years I have gone for Santana, Clapton, Metallica, Mr Big, Emi Fujita etc concerts but this is easily the best ever. In October I went for the Mayday concert in Kuala Lumpur as well and it was again wonderful. I will be going for 2 nights of Mayday concert in Tokyo early 2017 as well !! This time at the Budokan !!! This is my first time to the legendary Budokan and to watch Mayday !! If not for work commitments, I will be in Taipei now to catch the Mayday concert. 9 days of Mayday concert !!!!!

For once, I am lost for words about how great the concert was. The showmanship, the energy, the crowd, the music .. all together just WoW !!!! The ironic part is that, I do not even understand Chinese but I am so crazy about a Taiwanese rock band !!! As I told S, she has made me into a Mayday-monster. My friends all think I must be the biggest Mayday fan in the world to travel all around the world to watch them. Also at every concert, they sing generally the same songs.. BUT … each concert is the same BUT YET different. I just cannot explain it but the joy I feel at the concert is just unexplainable. Even now as I watch their music videos, I cannot help but smile but yet I feel sad because I am not able to watch them live. I have never felt such an affinity to any other musical artist or group before.

It is very disappointing that just one month after the Mayday concert in Singapore, I watched Jay Chou and wow … talk about such a big difference. The Jay Chou concert was boring, drab and so bad that I left halfway.

Anyways, with the festive season coming up, let me take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. May 2017 bring you all good health and continued blessings !!!


Cheers !!! (which is coincidentally the title of one of my fav Mayday songs)

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Magical nonetheless - Review of Les Miserables - Singapore 2016

Greetings all. Sorry I have been away for like almost a year and my last review on anything was April 2015. I haven’t had the time to watch much and what I watched wasn’t worth writing about.

Anyways, welcome to my latest review. Les Miserables 2016 in Singapore.



In late 2013, I watched Chestnuts 6.9 and Jonathan Lim did several skits playfully mocking Les Mis – the movie version and then the spark in me was lit. I got very caught up with the songs from Les Mis. I bought the DVD of the special 10th Anniversary Concert and the Blu-ray of the 25th Anniversary Concert and watched them at least 30 times each. In 2014, I finally caught it live in London and I have been wishing to catch it live again. So when it was announced the Les Mis was returning to Singapore... my wish came true... I planned to watch this every week. (yup that is how much I love Les Mis!!!)

The problem I had was that I had watched the special anniversary concerts many times and so I knew the perfection of Colm Wilkinson, Alfie Boe, Philip Quast (best Javert ever!!), Lea Salonga, Ruthie Henshall, Michael Ball, Alun Armstrong (best Thenardier!!) and the ever lovable Jenny Galloway as Madame Thenadier. I had also heard the original UK cast on CD, MP3 and LP countless of times. How was this latest show gonna match up?

Unfortunately, it does not. To give you some sort of imagery, imagine savouring a Grade A5 Wagyu beef tenderloin and then expecting a Black Angus beef steak to be the same. Sorry, eventhough Black Angus beef is good, but A5 Wagyu beef is just way up there. 

I feel that all the cast were lacking that extra something in their voices to make the hairs on your arms stand or stir your soul. Thats the difference between being good and being legendary. In my opinion, the best of this cast was Eponine, who was played by Kerrie Anne Greenland. She stood out amongst the cast with her strong voice, great expression and strong stage presence. Another who left an impression was Gavroche (Kieran McGinlay). All the other cast members were just fine. Jean Valjean had very strong stage presence but his singing was frequently not in tune with the orchestra. Javert also had good presence but the voice was just ok and his rendition of “Stars” left me unsatisfied. Fantine and Cosette had good range in their singing but their voices were very ‘shrill’ with no ‘oomph.’

Another thing which disappointed me was that all the songs were kind rushed through. This made it seem like the cast members sang in a less sustained way and more curt.

The stage, set and lighting was great. The very clever and innovative use of constantly moving images on the backdrop together with the detailed props and stage settings gave a lot of realism to the show.

Ultimately, I DID enjoy myself at this show. I just had to curb my expectations. Compared to the Les Mis movie, this 2016 production is excellent. For people who have never watched or listened to Les Mis before, or have only watched the movie, please go get your tickets and watch it. The last time Les Mis came to Singapore was more than 22 years ago.

Watever it is, I will be telling my friends to go catch this as watching Les Mis live, several meters from the stage, will always be magical. For those who have heard or seen the best, kindly leave all your expectations at the door and just enjoy Les Mis...  now to watch a Les Miserables anniversary concert in London one day !! Until then, should I watch this again next week?? hmmm

Take it easy guyz and have a great week !! ;)