J-Live Asia's Showcase 2: flumpool & WEAVER

To think that I almost decided to pass on this one!

Because the showcase is on the 15th, and I was leaving for Japan on the 19th, I thought that going to Singapore might be a bit too tiring. But Salwa wanted to go, and she isn't that big a fan of flumpool (or a fan at all, come to think of it), so you can pretty much guess how big (and rare) it is for us to get a chance to see good bands here. In the end I decided to go for it, taking the train to Singapore and back the days before and after the concert.

We spent about the entire Saturday - well, from noon onwards - in the line, since it's free seating. Somehow the line felt more unbearable than at ONE OK ROCK's concert, but it's probably because I was more excited then. (^^;) The line was worth it, though, once we got our seats. We were in the second row, right in front of the drums, which were brought to the front of the stage for WEAVER's performance. Throughout flumpool's set, we were mostly right in front of Kazuki. Who happens to be my favourite member, so yay for me! Seriously, though. I never thought I would be able to see them up close like that.

WEAVER's set was awesome, and despite my eagerness to see flumpool, I was actually sad to see them leave. Their English improved a lot since the last time they came, haha. But flumpool - they blew me away, since the first song. They did quite a few of their older songs, which I appreciate, because I'm not quite as caught up to their newer stuff as I'd like to  be. They played a lot of their popular songs, but alas, not one of my absolute favourites - "Zanzou", "Kotoshi no Sakura", and "Harukaze". Not that I was expecting them to, but it would've been nice.

Photos weren't allowed, of course, but during WEAVER's encore they told us those with cameras could take photos of them, so I took a couple on my phone. Wish that flumpool would let us take photos too!

 

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lives and concerts

Where I live, there aren't really that many opportunities to go to lives or concerts I like. In fact, when I was younger, there were hardly any lives going on at all - it got to the point where it didn't matter so much who the artist is, if you've heard of them and they're coming, you might as well go, there's nothing else going on anyway. These days that's not really the case - we have a lot of local bands that are pretty cool, and we do have decent international acts coming almost every month. But still - not many of these artists are ones I actually crave to see live.

Last January I went to Japan to see Arashi's Beautiful World tour in Fukuoka. BUMP OF CHICKEN, a band I'm completely obsessed with, was also touring, but I couldn't afford their tickets after what I paid for Arashi. But my friend happened to win the ballot to ONE OK ROCK's Yokohama Arena Finale, so we decided to go together. And then in February one of my favourites from college, Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessionals, came to my city to perform an acoustic set. 

Usually I don't go to a concerts, much. But this year one thing seems to lead to another, and despite a busy work schedule, I'm still making time for them.

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