A booth was set up just beside the snaking queue selling Mayday and Stay Real merchandise, of which, we bought the Stay Real lanyard and Be Happy hat. Total damage = $50! *shakes head*
The time was passing by really slowly and it was very despairing to see 5mins passed on the watch when it felt like 30mins. We had to entertain ourselves in the blazing sun with mp3 player and the DS. Lesson learnt, next time prepare UNO or poker cards!
As the sun started to set, the queue got longer and people queueing inside the barricades were told to compact the queue so people queueing outside won't have to sit by the road. The band also started to rehearse the repertoire for the evening around this time, providing some much needed entertainment.
About 6pm plus, peiyan arrived with her friends and we sneaked them into the queue. People were streaming in and out of the queue so the sistic staff didn't even bother to check for the entry stamps anymore. After so many hours of queueing, the girls walked to Brewerkz located behind the indoor stadium to buy us dinner! We ordered a large pizza shared among the 4 of us, which is consumed while sitting in the queue. People around us were also having their dinner, subway, mcdonalds and the unprepared were having $6 hot dog bun sold at the food booth set up just next to the queue.
After finishing dinner, we were promptly led into the arena around 7pm before more phototaking opportunities with the good lightings.
We waited a good 80mins before the concert commenced. Their latest album was looping and we heard the same 10 songs TWICE before Mayday came on stage.
And what followed was pretty routine. Nothing too fancy. The band started with a song from their first album, followed by an iconic song from the next 6 albums.
Because this is a free-standing concert, everybody had to stand and visually it just felt damn high. Armed with the singtel/samsung fans given at the entry, if not lightsticks, the crowd were swaying to the beat from start to end. The wind also decided to stop blowing our way and it felt really stuffy with the next person just 1cm away from you in every direction.
Midway through the concert, Ashin admitted that the band was actually quite nervous for this concert. If you watched the 2008 countdown at Taipei on cable, Ashin sounded really awful during the performance because he was down with 重感冒. Another reason for their nervous-ness was because Guan You (drummer) didn't make it for this concert due to some personal reason. But the stand-in drummer, who seriously look like xiaob's bf, was just as good.
One other interesting thing to note from this concert was the segment for 笑忘歌, where Ashin invited the crowd to hold up the hand of the person beside you. On my left was jH and my right, A STRANGER. I awkwardly looked at the person on my right (obviously a girl la, if it was a guy it would be worse) and we sang the song together. It felt like a BIG Mayday KTV session with fellow Mayday fans.
Other than that, nothing special but for a free concert, this concert was very much above expectations. Together, we sang under the starry and ironically cloudy skies.
This is music. It is not all about the number of albums you sell but the message you want to bring across in your music. 相信音乐！
