3 Doors Down LIVE @ Manchester Academy

It was Carly who gave me the heads up for this concert a few months before. Since I couldn’t find any worthwhile concerts to attend during summer, I quickly snapped it up online after hearing about it. There were plans to be there early to get the front row, so I booked a 9.30am train ticket to Manchester Piccadily. I met up with Carly at the station and we went to have food at the Arndale shopping mall food court. Since we had lots of time to kill, we ended up chatting for a couple of hours.

We started to make our way to Manchester Academy around 3hrs before the start of the concert. Along the way, we bought our packed dinner from McD to eat. When we arrived at Manchester Academy, there were a few people waiting in line already. Wow, I didn’t know 3 Doors Down were such a big hit in England..lol. Our waiting period was made complicated when it started to rain. It wasn’t a heavy downfall but it was potent enough to make one wet. We squeezed ourselves to the side pavement with a thin shelter. It rained for quite a while before the grey clouds passed away. By then, two queues had already formed, one on the left entrance and we were standing on the right entrance. It looks like one of the lines is gonna get short-changed in entering early. It turned out in the end that my line was allowed to proceed in first! Ah, I felt sorry for the other line because they would have to join my line’s queue which by now would have extended beyond the student union.

When we entered, there was already a first row there which I assume is the people with VIP pass. But we didn’t get it too bad at second row. For the opening band, we had a British hard punk rock band from Brighton called the Crave. Although the doors were opened, 3 Doors Down did not start playing until around 9.15am. Their status as an internationally recognised band is apparent. After the Crave had departed, the stage was cleared of all wires. 3DD’s stage set was clean because all of them were using wireless instruments.

Well, 3DD is one rock band which I would regard as a nostalgic reminder of the high school days of my generation. During the early 2000s, 3DD was prominent with Here Without You and Kryptonite. I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with all of their other songs like how I am with Paramore or Muse but 3DD makes good listening. Another one that’s worth listening to is Away From the Sun. The 3DD band members ain’t young anymore. They look like they’re going into their 40s already and somehow the lead singer Bradley Arnold gave an “apek-ish” aura when he came out in his white singlet. Somehow, the song list for the concert got passed around the audience and as expected, Kryptonite was left to the last during the encore period. I have fond memories of course, of Kryptonite because when I was in Sec 1 at SJI, I saw it being performed live by my Sec 4 seniors. While “Holiday” was the threshold of me getting into the rock scene, “Kryptonite” was actually my personal prototype of that inspiration.

I was getting a bit worried at first on the late starting time because I may end up missing my train at 11.30pm. Thankfully, it ended just on the dot at 11pm, giving me ample time to walk from the academy to Manchester Oxford station, which is of a considerable distance. Ahh, it was a good concert and yesh, yet another one to the list. The only thing that I lament about is that thanks to some bungling up in phone numbers, my new Panasonic FZ45 camera did not arrive on time for the concert. And silly me did not borrow Henna’s camera as a back-up plan, thanks to some bad overconfidence that the new camera will arrive in time. As a result, I had to record concert footage with the lousy video recorder from my Nikon camera. Ahhhh, I’m not pleased. This is not what I envision for my last rock concert outing in Europe. I’ll have to hunt harder on the net for one last big bang rock concert where I can utilise my new HD camera gear at least once.

Paramore LIVE!

I've been looking forward to this for a long time especially so after I've missed seeing them in Malaysia. I was already out of the peninsula when Paramore came to KL in October. I did notice their UK tour dates and that one of them fell on Manchester but again, I was looking for people to join me for it. After much effort in advertising around, I managed to find two people to join up and they're Serena (my law classmate) and Nick (CG and churchmate). Since it fell on a Friday, I had all day to prepare myself. My 16 GB SD card which I ordered from Amazon arrived just in time and I had Henna to thank for lending me her camera to film some videos from the concert. At around 4.45pm, I met up with Serena and Nick at the railway station to take the 5.08pm train and I'm impressed that the train actually left the station on the dot at 5.08pm.

A quick survey when we reached the Manchester MEN Arena was that there seems to be a higher proportion of high school kids than older people in the crowd for Paramore. For the Linkin Park concert, there were lots of older men and people with piercings and tattoos but geeezz, it's so weird that only "kids" turn up for Paramore concert in the UK. In Malaysia and most probably the US, Paramore is a big hit even among the University students. I guess part of it has gotta be attributed to the content of the lyrics..lol. And I saw lots of parents accompanying their kids to watch Paramore too. I, for one, can't imagine any Malaysian parents going to any rock concert with their kids...hahaha.

When we entered the arena, one of the opening acts was already playing. F.U.N. was halfway through some of their songs while we were finding our seats. I really enjoyed their cover for Queen's Radio Gaga. I find Paramore's opening acts to be much better compared to the one in Linkin Park although I don't fancy any of B.o.B's song until "Airplanes" came on. Hayley made a brief appearance on the set with B.o.B. for the "Airplanes" song before heading back to the stage during the interval. After a good 20 minutes meeting, Paramore kicks off the show with "Ignorance". After playing a couple of hard rocking songs, they switched to an acoustic set with the sofa, playing "Brand New Eyes", "Misguided Ghosts" and "When It Rains". As expected, Paramore did lots of fan interaction and this is something which I liked about them. They took time to get the crowd involved instead of many other established bands where it's just play and go.

Paramore left their best songs, and also my favourites too towards the end. "Pressure" got stretched to about 8 minutes plus because Hayley took the time to introduce the different band members one by one. The best thing was seeing Jeremy Davis doing his bass flip in "Pressure" with my own eyes and it looks amazing from the top at where I'm sitting. Unfortunately though, the battery for Henna's camera started to die by the time I reach "Looking Up", another big favourite of mind and I had to cut it short before the last climatic part. Arghh..low memory space was the bane for the previous concerts and I solved it by using a 16 GB card and now, the camera battery life can't outlast the amount of free memory space. The next best thing then was to revert to my own Nikon camera and record the last bits of the concert. It certainly does not have audio pick-up or video quality as good as Henna's camera, but it's still better than having nothing. Hayley and co. did something like a false "ending" when they said that "The Only Exception" would be their last song. It's kinda obvious that they would come out for an encore again because the two biggest songs "Brick by Boring Brick" and "Misery Business" were not played at all. It's a big crime if they don't play it at the concert, something like Muse not playing Supermassive Blackhole or Green Day ommitting Wake Me Up when September Ends. Paramore ended the whole night with a bang with some lucky fans at the standing area being invited to do a dance with the whole band on stage. Taylor York literally gave up his guitar to someone else to play while he ran around like a monkey on rabies on stage..lol. Btw, Hayley got an England jersey with the no.7 on it from the crowd..haha. At the end of it all, it was a great satisfaction that I had in attending yet another awesome rock night out. It's opportunities to go to nights like this that I'll remember for years to come :)

Anberlin LIVE!

I got introduced to Anberlin thanks to the exposure to Alvin Ting's music video collection way back in March last year. Anberlin is not exactly mainstream stuff but the Florida rockers are well-known in America and they are one of the names that stood out when I browsed through the list of bands who are coming to perform in Leeds. I had been searching for company to follow me to the concert in Leeds and once I heard that Kington is going for it, I booked my tickets straight away. So since it's a Tuesday, my lectures end only at 6pm. I whisk off quickly the moment it ends and met up with Kington to head off to pick up his friend from the train station. The venue of the concert is at the Rock club (The Cockpit) and apparently they have a history of lots of other bands coming to play there before including the Ting Tings, Franz Ferdinand, Panic in the Disco and The Killers.

While I was at the club, I was fairly surprised when a local Brit student tapped me on my shoulder and said that he saw me playing drums in the Christian Union the night before. Before I continue, I'll illustrate a little on what happened in CU meeting on the Monday before the concert. As you've known, the CU does not have their own drum equipments but it so happened that the Monday is actually a combined meeting with 4 other CUs from Hull, Huddersfield, Bradford and Leeds Met. I was asked to play drums for the meeting which I happily obliged and that was my maiden service in England, playing in a room filled with 100 over other Brit students. The drum set was on the verge of falling apart though and the high-hat was missing, so I had to substitute it with the stand instead (which reminded me of The Offspring). Well, I thank God for giving me that rare opportunity to serve through drums because I'm pretty sure that I won't be getting the chance to do that again anytime soon. Of course, it is even more of a major surprise that I made some form of impression on a few of the local Brit students there. Anyways, the dude who recognised me studies in Bradford.

Back to the concert - There are gonna be two opening acts, one by Xcerts and the other one by Hawthorne Heights. Anberlin is not scheduled to play until around 9pm. We went off to have dinner first before coming back just in time to see a few songs Hawthorne Heights. They are quite good and I enjoyed them better than So does it offend you at the Linkin Park opening. Their style is a mixed screamo hybrid of Yellowcard and Breaking Benjamin. There's around a 20-30 minutes interlude after the end of their performance for Anberlin to set up their equipment. During that period, the three of us took the opportunity to move forward to the frontlines of the stage while the crowd disperse to go to toilet or get drinks. So at around 9.15pm, Anberlin kicked off with "We Owe This to Ourselves" and followed by one of their trademark songs of all time - "Paperthin Hymn". And they did end off with a bang, leaving their two best songs "Impossible" and "The Feel Good Drag" to the last. With a standing position and being so near the action plus a mosh pit for the last song is one the best experience for a rock concert that one could have with all the sweat and the heat..haha.

As with many concerts, band members may throw some of the stuff that they use on stage to the standing crowd in front. Kington and his friend managed to get the picks. Then one of the crew kinda threw the sticks into the crowd and I managed to grab one of it. However, it was also caught by another fellow standing in front of me and we were engaged in a brief tug before he released his grip, to my delight! Woohoo! If only the drummer had customised his sticks to the band or his name, that would be a real deal since the picks themselves were actually customised. Anyways, as a drummer, I'm happy with my "loot" which I can proudly display for many years to come! Overall, it was a fantastic rock night experience to remember!

Linkin Park LIVE!

Well, what can I say. This wasn't supposed to be on my schedule or even cross my path but it did. Anberlin was supposed to be my first major rock band concert but out of the blues, Linkin Park came and dislodged the queue to be the first! Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't pay for such a steep price to attend the concert but I'm very thankful indeed to get a complimentary ticket. I'm pretty excited for it after arrangements were made on Wednesday and so on yesterday, right after all the resting, I met up with Tim at the bus-stop opposite my place to get a bus to the railway station. It'll be my first time taking a train from the station and to travel in between cities using the rail. The Manchester Evening News Arena, more well-known as the M.E.N. arena is located just beside the Manchester Victoria station and it's covenient to walk over from the station. This place is the venue for plenty of major acts as compared to Leeds and it's just 1.5 hrs away, giving me another reason on why I chose to study in Leeds - rock concerts are just a train stop away.

We met up with Tim's cousin to get the tickets and although we were there on time at 7.30pm, the place was not fully filled up. Looks like lots of people have the habit of being late for concerts. We had an opening act by some band called does it offend you yeah and they're more of an electro-techno kind of band. I find them irritating though. Linkin Park did not appear until about 8.15pm or so. The first recognisable song that was played was "New Divide" and this was followed by "Faint". Other favourites were "Numb", "Breaking the Habit", "One Step Closer", "In the End", "Shadow of the Day" and "What I've Done". Chester Bennington has the fantastic stretch of screamo as usual and Mike Shinoda looks a little withdrawn though with his hoodie and playing behind the keyboards. Since I have a limited space of 2GB of SD, I could only record a few songs and extracts of others. Ughhh..I think I should invest in a 8GB SD for concert purposes. The concert ended at about 10pm and yea, I'm definitely delighted to have gone for such a major concert. This trip is also useful in the sense that I could scout and survey the area for Paramore on 19th November who are coming to the same venue to perform. I would come for sure for Hayley and co but the question is finding people to accompany me there.

It's so convenient to hop back onto a train back to Leeds although we had to squeeze through and stand half-way the journey. British rail speed feels alot like KTM but they are punctual in their arrivals. Haha, at the train, I could hear that everyone was just chatting about Chester. By the time we arrived back at Leeds, it's around 12am and it's pretty decent in the sense that in the future, I do not neccessarily need to stay overnight in Manchester for any event. That was once-in-a-liftetime opportunity to witness Linkin Park live in action and I'll be looking forward for Paramore!

The Resistance

I've been wanting to write a review on this since it's release in September, so here it goes. Another one of my most anticipated album release from one of my all-time favourite bands. I did a preview of the album here when United States of Eurasia came out. The Resistance draws heavily the inspiration from George Orwell's 1984. Most of the songs in The Resistance are related at least to one aspect of the novel. My two personal favourites in the album are "Resistance" and "Unnatural Selection".

The first track, "Uprising" has quite a catchy tune to it and I love the music video! It features the band moving through in a truck through some sort of toy city and then there are giant teddy bears tearing the whole city apart..haha. Weird and wacky,but that's Muse alright. "Resistance" depicts the love story of Winston and Julia and it summarises perfectly how their love forms a kind of resistance against Big Brother. "Undisclosed Desires" is one song which is very RnB sounding. Not exactly my favourite but I gotta give credit to Muse for venturing into there and making it sound good with their instruments. Alongside with "supermassive Blackhole", Matt Bellamy shows that he can do RnB if he wants to..haha. That just goes to show how rock musicians can be flexible and venture into other territories but it rarely happens the other way round. =p

"Guiding Light" comes in beautifully right after the jet plane roar in USOE. The track does remind me a little of "Invincible" from the Black Holes album. "Unnatural Selection" starts with an electric organ and progressively builds up with electric guitar. I like the word play at the pre-chorus with the double high-hat taps. 'Droplets in the ocean' is an obvious reference to Oceania and Winston's strong resistance in becoming part of Oceanic society mob mentality. The draggy chorus just makes me wanna scream out aloud "I want the truth!"..haha. It ends off with a superb guitar riff but it's a pity coz it's very short. I hope that they do somehow increase it's length in their live performances. If you wanna have some education on conspiracy theories, then "Mk Ultra" comes in handy. I did a search on it and it seems that Mk Ultra refers to a secret mind-control programme that the US government and CIA engages during the 1950s and 1970s. It's all the LSD stuff and Ken Kensey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was inspired from there after he himself volunteered for the programme. Next up would be the last vocal track of the album, "I Belong To You". This is quite an interesting track because this is has a fusion with the French style of music. Not to mention when Matt Bellamy starts singing in French afterthat..haha. I wonder if this is a romanticised depiction of the French World War II resistance fighters where they are famously known as just The Resistance. Btw, this song is gonna be used for the new Twilight movie, New Moon. It's the second time where Muse's song is used in that series because it seems that the author Stephanie Meyer is a big fan of Muse.

Aha..now comes the epic part - Exogenesis Symphony Parts 1,2 and 3. This massive collaboration is insane. 15 minutes of pure genius. Muse actually gathered a symphony band to play together with them. I can tell that even if someone were to hate all the other songs in the whole album, they cannot deny that the last 15 minutes of the album is just fantastic. And I know the Europeans are liking it alot because it's their style of music..haha. Not sure about the Americans though. =p One aspect that I enjoyed about The Resistance is the use of some really nice classical piano techniques and it gives the album an excellent top-up.

Overall, I like all the songs in The Resistance, with the exception of Undisclosed Desires. I think it's a job well done by Muse. More importantly, it's time to look forward to all the new creativity and spontaneous acts that they are gonna put into their Resistance tour. It's looking good at their homecoming gig at Teignmouth Devon and the excellent performance at the MTV VMAs. I love the solo that Matt puts at the end of Uprising..haha. I really hope they could add on more riffs on the other songs, especially Unnatural Selection! Mhmmmmm...I'm wondering whether they would consider coming back to KL for another round of tour. Please do consider about it Matt! xD

United States of Eurasia

You and me fall in line
To be punished for unproven crimes!
And we know that there is no one we can trust; 
Our ancient heroes, they are turning to dust!

And these wars, they can't be won
Does anyone know or care how they begun?
They just promise to go on 
And on and on

This is just fantastic. One of my major favourite bands (Green Day) released their new album in May and now another of my major favourite band (Muse) is releasing theirs in September :) "The Resistance" has already being dubbed to be the finest album that Muse will ever produce. Given Matt Bellamy's musical inclination and Muse's creative tendencies to mix rock and classical music together, they are now bringing rock music to a level higher - an album with a kaleidoscopic combination of rock, orchestra and opera together for a grandeur experiment.

Matt Bellamy and co. has never been straightforward with their fans..haha. Thanks to Muse's love for conspiracies, they always present opportunities for their fans to interact and obtain their music through cryptic puzzles. One of the songs in the album, "United States of Eurasia" is released in such a way. Six different USB keys were distributed around in 6 cities around the world- Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Moscow, Tokyo and Hong Kong and fans are invited to search for the "agent" that hold these USB keys. Each of these cities are coded as a "station", similar to the concept found in Lost..lol. That is not the only thing to do because fans later have to solve a series of puzzles after entering the code found in the USB key onto the website. These puzzles include anagrams and numerical sequences. For every station that is unlocked, Muse will release a portion of the song. All six parts will be combined as a clip and released the moment after all 6 stations are unlocked.

A seventh station in New York was shown and the final puzzle was released for the fans to solve, with the tagline that US of America must recognise US of Eurasia in order for the outro (Collateral Damage) be released. A time limit was also given for that "recognition". On 21st July, USE + Collateral Damage was released as one single track which could be downloaded free from the website. This is awesome..we get to have a first hand experience on one of the songs from the new album!

There are lots to comment on Muse's new single song. Firstly, it's a super way of releasing the song..haha. The title of course, carries lots of connotations with the most obvious ones being a reference to the superstate of Eurasia in George Orwell's "1984", which happens to be a rival to Big Brother's Oceania. The lyrics drew heavy pointers from 1984 too, with references to thoughtcrime, the never-ending war theory from Goldstein's manual and the the decimation of Rutherford, Aaronson and Jones. I absolutely loved these pointers to 1984 as these are sort of tributes to George Orwell himself.

Musically wise, the style of USE is reminiscent of Queen and its structure is similar to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". I've always enjoyed piano intros in rock music and then followed by heavy electric guitar accompaniment later. The strings accompaniment in USE enriches the track in a way that it makes it grander than usual. The outro (Collateral Damage) is Matt's rendition of Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No.2. It's a brilliant transition from USE at the end, sort of a reminder of the piano solo at "Butterflies and Hurricanes". I got so inspired by the outro that I've decided to make Nocturne Op.9 No.2 as my next piano piece to master..lol. Afterall, Chopin is also one of my favourite piano composers.

Ahhhhhh..I can't wait for September 14 to come!! It'll be the same feeling of anticipation when I waited for 21st century breakdown..lol. I'm looking forward to hear Exogenesis actually. According to Matt, it's a 15 minute space rock orchestra..hehe. I'm indeed curious to see how it'll turn out especially when it's played life. Till then, we can only wait for "The Resistance".

The passing of an icon

On 25th June 2009, the King of Pop was no more. He was 50 years old. I didn't check the Internet on that Friday morning and so it came as quite a shock when I heard the news from my lecturer. Almost instantly, one could feel the magnitude of the void that was left behind. The Internet search engines and some servers actually crashed because of the amount of people that were searching his name online. This is a moment in history. It was similar to the epic proportion left behind by Elvis and John Lennon. They all die young. As one bystander worded it, "It's like when Kennedy was assassinated".

Despite all the bizarre tales that populated the last years of his life, no one can deny that Michael Jackson left a long-lasting legacy behind. He redefined and changed the direction of pop music. He made an impression on three generational decades, the 70s, 80s and 90s. Not many singers can boast that kind of feat. The moonwalk was his distinct trademark. For me, the most vivid personal memory I have of him was the Pepsi advertisement in the Malaysian TV airwaves that ran with the song "Black of White" in the early 90s. Even as a rock enthusiast myself, I have to say some of the songs that he has will be classic evergreen for many years to come. My personal favourites were "Beat It", "Billie Jean" and "Black or White". It's kinda cool also that "Billie Jean" was featured in GTA Vice City and I remember myself experiencing nostalgically 80s when the song ran through the car 'radio'.

There is only one Jacko, his distinct style is irreplaceable just as how Elvis remains uniquely himself years after his death. He may be gone but the King of Pop's voice will continue to resonate through the radio waves. Rest in peace, Michael Jackson.

Beau Bristow Concert

It was an awesome and terrific time with Beau Bristow at Inti last night! Preparations, resources and time have been poured onto this massive event by ICF. From the band, publicity, booking of venues and PA system checking, it's a whole lot of work to do. At the start of the semester, the committee knew that this event will be a big one and there's gonna be lots of stuff to handle. For me personally, it was already rush of schedule on Wednesday itself. Besides having an almost full day of classes from 8am, the law magazine phototaking session was at 4pm. I think it's quite fortunate that I had only 4 semesters to handle since the other 2 senior semesters had a visa briefing. Even with the reduced numbers, it took more than an hour for the photos to be taken. Right afterthat, I had to hurry to the class rep meeting and then this was proceeded by band practice at Sports hall itself.

On the day of the concert itself, it's a stretch of classes from 8am till 11..then at break time, I needed to spend almost an hour getting the bookmarks done. We met Beau for lunch at the cafetaria and then I had to go to class at 2 all the way till 5pm. Immediately after class at 5, it was a straight march back to my room and be prepared for a final round preliminary practice and preparation at the Sports Hall. We went through a final round and at 6.45, the doors were open for registration.

It's been quite some time since I took to the stage with hundreds of people watching. The last major one was a long time ago when I was in Secondary 4 in SJI, performing for Teacher's Day concert. Of course, I do get a little occassional butterflies in the stomach, but I'm pretty much used to being on stage nowadays given my exposure in playing at CF meetings and Sunday service. We played three songs, "The time has come" and "Rooftops" plus "Endlessly" from Desperation Band. Lol, I've managed to improve my execution for "The time has come" this time round and the most challenging aspect of performance for the night is the 16-beat bridge where I had to have extreme concentration to prevent myself from being derailed. Haha..we did well as a band together and probably the only side is the minor technical problems like the mic not sounding loud enough and the bass amps that's muffling the air around me. As a result, I couldn't really hear the sounds since it's also drowned by my crashes. I had to run a parallel song in my mind to play along with the band..haha.

Beau took the center stage after us. He started off with a very familiar song, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol and that was indeed an excellent and a perfect cover of it. Lol..I would say he's the true one-man band. Jordan would have salivate listening to him. Beau could literally do the bass, electric, acoustic, vocals and some drum rhythm all at a time with some really wacky gadgets that he has. The usual electric guitarist may have one or two of those pedals but he had one entire range of sixes to sevens! I would say I managed to discover a few "secrets" of bands here and there. I was wondering how the Ting Tings could maintain a constant beat of guitar or bass while Katie White played something else or how Katie White had two of her different vocals running simultaneously. Then, when I saw Beau playing all his parts at one time, I guess that's where I get the answer..ahaha. Oh another thing is that I spotted was that one of the songs in which Beau did some special effects sounded rather similar to Muse's starting rift for "Invincible". Lol, I found out later that Beau uses the plastic cylinder thing to slide his guitar strings, the exact one that Matthew Bellamy had! Amazing! Beau is only the second person that I know to do that sort of stuff after Matt.

After the concert, Beau spent the time autographing CDs and posing for pictures. It was nice of him to personalise his autograph for me..haha. The total estimated turnout was 250+ people! Woah, to think that we placed 80 as the expected number on the event proposal and I've only printed 150 bookmarks. Oh ye of little faith! I really wanna thank God for making the event such a superb success..hehe.

By the time we finished packing up, it was already 11pm+. Many of us did not have dinner, so we duly went to Al-Salam to chomp on some food with Beau. It was very tiring for many for us but at the same time, we felt that it was worth every single drop of sweat. A big thank you also to Beau Bristow for coming over to Malaysia and it was gracious of him to sponsor his own trip to Malaysia. It was a privilege indeed to listen to Beau and the sharing of his wonderful music :)

21st Century Breakdown

It's too long of a wait for a Green Day fan. It's being almost 5 years since Green Day released their epic mega-platinum album, American Idiot. The magnitude of the success of American Idiot meant that the task that Green Day is facing to come up with a subsequent title is similarly gigantic. They were silent for a long time, and during those 5 years, they were only involved in minor projects such as "The Saints are coming" with U2, "Working Class Hero" and a off-shot album under the pseudo name of "Foxboro Hot Tubs".

When it was finally revealed that they'll come up with a new album, high expectations were already placed there for it. Anything less than the epic nature of American Idiot will be unacceptable. Some felt that perhaps the bar that Green Day had set is already too high for themselves.

Just like American Idiot, 21st Century Breakdown is a rock opera. While AI had two massive songs of 8 to 9 minutes each, 21st Century is divided into 3 different acts each. Something that I love about the album is that it still retains the continuing feature of songs as in there are some songs that connect continuously to each other without breaking. As a whole, 21st CB is musically less complicated than AI but it still retains the power chords ra-ra and Tre cool's rallying drum rolls that Green Day is famous for. Considering that Green Day quotes Queen as one of the inspiration of the album, the songs in 21st CB generally lean towards the anthemic stadium rock where everyone can just shout out along together.

The lyrics of the second song of the album, also titled "21st century breakdown" reminds me of those in Billy Joel's "Leningrad" and the narrative in there is a little like Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row". But I think it's closer to Leningrad coz Leningrad's chorus verses were "I was born in 49, a cold war kid in McCarthy's time" while Green Day's 21st CB starting phrase is "Born into Nixon.." For me, the best songs in the album has got to be Viva La Gloria, Static Age and 21 Guns. Viva La Gloria just has a nice piano combination slotted into it at the beginning and I like how the electric guitars goes into it. Static Age is just pure catchy stuff and fades off nicely into the melancholic 21 guns. The good thing about the album is that each song has a unique style on its own and the style rarely gets repetitive. The words of the lyrics in many of the songs echoes and bounces off each other nicely because there'll be some reference of the other tracks inside the song. So, it feels like the song speaks for each other.

Thematic wise, 21st CB dealt with abstract issues of post-apocalypse nuclear holocaust and living in the modern age. AI was anti-Bush, and 21st CB according to Green Day deals with the mess that Bush had left behind. Still, the album's theme can be interpreted generally with the apocalypse theme that is relevant for all ages. 21st CB could be and should be the soundtrack for Watchmen. Both would fit in nicely with each other. Lol, some of the songs in 21st CB contain just the right baggage of nihilistic or melancholic emotions. It's complex mix really because one can't avoid feeling the impending awfulness of the incoming nuclear winter after listening to 21st CB. (speaking of Fallout 3..ahaha) It can also be said that Green Day continues on the protests of the rock bands of different eras. In the past, around the 70s and 80s, it was the nuclear excesses of the Cold War and the dire warning of the world being annihilated tragically by the twist of the key. In the 90s, it was more of the sociological protest on issues such as exploitations against child/3rd world labour, capitalism and various social problems/maladies. And just as we entered the new age, not many had much to say about the 21st century, or for that matter, the first 10 years or so into the new century. Green Day stakes the claim in speaking out for the generation of this time on issues such as the gross excesses of the mass media and the complications in living in the modern era. Not only that, they have succeeded in reconstructing back past themes such as the disillusionment of the American dream, desolation and excesses of the American society as advocated by modernist writers T.S. Elliot and Hemingway in the 1920s and the same nuclear fear and hysteria that gripe the population during the Cold War.

I find the artwork of 21st CB to be very well done too. I like the powerful emotions that is presented in the locking of the lips and again, the imagery is reminiscent of a scene in the Watchmen too. To sum it up, 21st CB is a fitting successor to AI and it's definitely worth the money for 18 tracks and 69 minutes (most albums don't even hit 45 minutes). 21st Century Breakdown is a true masterpiece of magnus opus by Green Day and demonstrated their transition from their playful punk days of Dookie and Nimrod to the maturity of being social commentators in the new century.

Jesus Freak

I was browsing through the music videos of contemporary Christian artists that I have gotten from Alvin and a few of them really amazes me. Just by glancing at the surface, one would assume that those are just a typical music video that people see every time at music shops or MTV but look deeper inside, the lyrics are actually fueled with Christian contexts. It's great to see that Christians are making full use of the talent of creativity which God had given them. There was one song from quite some time ago which I kinda like. It's dc Talk's 1995 hit "Jesus Freak". I think that's a masterpiece which falls under the genre of rap rock like RATM. There's also some elements of Nirvana's punk rock style in there. The common meaning of freak is "unusual" but another meaning found in the dictionary also shows it to have the meaning of an "enthusiast or a devoted follower". Thus, the term Jesus Freak became part of a Christian subculture and it fortified to become a compliment following the success of dc Talk's album in 1995. The verses of the song is kinda like a poetic rap and the chorus is a super shout-out which goes like this:

What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus Freak?
What will people do when they find that it's true?
I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak.
There ain't no disguising the truth

tobyMac, one of the members of dc Talk still uses the term and perform the song in his concerts as a solo artist. Haha..it'll be great fun if either CF or GFS can put up a band to perform this song. It's a wonderful song to rock out to and it gets everybody jumping..hehe :)

The other music video and song which is I think has a powerful and serious message in it is KJ-52's "Life After Death". This song is more of a pure rap song and the song really has this "in your face" kind of message shoved to the listener. It's direct and unbashfully straightforward. The first half of the song and rap narration gives me the creeps. It's basically down to two choices and the individual has to pick one. The chorus does provide some reflective and provocative thoughts :

Whatcha gonna do when there's no time left?
Whatcha gonna do when ya take ya last step?
Whatcha gonna do when breath ya last breath
Out the chest and you find that there's life after death?

Something to think about eh? :)

The Ting Tings

Lol, I first heard of them when Alvin mentioned about them in his Facebook status months ago (coz it had something to do with his surname..lol) I didn't pay attention then because I thought it was some kind of joke from him. Then I saw the Ting Tings advertising at Facebook for their upcoming concert in Singapore. Curious, I went to Youtube to check out and I'm very pleased indeed to discover them!

The Ting Tings is somewhat like Britain's answer to The White Stripes in the US, although they play a different style. Both are essentially two-member bands. Composing of the duo from Manchester, Katie White is the vocals and electric/bass guitarist and Jules De Martino is the drummer. Amazing material from a two-member band...and who says you can't create good band music with just two members?..haha. The White Stripes had been phenomenal with their success and the Ting Tings influence looks to be growing. Their music has been featured in an Ipod commercial, the movie trailer for "Slumdog Millionaire" and FIFA 09.

Like Muse, you either love or hate them. Katie's voice could either sound whiny or creative artsy to some people. Although technically not a rock group, I think the Ting Tings could be classified under the alternative pop-rock and indie label. Dance-punk is quite suitable too because of the constant catchy dance drum beats, although not too many bands fall in that category. They play great naturally on the instruments, with their music laced with some electrico beats and I love some of the electric guitar parts and the drumming. Katie's emo fringe long hair with her electric guitar gives her the rocking chick look..lol. And I wonder why Jules always wear the sunglasses while performing. Reminds me of someone in my university..haha.

Their trademark song is "That's not my name" and the song gives a mixed impression of Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne combined together. It's more of a shout-out song with the melodic part at the bridge. Other songs that are pretty cool are "Great DJ" and "Shut up and let me go"(the music video for this is pretty artsy too). Hmm.."Be the one" reminds me a little of the New Wave genre but done in the modern fashion. There's also a guitar solo by Katie in "Fruit Machine". The Ting Tings' musical style offers something refreshing and way to go with some of the stuff that transcends the usual clichéd, just like the German alternative band Wir Sind Helden. In order to get the richness of their audio material (especially the drumming!), it's best to listen their tracks at the audio quality 256kbps to 320kbps. Another thing is that their musical talent is for real. Check out some of their videos in Youtube where they actually could redo their songs into acoustic style, with both Katie and Jules equipped with guitars and their voices only.

Hmm..anyways, I doubt many will know about them in this part of the world. It's a pity that I couldn't take time off to attend their concert in Singapore in Jan 2009. One thing's for sure is that I'll definitely be adding them to my growing favourite list of alternative rock lads from Britain...haha Anyways, if you're feeling a little adventurous, creative and experimental for some new musical tracks in your ears, be sure to check them out :)

Censored: Avril is too hot to handle!

Has Avril been too naughty lately?

Seriously, another wrong reason to put Malaysia on the world map. The government had apparently announced that the Avril Lavigne concert is canceled because it was deemed to be "inappropriate" for the Merdeka month. In short, Avril is too "sexy" to hold a concert in Malaysia. All the rest of the reasons that were given are irrelevant. As usual, they tried to defend vehemently that it has nothing to do with the recent PAS Youth lobbying for the ban. For them, there are also loads of others that had nothing to do with each other, like Saiful's personal timing of events, the DNA bill or the arrest of the Perak excos. Well, coincidence or not, it's all pointing to an event called the Permatang Pauh by-elections. If all those are "coincidence", wow..I guess Anwar and the Pakatan Rakyat fellas must have offended Lady Luck so badly that she needs to punish them. As for me, it's just a way that the current government is using the ban to show that they're good listeners to their fellow religious comrades who had just complained.

After 51 years of independence, some folks in the government think that they should be the ones who set the "moral standards" for Malaysians to follow. Aduh, Avril is one of the singers who is clad in the most mildest manner in just shirt and jeans for concert. Perhaps they get too excited seeing her "moves" in her "Girlfriend" MTV. Gwen Stefani also kena before for her attire but at least she still gets to perform after some adjustments. So, going by this kind of logic, if Avril gets banned, she's sexier than Gwen..hahahaha. Some of the ridiculous regulations include no jumping, shouting, hugging or kissing on stage and female performers had to dress from top to bottom. Ermmm..then how to have concert in the first place? Actually, I'm wondering if it was U2, Green Day, Justin Timberlake, P Diddy or Akon instead who comes to perform, would they get slapped the same way? Probably not, cos they're male.

In that case, wouldn't that move close to the notion of gender discrimination too? The PAS Youth fellas and some folks in the government who are always protesting whenever a female comes on stage to perform are seriously living in another age. It's not surprising if they end up being the same bunch of people who puts up the silly fallacy that women are asking to be raped by the way they dress or even baju kurung are also too sexy for display. Gosh, in that case, they might as well lobby that all women should have paper bags over their head or have communist-Mao uniforms so that men don't salivate the moment they see skin that is exposed by women.

I think that these fellas in the government should see the immoral behaviour that is happening at their own turf rather than picking on other things for distraction. For instance, rasuah/bribery, racist remarks at Parliament or the repeated broadcast of Saiful's 'adventures' are much more sinful than Avril shaking her butt on stage. And what effect is really achieved by banning the concert when people already had access to the Internet to watch and listen all they want? I think young people are seeing stuff that are 1000 x more harmful than the poor harmless concert music. If you wanna ban Avril or Gwen concerts and set them standards as moral corruption of the youths, then everything else in entertainment should be banned. They shouldn't waste time in sporadically picking on a few random stuff if they think they are the gatekeepers of morality.

These international artiste have decided to pick Malaysia as one of their stops and I think the government should be honoured in that it boosts the country's image as a globalized city. You won't ever see them picking Angola or Bangladesh for their stops. Sooner or later, some of them would just go to any other Southeast Asian venue other than KL. For goodness sake, Indonesia has a larger Muslim population and yet it's easier for female performers to put up a show without someone nagging down their neck about how they're dressed or what they do on stage. We do really need some forward thinking leaders in the government and educate a section of the population who gets too excited over ang mohs/mat sallehs/ Westerner's "unholy" display of the human body.

*Note at Saturday, 23/8/2008 : This morning, government says the Avril show goes on and will proceed as usual. Good for them but the reputation damage has already been done.

Viva la Vida

I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing, Roman cavalry choirs are singing

Since I'm so free now (lol!), I'll write a review on Coldplay's latest album, Viva la Vida which was released in June this year. It can be seen that Coldplay is venturing into a new zone based on the style of the album. There's a general Hispanic feel to the album given the title and also the band's new fashion front. Haha..I like Chris Martin's red and yellow cloth armband. There's politics injected into the album too and perhaps a host of other cultural mixtures. The cover of the album is taken from the French art piece of 'Liberty leading the people' which commemorates the French Revolution. So we have like music videos filmed in Italy, title in Spanish, cover art by a French..lol.

One thing about this album is that it's very unorthodox, in a sense that it uses many techniques which is not common in mainstream music. I dare say that some of the songs are breaking artistic boundaries and even more unorthodox than Muse. As such, it's not easy to accept what you just listened at the first time since it may sound weird. Even Chris Martin said that there was no lyrics in the first song since it's meant to be their safety net.

Anyways, some of the songs that are really good in there are Viva La Vida, Violet Hill, Strawberry Swing and Lovers in Japan. Viva La Vida has an anthem-like feel to it and the iTunes advert using that song is pretty cool =p. Violet Hill is THE political song in the album. I absolutely loved it and the guitar solo in it is just catchy! Violet Hill is also probably one of the rare moments where Coldplay uses heavy distortion for the electric guitar. Strawberry Swing is gentle and psychedelic which gives the listeners a tingling sensation.

If one had difficulty listening to Muse, then he/she would have a hard time listening and grabbing the concept in this album. Personally, it's quite a good album for me since its kinda artistic. Stan loves creative stuff :)

I took my love down to violet hill
There we sat in snow
All that time she was silent still
So if you love me
Won't you let me know?

A-Muse-fied

Gosh, I'm purely hooked on Muse now after freshly inputting more of their songs into my brain. The thing about Muse songs is that you cannot get them into your head or swallow all of them at one shot. Their songs have to be taken in chunks and bits in order to appreciate their creative artistic features. I got to know Muse in early 2007 and like most people, initially thought that they're bunch of weirdos. It didn't help when the first song I heard from them was 'Supermassive Black Hole'. I was like, "Who's this guy using falsetto to sing some really weird tune?"

Then, I decided to check out 'Knights of Cydonia' after hearing from TG about a weird music video with cowboys and laser guns. Another reason why I check out was that Channel 5 at that time was using Muse riffs for the Prison Break advertisements. In any case, I was quite impressed with the tune of 'Knights of Cydonia' and then I started listening to other songs like 'Time is Running Out' and 'Hysteria'. The one that really nailed my liking for Muse was 'Plug in Baby'. Oh man, that starting electric guitar riff is just totally awesome and memorable. I then watch a couple of their live performances in Youtube and once again, I wanna reiterate that they're one funny rock band whose live performances are better than their album versions. They can replicate the album quality of their songs and even do better. Their album versions are really good but they improvised with so much creativity and inject so much of liveliness in their live performances that it's just so amazing to watch them and headbang along with them. In short, they are musical GENIUSES.

So, after listening to H.A.A.R.P, the first batch of new songs inputted into my mind are 'New Born', 'Invincible', 'Blackout' and 'Apocalypse Please'. These songs are not marketed as much as 'Knights of Cydonia' or 'Time is Running Out' and so, not many would know them. Of all of them, I'm most impressed with 'New Born' cos the electric guitar beautifully comes in after the piano melody. Each of these four are have very distinct musical styles. 'Invincible' has an optimist feel to it, 'Blackout' is mild and melancholic and 'Apocalypse Please' is Gothic piano.

Then, still got another next set which I inputted just a couple of days ago - 'Feeling Good', 'Micro Cuts', 'Take a bow' (NOT Rihanna please..haha), and 'Soldier's Poem'. This set just proves that Muse is a total "out of this world" rock band. 'Feeling Good' is a jazz piece, very brilliant cover of the original song. 'Micro Cuts' is some heavy rock falsetto screaming and 'Soldier's Poem' has the Wilfred Owen feel. 'Take a bow' has a fusion of techno and heavy rock - wait, yes..TECHNO, so divergent from the rock branch but they could reconcile both in one song! Oh man, this is unbelievable but Muse can play jazz, rock, indie, electronica, classical piano, gothic - you name it! - and fuse and mix them around to create some musical masterpieces. Seriously, they're very very talented and I don't think many bands can match up to their range of artistic musical capabilities. I'm blown away by these geniuses :)

Introducing Mute Math!

I learned of that band name from one of Chad's buddies. So, I went to youtube to check out some of the group's videos and gosh...I'm really mesmerized especially by the "Typical" video. I would classify Mute Math as artistic rock. Their Transformers theme is so Picasso! And the drumming is wicked :)

The music video of "Typical" is truly a work of aesthetic genius. I never get tired watching it and after 10 times over, I still get amused by it. This sort of reverse narrative had been experimented by other bands before, notably Coldplay in their song "The Scientist". But, what was unique about Mute Math's video is that it's not only the singer that is doing it, the entire band is playing the song backwards for the video! Speaking of drumming backwards, playing the guitar chords backwards and singing backwards plus coordinating all of them together...that is really crazy.Great effort by the group in creating such a creative masterpiece and it's not easy to go against the common flow of brain thoughts. Lol, rewind the video and ta-dah! Awesome effects with many stuff on the screen defying the law of gravity. What makes it even more interesting is that even in reverse, some of the stuff that is reproduced make sense as they did in the forward time version. To prove that it is not a fluke, Mute Math performed their song backwards in the Jimmy Kimmel show. Of course the audiences were bewildered with what they perceived as totally random acts on stage by the band and the singer uttering foreign language..lol. I watched both the forwarded and rewind version of that live performance and I must say I was very confused at first in determining which was actually the real video.

In any case, I shall be looking forward to their new second album which is scheduled to come out in September this year.