Uncultured, Uncivilised!

All those idiots sitting behind, and off to the side but on the same level as us yesterday, all of you deserve to be smacked about the face until your cheeks turn redder than Anne's sunburnt nose! Stupid secondary school kids (from schools in which some of the Westwinds ppl teach I'm sure) have no idea what it means to be at a concert. Given, Westwinds isn't some big (not literally) band that commands our utmost reverence and rapt attention whenever any instrument is sounded, but at least the most basic respect should be accorded, no? Yesterday's concert wasn't some secondary school concert where the players revel in every whoop and call for their name (although I suspect some of them did, especially with the amt of bitching by Feli abt *SOMEONE*), the players and both conductors were trying to bring the best in the music out to people, and DON'T YOU REALISE THAT SOME OF US NEED SILENCE TO ENJOY THE MUSIC?!!? I don't so much mind the name-screaming before and after the pieces, it's the incessant talking that goes on during the pieces itself that pisses me off. Oh, it's a solo? What instrument issit? It's a horn. No, it's a euphonium. Issit?? OMG la... AND, some idiots just happened to think it was fun to make funny noises while Mr Ito was waiting for a gong sound to die off. If you don't want to listen to the music, please don't waste my $13 and your $13 at the Esplanade. Please go to some... I dunno, mad rave party or some pop singer's personal concert where you can scream his/her names out, or make any other strange noises you'd like, or any other place I'm not! Then I couldn't care less. Secondary school kids, you bunch of uncivilised and uncultured people, you should all be banned from concerts other than your own (I don't care how much it hurts our ticket sales) until you learn some basic concert ettiquette.



On to the concert proper... From the personalities and playing styles of people I know in the band (yes this means you too Alex), I was surprised that the band sounded amazingly controlled throughout the entire concert. Anne says that's a good thing, and I agree to some extent, but I would've liked some parts to be more forceful, or at least louder. The first half under the baton of Major Tng was on the whole rather too tame for my tastes. Considering I've played 2 of the pieces there, Jalan Jalan ~Isle of the Gods and Impressions of Japan, I was quite happy to revel in the lack of any major, glaring mistakes, although at times I felt the percussion was happily admiring the scenery or something while the band wound through the music. Annoying as that was, I've gotten used to percussion sections doing stuff like that. (No offence SH =p; As for the other band I play in... Let's just not comment on their percussionists...) I quite liked the beginning of Impressions especially in the first half, although most of the rest of it wasn't bad either, just that most of the pieces sounded a tad unpolished.

Of course the main draw of the concert was the 2nd half where Mr Yasuhide Ito took the band. Westwinds' sound opened up considerably (although not quite enough for me), and the pieces sounded like they practiced quite a bit more. Not being a pianist I shan't comment on Mr Ito's keyboard skills (though he sounded pretty good of course). Of particular interest was the piece based on Singapore (which I forgot the title of, but Anne has the cd anyhow). Personally I thought it sounded very Indonesian, with all the Gembilan (not sure abt spelling?) sounding mallets and whatnot. Not particularly Singaporean if you ask me. The Taiwan based piece sounded folkish enough I guess, but then again it's based on Taiwan folksongs which I've never heard beford... Ok enough with guesswork and whatnot, the main, main draw of the night was Gloriosa, which I really, really love. The opening was nice, although the audience (see first paragraph) was annoyingly noisy as usual. The singing reminiscent of our Monastery Garden (Shan't compare =p), and the trombone section tone quite somber and reverent. As they broke into the fast part, I was quite happy to listen to the band run through all the notes (pretty) clearly and cleanly, not like the mishmash of sound I'm (sadly) getting used to hearing from running passages. The ending gong for the 1st mvt (cos of the audience) was the absolute most disappointing part, because the idiots even decided to applaud =_= OMG, not as if the piece was done?? And claiming ignorance is no excuse because you should wait for the conductor to signal the end anyhow. The 2nd mvt's piccolo solo started quite promisingly, but I'm not sure if it was the conductor/composer's wish, or that he was very tired, but close to the end it started to sound as though he was beginning to tire. The band itself was beginning to show signs of fatigue although the chords were still pretty decent, just that I couldn't really feel the music... The 3rd mvt was also pretty clean and crisp, although the percussion section felt as though it was doing something strange here and there again (not sure if it's my hearing, but I doubt it). The 2 trpt 2 trombone quartet was.... weird. I expected the bass trombone to be much stronger (I am not biased) because the beginning has quite a lot of movement, but I definitely didn't expect the 1st trpt to be so loud. As though it was his solo and the rest were just floating in the background. The ending tutti part was definitely too lackluster. I totally expected more from a band that contains Alex and Soon Soon. Maybe they're tired, I dunno. =X

I don't feel like commenting on the encores, although Mr Ito did an interesting swap from conductor to pianist midpiece with Major Tng taking over, so I shall end with an overview. The concert was generally a good one, with minor hiccups here and there, and a really, really irritating audience.

Supper was soso, although 2 ppl who said they would join us didn't... (one went home earlier the other I dunno wad happened to him) The food wasn't too fantastic, although excessive chocolate was nice, but we got cheated when they passed off a warm chocolate cake as a mudpie =_= Cafe Cartel so needs to take lessons from NYDC in that respect. Ended up talking to Feli abt WMC and (hopefully if I have enough cash) the post-WMC extension grad trip. So many places we wanna go, so little money (me la, I know other ppl are rich)... Hopefully TH, Emmy and Anne (YES YOU IF YOU READ THIS) better come along and extend aso, cos as Feli mentioned, the type of company's impt when you run arnd a foreign country. For some strange reason Anne didn't have enough potato/fries in him, so he decided to go to Mac's, ending up in us walking arnd the outside of Marina Square to discover that it was closed, and him eventually driving us (wif JB and YZ *cough*) to the East Coast one. We sat there for... I dunno, 3 hours? Talking about random things from school, student unions, SYFs to various band ppl to erm... interesting people who walked past us to the counter. Some drunk guy collapsed on the ground for a brief moment but managed to get up with help and walk off to flag a cab.

On the whole quite a nice night/morning, although we missed breakfast by abt 8 mins, and I ended up being super sleepy throughout the whole of tuition =p. I also found out some interesting things... Like how JB likes to use the word "Really??" (I wanted to count, but I decided I wasn't bored enough ^^) Never thought I'd come back here to post again, but I guess I just suddenly felt like it. I make no promises as to further posts of course. Band starts soon! Guess I should go. I miss my trombone... Maybe I should bring it home and annoy people in my block...

I thought it was gone, now it's back! OMG!