Me: Hey I'm here already! Where you at?
She: Hi! I'm at Spade!
Me: What?
She: Spade!
Me: Er, where is that?
She: Oh, it's opposite PrimaVera...
Me: Er...
She: Near Skin Food?
Me: What floor is it on?
She: Oh, first floor!

It would help greatly if landmarks were not boutiques - I am, after all, an unfashionable straight man and we unfashionable straight men are completely oblivious to such shops.

Somehow, the place looked less jazzy and uppity than I thought. A real jazz bar with less apparent pretense than Alexis, I'd say.


Zalina was simply a powerful soul singer with lots of range. She even did a cover of Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another Way To Die... doing both Alicia's and Jack's part!


I asked Faz if they were going to play Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein, since the last time I bumped into her, she said Giant Timeline (another band she is in) would play tonight, and that they'd play Frankenstein.

And so, she granted my request!

That was Thing Two. I have never seen Frankenstein covered. Now the only song I still want to hear a cover of is Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird.


"Someday, I'll be old enough to enter, and I'm going to sing!"


And there, she is, posing for her brother, who is taking pictures of her.

All shots with the Sony A900 and Minolta 50mm F1.4 except the last, shot with my Vivitar 24mm F2.0 DIY Tilt-Shift lens. As you can see it's still difficult to focus a tilt-shift in low light.

A stranger, no wait, hmmm...

Szetoo says I see you too!


The stage was on top of Sungei Wang Plaza, on the fourth floor. What an interesting rooftop stage! I've always thought rooftop stages were cool since The Beatles Rooftop Concert.


Emcee. Utterly every teenage girl's dream.


Do not step on broken glass(es)!


When I can't think of a caption, I usually take the oppurtunity to insert some technical data. Like how all the stage shots were with the Sony A900 and Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan. 210mm was long enough, but I gotta love the 70mm end of it, too!


Ska gets the crowd going!

Dude, what does mine say?!?"


Ken gets a light shone on him.


While Laila's Lounge jammed on stage, their vocalist sat in a jam. This guitarist also sang vocals.

Laila's Lounge didn't make it to Rock The World 8. They had disbanded by then.

It was then Bittersweet's turn, with their vocalist again stuck in a jam, or missing.

There was a couple who had brought their toddlers to the show. Right smack in front of the barricades! They tried to put the kids to sit on the barricades. The kids in the crowd shouted, "Kak, jangan kak! Bahaya kak!" The mother was oblivious to that and insisted on putting their kids up front. The bouncers also advised the parents to bring their kids back down (they were crying then) but they persisted.

Dumb breeders.

Meanwhile, a drunk punk bodysurfed over to where this scene happened, nearly hitting them toddlers in the head. Somehow, I wonder if a lesson should've been taught to the parents.

And there I was, in a massive sandwich, unable to change out of my beercan to a wide-angle lens to document this in pictures.

I left the insane front-row crowd upon Bittersweet's arrival, cradling my lens as I travelled through the mosh pits (following the flow helped). I was just there casually so I didn't go get myself a media pass.


Yeah, I thought it was a pity that the band did not collectively know any harder, faster songs.

After what was like our world tour and 3 encores, looked at my watch - 11:30pm! I had just missed Butterfingers!


I'd heard of them on the first Junk CD. Awesome stuff!

From here.

This is more fun than Facebook picture tagging! (I didn't tag these.)

With Reza Salleh the soulful...

Paolo Delfino Gomez the humorous...


And Rendra Zawawi the theatrical, featuring a trimmed down lineup consisting only of his brother.

Being a singer-songwriter's round, the stage was set for all three of them, taking turns to sing songs in a round-robin fashion.

Shanon Shah, singing songs from the soundtrack of Karaoke!

Well I'd be happy with the Bananarama song or that geeky engineer song but what the heck. :D

Az Samad the amazing wood-knocking fingerstyle guitarist!

Jerome Kugan.

A benefit of being in a singer-songwriter's round is that your round mates often chip in with guitar solos and vocal harmonies. Such moments are magical.


Next up - Peter Hassan Brown! He is often the angsty, opinionated folk singer. Some may not find his stuff with his band Soft Touch addictive, but when he sings one of his new songs with a load of gust and opinion, everybody sits up and takes notice. Who else could sing "because singer-songwriters are playing for free" and get away with it?


Markiza, his wife, took a back seat as she was sick.


Sharidir and Nizam P playing the blues like we were in a real juke joint and not the classy No Black Tie. I had been looking forward to seeing him since hearing his tune, Sighyoung, from the Voices From Next Door album. Of course, he went by the name Sherry back then.


When else can you sit on your instrument?


Ohai Cindy! Shot at 135mm F1.8 1/2s ISO3200 - good job standing still for half a second!

So what's with the increase in image dimensions? It's my New Year's Resolution!

I wanted to celebrate the first gig I'd post with the Sony Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA. I sat at a table near the base of the staircase. That's how far I was from the stage! I like the new perspective and angle it gives as opposed to using my Minolta 50mm F1.4 and cramping my knees crouched in front of the stage while getting shots from their chin.

Oh, and of course, I cannot get any more excited about how crazy sharp this lens is. Peter Hassan Brown never looked so grand! Add to the fact that the increased distance increases depth of field and I get more depth of field on the subject. It's contrasty wide open (I can't say the same about the 50mm F1.4.)

Meanwhile, the 50mm F1.4 captures crowd ambience well. The lower contrast and small diminutive size makes it a great crowd-grabber.