Day 1 - Nanase!!!Pop Village is a 2-day music event organised by the National Arts Council and part of the Singapore Arts Fest this year. Acts from all over Asia performing from 4pm to 10pm on 10th and 11th June at Fort Canning Park. The program and other stuff:
On the 1st day, the only act I wanted to see was my dear Nanase and since she was the last to perform, I only went at around 7.45pm. Surprisingly still quite few people, all sprawled on mats and plastic bags on the grass. Decided to sit too cos only a few people were standing. A Taiwanese 原住民 singer Ji Xiao Jun and her musician family were on stage. They were good, and the audience responded with polite applause, but I guess they are quite unknown here.
Slightly better response when Korean singer Ryu took to the stage, esp for his Winter Sonata theme song. But his songs mostly quite slow. Guest Chua Li Lian only dueted one song with him. I moved up to stand near the front cos I could sense that the crowd was growing in anticipation of Nanase's arrival...
And then there she was! Shocking pink hair and decked out in red outfit and black boots. Cute and cool at the same time...At first she seems quite stern and serious when belting out her first no. "R U OK?!" but when she smiles she really looks very sweet!
(apologies for my crappy camera which takes absolutely lousy pics in poor lighting)
And her smiles were flashed out more and more often when she saw how hyped up the fans were! 好high ar! The crowd was fantastic too, chanting her name frequently and clapping along.
She talked a bit, at first in English but reverted to Japanese after a while. I didn't spend those few years studying the language for nothing and I could understand what she was saying! It's her 1st time performing in Sg (Actually 2nd time here but 1st time was only stopover to India). She went to see the Merlion but unfortunately it was under maintenance (Mr Merlion is taking a 5-week bath, 'Excuse me while I take a shower.') and then she went shopping at Mustafa of all places and bought fork and spoon of all things! So maybe she's kinda 'dai b' too haha!
Her 8-song set comprised all pumping rock no.s including R U OK?!, Trouble Maker, 夢見る少女じゃいられない, Fly to Rainbow Ray, Sweet Emotion, Everybody Goes and Dahlia. (Don't know the title of the 3rd song...) I love the part when she was singing Dream Girl, and everyone joined in at the 'Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!' and '夢見る少女じゃいられない' parts! Ging ar!
She got quite 激動 nearing the end...
Despite the crowd's incessant chants of "Nanase! Nanase!" and "Encore!" I guess no encores were allowed and she looked apologetic when she waved hard before trooping off the stage...But it was a truly wonderful, awesome (and a bit ear-splitting) rock performance! I hope she'll be back again!
Souvenir guitar picks from the organisers...
Day 2 - at 17! (and Chet Lam, Tanya...)Day 2, I had considerably more company as most of the sg gootoes liked at 17 too...Met up with caocao, rae, meyes and mama to 'da-bao' some dinner before meeting fanfan who had all their tics! (Steph was joining us later) Luckily the rain had stopped by 5-plus when we climbed lots of steps to reach Fort Canning Park...
In the end I was tempted and bought at 17's 3rd album 變變變 (with DVD). I already had their 1st two which were also on sale together with Chet Lam's and Tanya's CDs. Saw a couple of acts that we didn't know, but decided to go stand at the front anyway or else we won't get a good view later. That was the beginning of our back-breaking 5-hr standing ordeal...
At about 7pm, caocao's 'Jiajia' (Gong Shi Jia) appeared on stage. Actually she was there the day before to see Nanase too though I didn't see her! Then she sang a duet with Tank, followed by Tank's solo. Not so familiar with the two of them...
At long last, at 17! The front row of Tank and Shi Jia fans moved away swiftly to be replaced by at 17 and Chet supporters! at 17 was so cute, esp Eman! At the beginning, the emcee asked her something but I think she didn't really catch it so she fumbled for a short while before saying 'Pardon?' in a most amusing manner. She speaks Mandarin very well while Ellen spoke mostly in English. And though Ellen was the well-known accomplished guitarist (型!), Eman's guitar skills also not bad. The strumming was so fast and furious for part of 女扮男生 and Radiohead's song!
Song-list: 始終一天, 三分鐘後, 女扮男生, The Best is Yet to Come, Paranoid Android(Radiohead Cover), ??? and 忘記他 (Teresa Teng Cover), 青春, 歌唱達人 and 衝衝衝
I love their performance esp 始終一天, 女扮男生 and the rocking 歌唱達人 (Did I get the title right? I know it's the new theme song of JSG). Ging!
Chet was next, on guitar of course. At one point he also used a long stick-like thing to strum the guitar! He sang a no. of familiar songs like 我和泡麵 and 離開，是為了回來, and English covers like Madonna's Crazy For You and ABBA's Dancing Queen, but a no. of them featured new arrangements. Unfortunately we didn't pay full attention cos we spotted Eman and Ellen sitting at the side of the stage, watching Chet's performance on a big screen so we migrated to the side too to look at them!
Tanya was the final performer. She was fresh from her victory at the Taiwanese Music Awards and seemed rather hyper! I realised that I quite like a no. of her songs...perhaps I'll buy her Best album...
Chet appeared as a guest and sang the English version of Stef Sun's 遇見 together with Tanya.
We managed to catch Tanya before she left and she nicely said hello to the fans and consented to sign autographs in half-darkness! People were trying to provide some light with their handphones!! Yeah, somehow they led the artists away on a very dark and 'ulu' path lor!
I realised that I had taken more photos of Tanya than at 17! I guess I was too engrossed in at 17's performance to take a lot of pics. And I'm possibly the only one with more shots of Eman than Ellen among the sg gootoes? My back was still aching a bit the day after...standing for 5hrs plus is tiring!
