Jamie Cullum In Concert

Absolutely. Fuckin. Brilliant. Concert.

What can I say? The concert was absolutelyfucking brilliant.

For those who don't know [philistines!] Jamie Cullum is a pop/jazz pianist and singer, with 3 albums out so far, Pointless Nostalgic, TwentySomething, [the one that pushed him to the public eye] and Catching Tales, his latest. Why I like him is because not only is he great at jazz, and jazz improvisation, his songs are also witty and brilliant, and I have this thing for Brits. :p

Although I was rather chagrined, when I went into the Suntec hall, only to find out that my $100 tickets, which were the mid-range ones, gave me a seat with this view:


Can you see the very small looking concert stage?

WTF??? I'm only like a few rows away from the cheapest seats lor!!! This is what I paid for?

Ok fine, I sit down and soon the concert starts.

Sidenote: It took this concert for me to realise why the Esplanade was so strict on latecomers. Because the people streaming in after the concert was supremely irritating. Imagine, you're lost in the piano strands of music, and then suddenly, one dark humanoid blob is walking across going, "Sorry, sorry, excuse me..." Argh!!!

Then there were the people who were constantly leaving the concert hall, why??? I didn't get it, because some of those people had obviously paid about $100 for their tix and they were walking out in the middle of the concert in twos! I mean, did you want to watch the concert in the first place? *mystery*

But for those who stayed, what a concert!!! Halfway during, he jumped off stage with the trumpet player and started an improptu performance in the middle of the audience! OF which I totally missed, because of all the rabid female fans surrounding him.... -_-!!!!! Finally I looked at the people beside me, sitting sedately, [not even tapping their toes, sure you enjoy or not!] I looked at the screaming, jumping fans below, and I quickly decided which side was having more fun.

I ran off my seat and to the front of the hall, in response to his invitation to the fans to come to the front. ["Don't worry, they're with us," was what he told the security guard who feebly tried to protest] So from my seated $100 seat, I ended up standing right next to the stage to the left, screaming my head off and thumping the beat on the stage.

This was how near I was:



Trust me, it IS Jamie Cullum.

Er, granted it doesn't look like much, considering I used my HP cam, but trust me, I could've jumped up on stage and ripped his shirt off. :p Funny thing, I never thought of myself as much of a fangirl during my teenage years. I suppose those pubescent hormones kinda laid hormone till I actually had the money to go to these concerts. :p Probably barely explains why a 25 year old girl/woman was screeching and screaming, jumping up and down and thumping her hand in the air or on stage. I was just saving them all for later. :p

Oh, but the concert was GREAT, and especially exciting though wince-inducing was when Jamie would do some stunt on the piano, which he is famous for. I mean, you can't help but pity the piano when he does this:



And I'm not sure whether it was a stunt or what, but after he did this running jump thing to the piano where his fingers were supposed to magically thump the right notes for a particular song, the piano lid actually came off! He tried to put it back, though he didn't quite manage it, but somehow the noise he made in trying to became an impromptu percussion performance! I love that spontaneity! Plus, I'm also sure I've never seen a pianist play the piano by reaching his hand into the body and thumping and plucking the strings. -_-!!! And making it sound good to boot. Kids, do not try this at home. Jamie has insurance

Overall, great concert. :) I'm especially happy that my way-at-the-back seat became a front row stage space. :) :) :)



What a difference you made.

My poor, poor blog. *blows* Almost as much dust around as there was in my hostel room.

And btw, Yenn and I have officially given up the room. We went back today to throw out the last of the trash, and then return the keys and the LAN cables.

The one thing we didn't do was to move back the furniture into its original position :p We figured if the neighbours didn't, and got away with it.........

Man what memories we had in that room. Definitely living away from the family and with someone else to boot is a different and very enriching experience. We learnt a lot of things about each other [some stuff that we would rather not know, as well] we learnt to live with each other [harder than you know] and we still managed not to kill each other at the end of it. Looking at the room, completely devoid of human possessions, and everything that had made it alive and our 2nd home for one year, just seemed...... sad.

So since the last entry was about photos, this one now is dedicated to some of the highlights of the one year's stay:

- Our various assorted neighbours:
The one I thought was a filipino maid but who turned out to be a resident, and who had an assorted of wushu swords in her room
The girl who kept 2 rabbits in her room and whose stink reached out to the corridor
The 2 siao char bo who giggled endlessly and who dragged furniture around at 3 in the morning, driving Yenn insane but never heard by me

- The men below:
The room next to the kitchen on the floor below us, which had a constant STINK emanating from it. First, you smelt it as you walked past the open doorway. Later, you smelt it as you approached the kitchen. The best of all, one day, I smelt it BEFORE I even reached the kitchen doorway, only to find out that the door was closed, and the smell was evidently strong enough to break through it. I have no idea how those guys live like that. Maybe they have no noses.

- The time Yenn got sick and couldn't have the fan on or risk a coughing fit and I nearly died of the heat and suffocation. We stepped very tenderly on each other's toes until I finally bought my standing fan. Later when she recovered fully, that fan became used to blow at her laptop when she left her Maplestory store open 24hours. -_-!!!!!

- The day I brought my new laptop back to the room in its box, all the way from the other side of campus. I huffed and puffed my way back to the hostel, climbed the excruciating 6 stories of stairs, and opened the door only to find Yenn frantically wiping up spilled Milo. Apparently the hook that she had used to hang it on broke while the packet was still hanging on it, sending a packet of Milo crashing [splashing?] to the ground. We spent hours wiping up the mess with toilet paper, because the Milo had seeped everywhere. Months later, Yenn would open a little-used desk cupboard, to find fungus growing there from some Milo she had missed.

- Many afternoon naps and Mapling time when we were supposed to be studying or writing papers.

- The great western food stall in our hostel, and the great Jap store with great fried tofu in the hall next to ours. Many boxes of spaghetti bolognaise imported from NIE.

- Many jokes/threats traded between the two. For eg, throwing each other's underwear out the window, warnings not to engage in illicit sex while the other was out, threats to throw each other's underwear to the guys below, threats to give each other's hp nos to the guys below, threats to burn each other's clothes, threats to call my boyfriend OR the illegitimate husband to come n give me sex already because I was so desperate, threats to call some strange guy to come up and give her sex because she was so desperate.......... Maybe I should stop this section here.

- Other strange people who did strange things around the hostel, like scream "CCB!!!" in the afternoon in an empty car park. *Weird*

So many incidents in just that one year of living. ^_^!!! But somehow it was living and experiencing that with a friend that made it all that much more bearable. And interesting. I'm not sure that if I had to live with a total stranger, I would have had that much fun in campus. And I think that makes all the difference. :)

But at least I'm thankful my underwear is safe now.