UGLYM3N = GAYM3N

All photos by Silver Isle 

A gig of two tales, to remember, and to forget…

The last thing we will do again for a gig in Singapore is to drive there from Alor Setar, although i did not drive at all, Hooi and Beh did most of the driving. I was so sick in the car, tired, fever, cold, dizzy… arh… any more words which i could put here. One thing i learnt a lot from this trip is, from now on, I have to really play extreme caution with my health and diet. After playing for Uglymen and Hai Lang on 15th Feb, I proceeded to perform for MCA function on 18th Feb and 21st for Singapore. I realized my body just could not take the workload and ran into alarming level.

To be frank here, I was so afraid that I would not be able to perform in Singapore, was joking with Metal, he would have to sing most of the heavier songs. I could not even stand still as my stomach was in extreme pain, i have no idea what had happened, i had fever, and counldnt stand even a little air cond (sorry for the hotel room guys, i had to off the air cond whole night). But this will always remind me off health conscious, or else the next time, i will really bring the whole band down. In addition, some friends actually took the trouble to watch us and I dint think I could really make it for the show. 

You can see from our screen, cars big queue long dragon….

We took off on Tuesday morning, went to Butterworth to fetch our buddy Beh, on the way, I felt so unwell, and we stopped some where in a small town near Rawang, where we took some food, there was a clinic, but i refused to consult as my palia-useless-waste-money medication from Alor Star still not finished at that moment.

33 years old uglyman still carrying hankerchief around, he said can block the rain while eating woh, u say can boh?

Finally arrived at Singapore Geylang Hotel 81 at approx 1.30am. Ah… I still have time to analyse and invest in some mid night stock market. Some stocks went up (Man Utd, WBA, Celtic), some went to hell (Arsenal, Derby…#$%^&). About the scene and experience in Geylang, i’ll just leave that to Suan and Metal for the talking.

Second day, morning, we went to Swee Lee and did not really saw anything in mind, I later read in some previous post’s comment Jonathan saying Swee Lee just did their sales and all the good stuff were gone. We met up with Joslyn from Singapore at Esplanade before sound-check. I know her from 2005 when i had problem in purchasing Beyond concert tickets in Singapore and she later told me how to buy on-line. Suan and Metal were very angry with me when they first saw her, blaiming me why dint I introduce Joslyn to them earlier, oh.. i think you can see Suan’s expression in the photo below. 

Yum yum… 

Joslyn spent us at an Italian restaurant before we moved on to sound-check. Thanks to her, we got these Ka Kui’s first-day covers and Singapore Airlines pokers too:

Gorgeous faces…

The sound-check, just like last year, done in the hot sun, nearly fainted liao, but time and again, the stage / sound crew were so professional that we did a first-class sound check in the shortest time. As we were very rusty, we kesi-kesi asked the sound man to extend the sound-check (in order for us to practise a few more songs.. kekeke)

Le mah… playing drums in Esplanade so siok lo….

faster practise my tapping, this time it’s the real deal…

why no sound huh? halo? Mr Marshall, can u scream..?

Sound man: ok ok, 1 last song guys, no more using sound-check as practise nah…

Our trusted camera man, Beh getting the best angle to shoot shoot shoot….

This is serious sound-check, done by professional sound-men and sound crew.

We finally met up with Patrick and immediately extended our apology to him for our “deeds” last year. We were glad everything went fine, and Suan just couldnt kept his eyes of WeiWei…

After sound-check, we had dinner with one of the sound crew with Bob-Marley hair, Joslyn and her partner Faizal. The pain in my stomach was like “come and go”, for a few minutes I couldnt even walk, then suddenly, I felt like nothing happened at all..

We walked back to the dressing room after dinner and got ready for the show at 7.30pm. Song lists kicking off:

Kick off time… see all our so fired-up expressions…
Seconds before going “live”

Hello Singapore! and krang krrang krrrang…

-Missing You (ugm)
-Robots R Us (ugm)
-Take Me Out (F.Ferdinand)
-Enter Sandman (metallicca)
-Love’s First Experience (Zhang Zheng Yue)
-Love Bubble Tea (ugm)
-Similar Equation (sam hui)
-Super Horse (sam hui)
-Do Mi Do (ugm)

The first set was played almost flawlessly, before minor hiccups struck in the 2nd set.

Break Time:

During the break-time, an uncle bought our CD and came to us for autograph, telling us he was really happy to see lads playing bands nicely (first i feel really paise because I feel we have not really achieve anything in our 3-piece Uglymen era, BUT, secondly, i felt very motivated too because 3-of-us REALLY had to work our asses off after former drummer left the band and we became 3 -piece from 4-member era) I noticed part of the crowd swayed along, head-banged to our performance to our songs in the first set. We feel very 安慰 and that gave us more strength to move further, as our main aim in performance are always simple and similar = to entertain people.

2nd Set at 8.45pm:

2nd set in Ugly T Shirts…

-Fool (ugm)
Beyond Trobute Section
-Bu Zai You Yi (beyond)
-Xing Ni impromptu (beyond)
-Ming Yun Shi Ni Jia impromptu (beyond)
-Amani (beyond)
-Guang Hui Sui Yue (beyond)
-Zhen De Ai Ni (beyond)
-Hai Kuo Tian Kong (beyond)
-Medley: Hui Se Gui Ji / Sui Yue Wu Sheng / Zhan Sheng Xin Mo / Jin Shu Kuang Ren (beyond)
-Eat Yourself (ugm)
-Si Ai Bin (ugm)

2nd set was full of events. First, we changed our clothes from jump-suits to Ugly T shirts, and started off well. Some thing just went wrong as i felt the momentum of the band was not exactly strong as the first set. Then, Beyond Tribute section went off, and the 5th string of my guitar also went off. I had no choice but to improvised and to re-tuned the strings at the same time. But one thing for sure is the feel of the song was gone, i just tried my best to maintain the song til the end. I had to stopped playing while Suan and Metal had to make up something to continue the show. While Silver rushed to get the spare strings, Patrick rushed to get a spare guitar. It stopped too long, and Suan and Metal had started to luan luan play Xing Ni. The luan-luan play section came to an end fast and i just simply started to sing Ming Yun Shi Ni Jia, thanks to its simple melody and easy-to-remember chords, we some how conned every one there… sigh.. so bad…

After about 10 minutes, Patrick was ready with a Gibson for me… wahahha… a Fender mexico for a Gibson. While i played on the Gibson, Beh replaced the string on the Fender. The show continued with Amani, Guang Hui Sui Yue, before finally the Fender is restored to the front in Zhen De Ai Ni. The remaining of the Beyond Tribute sections was lacklustre to us and we did quite a number of mistakes, un-noticable to most of the crowd.. phew….

Eat Yourself and Si Ai Bin pulled the curtain down on the show, yet, again, another string (4th) broke in Si Ai Bin, but it went on well as i managed to locate others places to play some simple power chords to cover the songs.

Thanks to Paul for dropping by, Beyond Forever..

Uglymen and Patrick, and eh… according to Suan, this pretty girl ~ WeiWei is one of the reason Singapore is so hot… wooo, its getting hot here.

Eh.. can i take this babe home, Patrick??

Through out the show, I was having extreme pain in the stomach especially when singing in higher register, thank God and to all the support from every one there, we made it through.

Personally, I would like to  thank, in no particular order, Joslyn and Faizal, Patrick, WeiWei, all stage and sound crew, audience, Beh, Paul, Alex, Jonathan, Yi Cheng (drummer of Nightmare Cinema), the 13 people who bought Ugly album, and Silver for taking care most of the stuff.

I have no more energy to write about the final day. I believe Suan will tell you more….

Going to have a rest…

p/s: i am having stronger belief now that i am building the right guitar.