Sarah Brightman Live Symphony @ KL Convention Centre 7th March 2009

Have to say although i love phantom of the opera, I'm not much a fan of Sarah Brightman. But when this chance came to see her LIVE, i thought why not.

The organizer was very disorganized and somehow with Royal Box tickets (which are suppose to be on an upper tier ), we ended up seating on the 3rd row from the stage, next to all the datuk and datins! A friend open their mouth, and we were whisked up to the proper location but after asking like 10 different people. (oh why are we so honest sometimes...)

This show just being with a LIVE symphony and no fancy musical props - made Sarah Brightman show her showmanship solely on her voice and movement of her hands( and man were there alot of movement of hands and fiddling with her skirt). So if you weren't a fan you became quite lost especially with her less famous songs and just a little fed up with the hand movements. So when her guest artiste, Alessandro Safina appeared, he certainly stole the stage and added ummph to the whole show. (i did overhear some guest saying that they came to watch him rather than her....tsk tsk) So when it came to the finale, it was " Time to say goodbye" and we were all anticipating a duet but when Sarah Brightman sang the whole song by herself, it was total anti-climax.

With that said - have to say kudos to the band and local symphony. The music was excellent.

But when all is said and done - Thank god the tickets were FREE :p

p/s: Halfway through, I took a quick loo break and since the organiser was so disorganised, tot why not get back my power seats. A minute later i was 3 rows in front of stage, scrutinizing her every pimple, wrinkle and whatever else. Hehe..wicked aren't we sometimes.

p/p/s: Went to Sultan lounge after the show and surprise surprise the whole gang was there. had a quick chat with Alessandro myself, hehe. What about Sarah you say? What about her?

Sony Cybershot Slimming-T launch - 5th March 2009 @ Luna Bar

Though it was good location - i have to salute Sony for the bravery of doing it outdoors in these times of very unpredictable weather.

Although there was a private area for the VIPs, it was more fun to be where the activities were.

Clean and simple set up, with the stage in the middle of the pool, it was nice and classy to complement the venue. They even put up Sony cybershot text stickers at the glass panels for their branding. Nice one.

Daphne Iking was the emcee for the night and looked great, post baby (this is the first time i've seen her live after the baby) but with her class i think she failed slightly to represent. Although i have to say she has improved in her emcee-ing skills (comparing from my past experience), she still was looking at her hand notes way too much, which created a less enthusiastic feel to the agenda that night.

Sony introduces its brand ambassador - Chin (as the picture attached) - a cute 19 year old boy, who is Thai and has been in the music industry since he was 12 (wow - i amaze myself sometimes on how i remember all these facts!). He is now finished production for his first Mandarin series (he doesnt speak or know Mandarin) and the show apparently will be onair (astro) very soon. He performed a song which some fancy boy band dance moves. Very cute.

After that, there's a neat concept of the fashion show in which they model in batches by the color of the sony cybershots available colors. So if its black - then the models are wearing clothes with this theme. So lets see if i can remember the colors - pink, black, yellow, silver and blue! If i got this correct - then kudos to the Sony!

But the only comment for the fashion show- they had the models ackwardly hold the camera when they came out to model. I thought that was a waste of the concept, they should have made it more lifestyle oriented, having them take pictures on stage with fancy poses while keeping the stylish appeal.

Either than that, food was not bad, drinks sucked. Its rumoured they spent RM250 per pax for the event with a target of RM150 people. If thats true, then the money spent probably wasnt worth while with the mediocre turn out and minimal publicity.

p/s: I heard someone thought that the camera was water proof and was just waiting for a gimmick with the models jumping in the pool. Great idea but for OLYMPUS camera ...not a sony.

Jason Mraz LIVE in KL - 4th March 2009 @ Stadium Negara

Don't let your mind, stop you from having a good time...

Thats what he said and its what he delivered.

When I arrived, it was late and he had already started, and i was in a shock of my life.....stadium negara was packed. I honestly cant remember the last time i saw the place so packed. But to top it off, the organisers opted for NOT renting the aircond and the place was a sauna!! Needless to say we had to find a spot where it was in front of the mist fans just so we wouldnt pass out.

With that, Jason was performing his sweet tunes, simple dressed with a very nice hat. His horn blowers, 3 of them were wearing the Malaysian football jerseys, nice malaysian touch i thought.

Through the heat, he entertained - and i have to say even though i didnt know all his songs, you just felt like you wanted to sing along or atleast sway to the music.

When he when off for the encore, he came back wearing a sleeveless I"HEART"KL .....the ones with the typical I "HEART"NY design, i wondered where the hell did he get that? After performing Lucky with the Penny chick (which was very dissapointing btw - no chemistry at all and it was the only time i actually felt bored), he took out a polaroid camera. And while introducing his band members with them doing a little jam session, he took a picture of each of them and threw the polaroid pictures into the crowd. What a real fantastic idea!

He ended with a nice rendition of Bob's "Everythings gonna be alright" and yes it certainly felt that way.

P/S: Did anyone notice his tatt on his right arm? Did it say...... "beginner".....?

P/P/S: I found out where he got his T-shirt! Its a charity move done ... http://randomalphabets.com/?p=1363 Limited T-shirts selling for RM47.

Adidas Originals- 60 years of soles and stripes @ Zouk KL

I was really anticipating this event....sounded like pure bliss: Friday night, adidas, free drinks, Zouk, limited guest list (or so it seemed), i could wear my adidas sneakers and a secret passcode for entry? hmmm, definitely interesting.....

Upon arrival, signing up at the media booth, the lady at the counter innocently mentioned that our goodie bags (press kits) were given to our colleagues and we were shooed up to Aristo. (all the other non-VIP, non-media, non-celebrity guests had to go straight to Phutures below) But sorry, no goodie bags and my colleagues had only received one goodie bag....and it dawned to me, Adidas, who's celebrating their 60th anniversary of originality is freakin "KEDEKUT", stingy, "KiAM SIAP"........apparently its suppose to be only one goodie bag a media!!!! (and i asked so thats how i know) Hey, for that here's your free publicity....

They served some weird whisky brand which you had to drink with coke (if with water it tasted like soap water - sorry to whoever the sponsor was), and don't people know by now that ZOUK just isn't the place to have these kinda big scale event anymore. And once they announced the beginning of the event - and invited all at Aristo to the upstairs balcony part of phutures, it was just way to pack and you couldn't see anything. Needless to say, i went back to Aristo as with quite abit of other people and just continued drinking. Performers? emcee?.....hmmm, i have no idea.

Plus lets face it - not many people bothered to wear any adidas outfits - not even adidas sneakers! (Either then the "probably" paid models and celebrities) Quite sad don't you think?

Adidas peeps - you might have gotten a respectable crowd and a few celebrities to wear your do, but lets face it, the event could have been a whole lot better.....

But who am i to judge? I didn't see anything.

p/s: BTW, I saw quite a bit of leftover goodie bags......which the bouncers of Zouk were nicely helping themselves too. What the hell, i took one too :P