220809 Leehom Concert in Beijing

so... i have yet to blog about my virgin experience to PK at 星光大道...
but honestly I had so much 感想 and 感触 about the experience that it's hard to summarise quickly.

so before i get into nitty gritty,
i thought i'd share about happier times in Beijing :D


it's been a while since we've been to China,
and i forgot how huge the stage would be at the outdoor stadiums :)


insanely tall LED screens


rehearsal rehearsal




backing vocals :)


i loved the 盖世英雄tour by the way...


i have a series of Microphone@Stadium pictures... lol


we were at 北京工人体育场surrounded by happening clubs


and we had our dinner here...
i guess they meant Fine Dining? aka opposite of Fast Food...


where they served....

spoilt for choice!


concert day we tried some 云南酸汤鱼



leehom's spaceship


magic man tries a hand on drums
and eric (our drummer) rocks the stadium!


See the thing about China, is always the endless throngs of 公安



and these people who sit on little stools facing the audience,
making sure they all behave like obedient schoolchildren.


the audience slowly fills up the 50000 stadium...






this may be what heaven looks like for some leehom fans


Jackie Chan!!! he appears and surprises the hell outta leehom


this is the closest i've gotten to jackie chan's back view! haha


and i love the way leehom looked after the very successful surprise,
看得出他真的好感动,好开心

he sang his own chinked-out erhu version of Man in the Mirror as a tribute to MJ,
and i love it :)


everyone in the audience got a copy of the limited edition CD for free as well :)


fans and signboards galore!


thank you dear nic for making a Kewei and KLGoh sign! my very first lightboard!!!! *muaks*
i tried to take a picture but it didn't turn out well

力宏状况很好, 心情也似乎很好,
所以整场演出, 都玩的很尽兴, 唱的很精彩 :)
50000歌迷的热情 也让我好感动...










thanks nic for these photos at the concert!!




at the post-party!

ona side note,
we went to a post-post-party at some bling ktv club,
and the toilet was absolutely the highlight of the place!






i think i saw an MTV like this before



next stop Xi'an!

thank you for the love <3

thank you all for your birthday smses, facebook wall posts, tweets, facebook msgs, emails.

i had my first cake in taipei courtesy of ms kelly poon and mr derrick hoh!
and celebrated with the Singapore PK Team in Taipei! :D



n i landed in Singapore about 11pm, and my smses never stopped...
i really wanted to reply each one of them - but I had no time! :(

i slept till 自然醒 and received a call from Taiwan (!!!)
and before I had the time to update my friends about my disappointing performance at PK,
I had to choose my songs for the next PK again!

and my luggage completely broke so I had to get a new one,
and I'm planning a spontaneous trip to London next month so I had to book airtix asap,
and I was feeling pretty miserable since I hadn't seen my dear ZPGY friends in ages...

but they surprised me (successfully! i must say!) at my house after my family dinner !!!
LOOOOOVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD

i was feeling really quite tired, and when i flipped the lightswitch to my room,
it flipped back.

eh?

so i flipped it on and it flipped off again.

Ginny: "Hi Kewei."
Kewei: "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

(PS. where Ginny was hiding near my bed, there was another light switch)

And the rest of them (in the order that I saw: Dawn, Ein, Niko, Edmund, Milk, Mad, Kitty!) appeared in rehearsed succession yelling SURPRISE!!!
(they rehearsed 3 times to prevent 冷场 after the SURPRISE!!)

i was genuinely stunned.
i only started laughing about it .... 10 minutes later.
after the whole birthday cake and candle lighting and blowing and wishmaking hoohaa.

i just had to describe the entire SURPRISE setup because it's my FIRST!
and it was a GREAT ONE!!!
hahahahahahahahaha



Thank you ZPGY all for the love, and my dear sis for coordinating the ambush :)




Okay, and in 4 hours I will be taking off to Beijing for Leehom show,
and my throat is still bad...
and the doctor gave me a short course of STEROIDS (!!!) since i just can't find time to rest.

all this flying is insane for regular sleeping hours.

and in all insanity, i just had to quickly shoutout with love to all who wished me a happy birthday, at 3:30am when i need to sleep NOW.

so THANK YOU, again. :)

PK rambling...

so i'm just back from an awesome trip to Macau -
had fun jamming all David Tao songs again (after our last show in Jakarta last OCTOBER!)
and hanging out with the DT band :)

and our post party lasted right till 10am when i left for Singapore...
so i was pretty much a wreck the next day,
sleeping till 3pm...
vegging out at home.

and i had this insane cough throughout the concert, till NOW.
i braved through my Wala Wala set just now, trying not to strain my throat too much.

this cough, it's the kind that just spontaneously occurs without warning,
in the middle of singing, talking, or just breathing.
i think it's called the dry cough.
no phlegm, just a weird uneasiness in my throat.

now it has metamorphosised into a full-blown throat infection.

not the best condition to PK in Taipei for 星光大道this weekend.

so before i can get my act together, it's already Wednesday,
and my hair needs a cut-and-dye job,
and I just chose my songs this morning,
and the Taiwan production team is chasing me for a picture and an audition video that I would have to film by myself, to be sent immediately.

Great.

And it just feels really strange since nobody understands why the hell I'm going to PK,
since there was this big hoohaa of a competition that so many great singers joined,
and finally earned an opportunity to go,
and here I am just secretly flying there by myself.
...
...
...

It's a long story (I actually tried typing out the story, but after 2 paragraphs I gave up since it was Too Much Information), so in a nutshell,
I have auditioned for 星光5 before, but couldn't commit to the competition,
so they did tell me there was a possibility I could come back to PK.

I didn't know if this was for real, until after the Singapore selections,
when I called them again to check.
(I wouldn't have joined the Singapore selections anyway as I am waaay scared of competitions)

I think the 4 Singaporeans who went are sooo awesome, and honestly I'm sure if I joined the Singapore selections I wouldn't have made it.
I've long seen myself unfit material for competitions.

I'm just going to not think too much about it, not make myself nervous, and just do my thing.

songwriting inspiration

can come from anywhere.



mine is mainly from jason mraz.
ogling at his awesomeness and overwhelming talent...

quit your complaining. it's not the world's fault that you wanted to be an artist.

My friend complaind about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste... etc, etc. (German filmmaker) Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines:

"Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work."

I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: "It's not the world's fault that you want to be an artist... now get back to work."

Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place. ...

... In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope.

From Elizabeth Gilbert, Some Thoughts on Writing.



I say, we need words like this once in a while to remind ourselves -
If nobody likes your work, it's not their fault.

Get back to work.
Work smart, if not harder.

3 Months

Oh! And of course, I'll finally be seeing him and the DT band in Macau next weekend!
WOoooooooooooooOOOOOoo!!

I MISS TOURING!!!
The last show was 3 months agoooo!




3 MONTHS!!
I've never been in Singapore for a 3-Month stretch since March 2007.

But the beautiful thing about these 3 Months is that

• I've worked a whole lot harder at my Wala Wala sets, working on many new songs for the repertoire :)

• And I finally figured out a routine for myself to write songs, and I wrote a few songs too :)

• And I started yoga! I've happily worked it into my lifestyle, and finally gotten a regular exercise routine in my life.

• I've been trying to play the guitar, and now my left fingertips are permanently calloused.I say permanently because past experience showed that if you don't keep up with practising, your fingertips un-callous themselves very quickly.
  

I think I used the word "routine" more than once,
so for these months,
routine has been a good change. :)