Sing me a festival!

I was in the thick of the 2-day music festival last week on our national day and boy did I have the time of my life...My only gripe is that I wish it would've had a better name than Singfest (someone thought I'd gone down to a sing-along singapore songs festival).

I'll just list down the top 5 acts over the 2 days that are worth mentioning in order of merit (according to me anyway)

1. Sugar Ray

Ok this comes abit from a biased point of view. I've been a Mark Mcgrath fan since Secondary School and have been amazed at how amazingly he has aged - like wine.

As he belted out songs that bring back so much nostalgia, singing along to them brought me back to my secondary school days, memorizing lines from "Every morning" to "Someday" and the inevitable "Fly". Plus the fact that Mark didn't look like he aged one bit made it all the more nostalgic as if I'd went back in time to ten years ago. Felt like time stopped when he stood right about 2 metres in front of me in all his tatoo-ed sweaty glory. *groupie giggles*

On top of belting out our favourite Sugar Ray stuffs, Mark was going crazzzzzyy that night and the audience lapped it all up. His lame and goofy dancing, his cheesy lip sync-ing to Guns n Roses and many other Mark Mcgrath antics that make the girls scream louder and the guys go "hell yeahh!", and he kept making sure we knew how much fun he was having...So did we Mark, so did we...

2. Cyndi Lauper

I could almost put Cyndi and Sugar Ray tied at the number 1 place but like I said Sugar Ray is a personally biased favourite of mine. Plus she kinda disappointed me by not singing "Time after Time" and disappointed Ted (a huge Cyndi fan) abit by not singing "Money Changes Everything".

However, she more than made up for it, she was in a league of her own. Making a grand entrance with a black long wig and a huge dame of a hat that would put Rihanna's Umbrella song to shame. And the energy kicked in from the first milisecond the music started and soon enough, she ripped off the hat and the wig, much to the crowd's delight. Then the party started.
Now I didn't grow up with Cyndi's songs but I do know some of her signature tunes, "True Colors" was echo-ed along with the audience, "I drove all night" was delivered with such panache, you could actually entertain the thought she was singing just for you.

At one time, Cyndi left the stage, went to the barricades and jumped up and down like a pre-pubescent teen with a lucky fan and then she walked to the middle of the field before making her way back to stage. As Teddy said, "Cyndi does what she wants, when she wants!" And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, she kicked it up a notch when Shaggy joined her onstage to accompany her on two songs, "Girls just wanna have fun" being one of them. Shaggy went crazy with her wig and hat and everyone on stage and off it, had fun...

She was an entertainer in between songs too. Asking the soundman to turn up her guitar 3-4 db, straight up, then cheekily asked "how much does it cost?" with her adorable (for lack of a better word) tweety bird voice. She even managed to crack a joke about her hair asking the audience "Do you know what color my hair is?" ...."It's called 'absence'" as she pointed to her short cropped blonde locks. LOL.

What can I say, for someone who made the anthem "Girls just wanna have fun" popular, she lived up to her own lyrics. Damn!

3) The Noisettes

I haven't been exposed to The Noisettes before but hell, they f*cking rocked the stage!

I love performers who go ape shit crazy on stage, uninhibited and exhibitionists, they are after all being paid to entertain to some critical and watchful eyes..

Lead singer of The Noisettes, Shingai Shoniwa put up a no holds barred performance. Another thing about watching an uninhibited perfomer is that their ease of making the stage comfortably and fully theirs, makes them so easy on the eyes.

Shingai pranced, hid behind the DJ console, climbed up the side railings, climbed up the drums and jumped off it, jumped down to the audience at the end of their set, did some farewell cartwheels, flirted with the audience ("can you stop looking so gorgeous for just 5 minutes?!) on top of rockin out some awesome rock and roll. The kind of raw rock and roll you don't know how to categorize except that it's definitely under "Awesome Shit".

4) Mxpx

I've never been a huge fan of punkrock music but now I see the appeal. Punkrock is best served Live. The kids went crazy, the crowd surfing was rampant, the moshing went full steam (but not as raucous as when Avenged Sevenfold took the stage, during which the metal group was asked by security to stop in the middle of their first song to tell the audience to move back since front row kids were being squashed and the barricade broke and all. hoho)

Highlights include "Responsibility" and the cover of The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I go".

Narny and I worked up a sweat doing the punkrock thing that you do when you watch a punkrock band live. And guess what, Narny spotted a yellow Mxpx pick on the ground which fell after ..Mike and Tom were exchanging guitars in mid air. If there's one band that knows how to do punkrock, it's Mxpx, they've been around for yearsss and their set was nothing less than...Awesome!!!

5) The Stranglers

Oldies but goodies, they rocked song after song after song non-stop, no bullshit bantering, just letting the music speak for themselves. R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Other honorable mentions:

The Pet Shop Boys

Definitely the most colorful (and gay-est) of all. Back-up singers and dancers donned colourful costume after costume ranging from tight gold cowboy outfits, rainbow-coloured jerseys, torso-baring army uniforms and other quirky outfits with neon-lighted backdrop that also beamed some random videos on a big screen

I don't know if it's because it's electronic music or Neil Tennant but he seemed very distant and impersonal in his delivery, straight posture and penguin suits and hat, his eyes read "don't touch me love, I just got these dry-cleaned" - friendly but unapproachable.

But when they closed with "Go West", it's all goooood.

Singfest 2007

Day 1 line-up

Sasha Bach Band
Shaggy
The Stranglers
Cyndi Lauper
Sugar Ray
The Pet Shop Boys


Day 2 line-up

One Buck Short
The Great Spy Experiment
Crowned King
Cobra Starship
The Academy Is...
Gym Class Heroes
Avenged Sevenfold
Mxpx
Hinder

If you're a true blue music fan, I'm sure you had a hella lotta fun at Singfest too. Here's hoping for more to come next year. Hopefully they've got bigger or more niche names that're willing to stop by Singapore on their way to the Summer Sonic Fest in Japan.

More rock concerts please!

Photo Credits:

• Day 1 acts photographed by Narny (except for Pet Shop Boys and The Stranglers by Azira).


• Day 2 acts photographed by Fauzi.