the biggest gig of the year: Slipknot The Subliminal Verses World Tour LIVE IN SINGAPORE!!

today was THE day. Slipknot was gonna perform in sg for the first time ever! Pavel and I had gone down to Shenton Way during the June hols to get the tix way in advance, and we couldnt help but wait in anticipation for this day.

Pavel, my brother and I reached fort canning green at like 7.50pm. the ticket said it started at 8 but it was obviously gonna be delayed. the Green was already crawling with maggots!! but thankfully we had vip cage tickets. the unspoken dress code was black, and we got into the 2nd row. we waited anxiously for the band to appear, with the crowd getting increasingly restless and chanting "slipknot slipknot!". then the PA started playing my chemical romance. the congregation of metalheads weren't in the mood for any punk-pop teen-angst laden music!!

dry ice kept being emitted and the PA played Prelude 3.0. before long the band appeared: drummer was the first, followed by the rest, lastly Corey. the crowd went BALLISTIC. i was crushed by the onslaught of crazy people. and i dun mean to be racist, there was an Indian guy in front of me who kept swinging his long hair back and forth, and my face, mouth and hands were often smothered by it!! i wasn't the greatest of fans, but i was awe struck seeing them in the flesh for the first time, when i could only hear them in the past.

"Are you ready Singapore for the chaos?!" Corey growled out to the ecstatic fans. the band broke out into The Blister Exists. "they said it would never happen, we would never cross the border. and now here we are."

the crowd had formed what was probably the largest and most intense mosh-pit ever seen in Spore. it was non-stop moshing and jumping, what a mosh pit really should be! i was obviously sandwiched worse than sardine and sweat was free flow. my ribs were compressed and the gig wasn't for the faint-hearted. nevertheless, the crowd though brutally aggressive, looked out for each other (corey: "we're all here to enjoy music right? not get hurt. we're family. and family takes care of each other"). thats smth i love about moshes. the feeing is warm.

the band played all the favourites. some i could recall were Left Behind, the heretic anthem, purity, spit it out, people = shit, everything ends, vermilion, before i forget, pulse of the maggots, duality, wait and bleed, surfacing.

although the band was given a long list of do-nots, they managed to deliver a spellbinding performance. they gave their all and sweat was flowing down their drums, guitars, and sleeves. they have the ability to reproduce what u hear on their CDs. not many bands can do that. their sound is unmistakable: drums, guitar, bass, synthesizer, metal cans as percussion. what u get is noise, pioneering of great noise. heavy metal masterpieces. the band kept going backstage after almost each song, and for one song they came out unmasked.

before i knew it, the gig had ended in about 1hr40min. my ears were ringing. i was covered in sweat (my own and others'). but i was part of the greatest gig of the century.

here's a pic. i'm inside!!! behind the long-bearded guy (photos from soft.com.sg, i'm sorry i forgot to credit them previously. all apologies!)

HELLO PUNKS / a wild goose chase: the mystery of the mythical ronin gig

hi everyone this is darren tan speaking haha. yes can u believe it, i'm blogging.

oh well my first entry is about hanging out with the Ronin guys! haha. monday night 8 Aug, junhong and i went to the Carnival@marina to catch RONIN. yes we were looking forward to a great anti-national day show. but what we were about to encounter was beyond our imagination.

when we reached at 8.55pm, the stage was massive and this act called The Great Shanghai Escape was performing. as the name suggests, it was lame, and lamer Sporeans were enjoying it... we waited till 9.15 before asking where the hell ronin was. as it turned out there was ANOTHER faraway stage where english bands were performing. well we ran, along the road and across the muddy field, but as it turned out.. it was some lau-pok band performing to empty space. wow. we asked the organisers, "where the hell is ronin?" and they told us to try yet ANOTHER stage nearby.

we started running (again) and as we got closer to this stage, yes..... it indeed was ronin! but the crowd was like 15 people.. no one standing. man. so we went to the front of the stage and head-banged and egged people on to join us. about 4 girls joined in and started jumping like groupies. the show ended 10 minutes after. the ronin guys really appreciated our presence. and they kindly agreed to pose for a picture :-)

after that they told us to accompany em to the earlier stage and we chilled with em, we had free bbq food, beer and maxim! simon kept telling me to gulp the beer down and finish it! Bang told me about himself. he looks really innocent and geeky, but man he's a killer drummer.hah. sean is one of the more serious guys, he went to vj, and only he and Levan quit smoking. the atmosphere was pretty laid-back, with really lao-jiao bands playing tunes like Smoke on the Water, and I Will Survive. they performed another set at 11.30 and we watched the fireworks together, before taking the river taxi to clifford pier. and Levan gave us his number and told us to add him in MSN! cool

oh well the ronin guys are pretty regular guys u'd find on the street. just that they choose to pursue their passion, while most of us do not. they have no airs about them, agreeing to perform even when there's no crowd and delivering 2 kick-ass shows. it really shows their dedication.