Baybeats 2005: Day One, Quick Notes
I arrived quite late from dinner and drinks with my former colleagues, so only saw Shamejoannshame and Nakedbreed.
The former was unremarkable instrumental post-rock which seemed to take overlong overdescriptive song-naming inspiration from A Silver Mount Zion. (Exhibit A: Shamejoannshame’s “I Heard You Singing A S Club 7 Song While You Were Super Wasted.” Exhibit B: A Silver Mount Zion’s “Sisters! Brothers! Small Boats Of Fire Are Falling From The Sky!”)
The latter was energetic pop-rock with catchy harmonies and occasional excursions into Joe Satriani guitar territory. Better than many similarly styled bands I’ve heard in Singapore – they deserve to do fairly well and probably will, given the accessibility of their sound.
to be fair, there are quite a number of bands/acts which have really long song names… i think Sufjan Steven takes the cake with his Illinois album: “The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, Or, ‘I Have Fought The Big Knives And Will Continue To Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'”
Hmm, I don’t think you missed much. B-Quartet and Mysquaredcircle were tiringly shouty in a bad way, and The Pinholes were amusing at times but the lead singer had too many Liam Gallagher-type mannerisms going on. At least Shamejoannshame had a sense of humour heh.
I thought the levels of security were excessive though….there were just too many damn policemen wandering about. I couldn’t be arsed to go through the security check at the main stage with my bag so hung around on the edges. What was really annoying though were the six (if I counted correctly) policemen pretty much mingling with the crowd during tonight’s Poptart and jumping forward whenever anyone so much as put a foot on the stage.
Haha Enid, I’m just home from Poptart too! Couldn’t go for the after party because I have to go to mass tomorrow morning, boo.
sounds sucky with the security and all. darn i still miss it. wish im back home.
wah lau… reading about the tight security just makes me depressed about attending big gigs in singapore… so notch fun!
Tessa: And album-wise, let’s not forget the gobsmacking I-want-to-slap-her-silly wankery of Fiona Apple – When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He