Virtuoso Finals

The judgment day finally came…a few Saturdays ago…

After so many rounds of eliminations…against talents from all the universities, polytechnics as well as SIM…since june…

It was finally the finals..

To be honest…we were ill prepared. Melvin was out of town…Ben was busy with his exchange stuff…n we jus weren’t able to meet up.

We missed the first rehearsal and at the final full dressed rehearsal…we still weren’t sure wat we were performing! That’s how last min we were.

I didn’t ask anyone down to watch us…cos…I felt..we really din prepare too well…

I heard that this year’s ticket sales were more sluggish than last yr too…all e more..i din call anyone..

Our poster!

We had to reach by 12 plus dat day for runs after runs before e actual event…

I’m not one to get nervous…usually. But there were some butterflies in e stomach..maybe cos we din sound too gd at e pre-runs that day…

And I had to spend some time adjusting settings on my guitar so that it sounds better on e sound system in the auditorium. Previously..it sounded like shit..haha..

Ben messin with my guitar n my shades!

Joel's Set up for e day

I stuck to clean acoustics

Melvin on guitars. erm...

To showcase wat we hav in SMU...no wonder our sch fees r so high!

When we finally got on stage for e real thing..i was shocked to see a fully packed auditorium! I was thinking.. “aiya..play to small crowd one..” which..wasn’t so small afterall…

It was a little hard to play at times cos when e spot light shines..it actually blinds u and all u see in front..is darkness when u'r on stage.

Everything went pretty well…e audience laughed when they were supposed to laugh…clapped along when they were supposed to…so I guess it was ok. We were careful with our song choices this time round..so dat we could maintain our ‘sunshine’ image…but at e same time…have enough vocal offerings cos afterall…it’s a singing and song writing contest.

Fully packed audi!

Videos...Thank you cindy for taking video of us! But it was taken with a hp..so audio and video quality isnt fantastic.

We told them we'd sing a malay song.

Can't take my eyes off you...

We returned to e dressing room after our performance…till e interval. That’s where we could go mingle with e crowd and ‘la piao’ (pull votes).

After a long wait…it was finally time for e results..

I felt many other groups were veri impressive..

As a result…we only won 2^nd Runner up. I can’t really call it a surprise or a disappointment..viewing the time we actually spent in putting it tgt..which is only a few days. Maybe next yr..we’ll do better..

Prize giving

The first for group category went to the team comprising of NUS/SIM. No disputes there…I felt the beat boxer from SIM jus blew everyone away..can sing..can beat box..can play guitar..all at e same time..

I dunno how to beat that..lol.

After e prize giving...a talent scout from an artiste management firm approached us for contacts. I'm 100% sure she came cos of melvin and ben. sigh. lol.

But at e end of e day..it was fun. Performing in front of ppl is always fun…

Cliche 90's Boyband pose. lol

Virtuoso Semi Finals ‘07

After e somewhat impromptu guest performance with Melvin at the Red Bull Monster Bash…he asked me if I would like to perform with them in Virtuoso…and I was… “why not?”.

Took us abt 3 to 4 days to brain storm ideas…rearrange..fine tune..till we were ready. Alvin also roped me in for his performance..so I was involved in 2 performance at the Semi Finals.

On the actual day..we had to arrive by 1 plus in the afternoon for sound checks and endless photo shoot session which was pretty fun! The photographer got us to ‘chu’ loads of pattern man. It was damn funny…

The judges (cant rem their names) had some pretty mean comments to make to some of the contestants! I guess it was to make the show interesting. The semi finals was held at Bukit Panjang Plaza and subjected to public’s viewing.

We (Alvin n co) played a 4 piece acoustic version of ‘Boston’. ‘We’ included another guitarist and drummer. The day itself was the first time that I’ve met them…let alone play with them! But it took us less than a min to gel. What can I say? When good musicians come tgt…lol. But seriously..they were good…n I tink we sounded pretty gd for the actual performance. Considering it was the first thing the judges pointed out…and it was all compliments. I guess we were good!

But for my main performance…which was with Ben and Melvin, we mixed songs both English and mandarin which had e same chord progressions and it was very entertaining! *self praise*. I wun forget their expressions when we played..haha. We’re registered as ‘Lego Brothers’ (I din hav a hand in this) and we chose songs that were very suitable for the heart lands…afterall..we were in the heartlands.

We started with an emo version of the Chinese song ‘xiao wei’ which floored the jaws of the judges cos it was such a cheesy song. It then suddenly kicked into hyper mode as we stepped up the tempo…which sent the crowd into amazement..cos e way we did it was damn funny. We only did the verse for Xiao Wei (cos the chorus din fit in) which sang abt her charming eyes etc…and den we stopped singing. With background music provided by me…Melvin went on to say “你们知道吗？小蔚其实是个。。。” ß (Do you know? Xiao Wei is actually a…)

That’s where ben and I came in with… “Beautiful girl…that’s why it will never work..you’ll have me suicidal..suicidal when you say its over~” and e transition sounded perfect! Afterall we spent some time rearranging the verse etc. We then gone on to perform a modified version of the song. Performing with Melvin and Ben was awesome!

More pics taken when we were bored...

btw...april was in some denise keller look alike competition..n she won!

At the end of the day…contestants had to come tgt at the front of the stage during the announcement of the results. They would announce the contestants that made it to the finals one by one…n those who made it..will go on the stage..

N….the moment of truth…

WE GOT THRU! Haha..

N I dunno if it was coincidental..but both my performances were the last to be announced..in the respective category. So shitty man..haha..to be standing there…knowin there’s only one slot left..n prayin its u..haha.