One Night Stand... opening act by Airtight Noise (My Band)... (Saturday 5/8/06)

My 5th time performing on stage, and still i can't get over the excitement. It's always been my dream to be on stage performing instrumental music in an opening area with lots of audiences, don't care how much they'll be, as long there's audiences.

Before i work in pc software shop, i've already discussed with my lady boss about this day, i'm gonna have to leave as early at 5pm. Of course, when you're working in sales, you shouldn't be taking off days or absent on weekends, except you've something important to attend. I said that i've a wedding dinner and i should be fetching my family there. Yes, it's a white lie, no matter how, i'm good at convincing an old lady. She's a fine lady who's always with a generous smile. Well, it's my big day and i ought to do the lie once in a while, it's not that easy to be invited as opening act of the scene.

I've been hunger to get some reference from my pal cy, he did burn some 2weeks ago and i was careless, i left the cd at Jordan's car and i only have old reference which is not the one i'm digging in. Hence of listening over and over again in just 5 songs from an MP3 cd... Geez, it's not even fresh anymore.

Supposed the day before the gig, we should practise one last time and i was well prepared to hit some new strokes. Unfortunately, Jordan fell sick. I tried to call him last night after work, few times he never pick up. Last of the call, he said he'll pick me up. Soon he replied he can't make it. I doubt he's too tired from that jamming session and he looked almost partly dying from tiredness. Hey man, sorry that keeping you waiting for the reference to be burned in few cds.

Oh yes, yesterday my girl called me around 6pm. I was quite busy at time serving customers. My colleague knew and he said why bother hanging up her call. I told him it's not nice chatting around busy time, and he replied, "Hey man, she's your darling and probably you shouldn't hang her up, don't worry, just talk to her, we can handle these..." i guessed i met the right colleague to work with, but not for long. Geez, i'm gonna miss the time we worked together, with talks and laughs. Later on, my girl called back. She was fully excited about something at the first call. Yes, she always have good news, a happy, cheerful going-to-be-a-sexy-lady always wanted to tell me all about her office work and friends gossips. So, she said that her name appeared on The Sun newspaper. Her dad entered Sudoku contest and he put her name on that contest cuz he was too old to be entitled winning prizes. So by the end of the month at 1Utama, she'll be there as a contestant entering lucky draw, if she's lucky enough, she could win six figure prize... If really she did, our holiday to Redang next year should be in 5 star suite... Hmm... Is there a 5 star suite hotel?

Another news was, she heard the news about the One Night Stand event held at Desa Sri Hartamas was on Hitz.fm. The attraction was brought up by Tiramisu, a band from Singapore. A band which the vocalist was well known dressing up like a female and shuffling, jumping ups and downs, fully energetic. He even got a signature move like jump up and splitting his legs widely. The songs? Something like punk though. My girl told me she enjoyed listening to 'They Will Kill Us All', as she browsed Super Stella Sound blogsite. I never had time listening to their demos, just email checking and posting. My time's limited...

So, 5pm, after the whole day fully crowded hunger for pc softwares and games, i left my colleagues there and met my girl at Time Square. She was early as i expected. Too bad she parked along the traffic jam side. She's not too fond of KL city centre, no matter how i guided her, she only knew the main roads instead of short cuts without getting in hassles. We reached there at 6pm, cy and his bro ck having meals. After that, we went to Jam Asia and checked out the instruments and some further infos of the event from the organiser, Amir. The sound check was on and we played as we jammed in studios. Everything went well... My drumsticks, my bandages on fingers, my inspiration... All ready.


Our school friends came, Jeremy, Fang Heng and his girlfriend Pui San, Andrik and some few friends of Jordan. Friends always friends, our songs won't be their type, but they know it's our another big day and supporting has to be given, or else... I can't imagine that.

Ck brought MP3 and started recording from our beginning. We resetup a short while. I was ready, with a small clock pasted on the bass drum, clearly visible to aware our time limit. My heart pumps, and pumps, by 7.45pm sharp, cy's keyboards begin to hum...


The intro dragged almost about 6 minutes, and i can feel the atmosphere filled with boredom. I've expected this will happen to us, but it's not even our concern, it's just the way it is. Then, i build up the strokes and speed, and getting louder. My fellows digged my signal, and they replied with some high pitch feedbacks. They wanted more and wanted to break free. Yes i know, we're still lack of audiences, we need to pull them into our space of imagination. The crowds started to fill, cameras from far snapping, i begin to blast the toms louder than before, and then... We break free...

I was high, full with excitement and enjoyment, i beat up every motherfucking cymbals and snare, hard stepping on bass drums. There's microphones around the drum kit, and the echo feedbacks were fucking awesome, near similarity to studio sound. Then i brought the band into heavy force... A style mixture of God Speed You Black Emperor and Philip Glass, then A Minor Forest and Explosion In The Sky, blasting the sound of noise and ear-drum-breaking feedbacks, brought to you by Jordan 'the Effector'. A short mind blasting heavy part slowly evolved to slow type to blend out the heavy part, a style mixture of Airtight Noise. Then i looked at the time... Heck, we used to jam the whole damn song without realising the time, it'll elapsed more than an hour. Now, 30 minutes. Sure thing, it's time to switch to something they don't know what the shit are we getting for them, Storm and Stress style. I always wanted to see how's the audiences' reaction, maybe they'll think of, "What's these guys playing after all? It sounded crappy though, couldn't understand at all..." Hah, not so fast judging the book by it's cover... Then, thank god Jordan and cy, they blended Polvo and Pavement style, 3 mixtures all together... Haha, yes, this is what i really want... Yes... I feel orgasm, more than sex, the best to express all my emotional in one single song.


The time? 8.13pm. I feel like ending the song, and i can feel cy and ck's signal was so close to dismiss. I brought back the beats, and i could tell what's in their mind, "oh well, if you insist..." we ended the song at 8.15pm sharp, the style of Airtight Noise. Everyone clapping, as though they knew what really we played, i doubt it. I can feel, everytime a band played on stage and left the stage, they'll be some eye catching attentions from the audiences, usually they won't be commenting in front of the band, they just watch the band wrapping up, watch how they talk, who were their friends, just curious to know how they worked out such masterpiece. I felt none from the audience, and i know they knew nothing about the style we played. Even my girl wasn't happy about our style cuz she thought that we never practise... Haha, i think she's been fooled by our style...


Jeremy, our Mat Salleh muslim friend teased cy about the girls being a big fan of his. I thought it was a joke, after our performance, we went for dinner and while on our way to the Square, 3 chicks, 2 were Mat Salleh and 1 Malay shouted, "I love you, Cy!" My my my, it seemed Jeremy's telling the truth but something fishy about the whole scenario. Was it a plan of teasing?


Then, the main course begins, now every band given 45 minutes to play their songs. The first band, Libretto came all the way from Sarawak gave a speech, "Let us show yall KL what Sarawak bands could play..." so it's grindcore, a style with shouting and fast paced drumming that ends within a minute or two, like The Flying Luttenbachers. Can la, ok ok only, the first gig we played at The Colours Uptown Damansara, the grindcore band Dragon Berapi, whatsoever forgotten their name, played the same as they were. But it's alright, it's not too exposed in the scenes so it ought to promote more. Only not much audiences understand the way of grindcore which the songs end so quickly.

The second band, Orbit Cinta Benjamin, something like Fugazi but every song they played, it's almost the same flow and impact. The vocalist sang something like 7 Collar T-Shirt, or Butterfingers. So far, they're not as pop as those i've heard. Not to worry, they're good. It's individual preference after all...

Then, They Will Kill Us All... I mean err... Not really, just the band's name, why worried? My girl's favourite as she downloaded and listened to their songs. Of course, at first i never notice cuz i'm too into the songs with enjoyment. Cy's the one made us realised that it begins to bore us. I'm sorry, maybe if it's their style, or just we're not into those styles anymore. Anyway, they're good, tight. What've cy told me, it never changed my mood. I still love listening to their song, cuz it's energetic, powerful.

Then comes the most welcome, all the way from Singapore, Tiramisu. I felt their style like The Killers, impacting vocals. The vocalist at first wore Bob Marley wig with long moustache and beard, then he changed to his original image. I saw only the guitarist on his right wearing ladies' spaghetti straps, and that's what my girl was curious about. Their songs? Not really my type actually, but radio friendly for all. They played some of their hit songs, some available at Super Stella Sound Blogsite. They were given 60 minutes performing. So all the songs were nice to listen, because the sound in the Jam Asia wasn't that tight, so i can't hear much of the vocals.

After Tiramisu, the last band of the day was KLPHQ. I don't know what it stands for, my pal cy told me this band's gonna blow our mind. Something like Damn Dirty Apes, but more experimental. I was so surprised... That's all the while i'm expecting a band to play something similar to our style... And there they go, with all the noise feedbacks, the energy breakthrough our mind. I can't help myself moving my body and legs. My pair of drumsticks were at my hands, after my band's performance, the Sarawak band borrowed mine. I stroked airly with my drumsticks indulging the flow of the music. It became stronger, powerful, tight and full of noise atmosphere. I can't believe they're so good, and i'm sure it's already time for Malaysian bands evolving towards free noise music. Any songs from them, made me non-stop head banging and dancing, wiggling my legs while sitting down. The audiences packed the stage's frontline, none of them dancing, they maybe curious about those kind of music. Heh, was it something new that you guys never heard before? Then my pal cy told me, one of them is Piut... Huh? He's one of the band member? Damn! I should've know, i was really outdated from local music scenes. Well, Piut is cy's friend, i'm not knowing him so well. I remembered he had given us some references from his influences, and cy really digging it cuz he likes those emo songs, like Sigur Ros or Mogwai. Ok ok, no more Mogwai, it became a common influence to any band who's in indie rock. My girl rocks hard too... Nah, she just closed her eyes, nodding her head and concentrate to the music's flow. It's just about 5 songs and the scene ended.

Therefore, me and cy went to Piut and greeted, praised them for doing the best performance. Seriously, they made my day, watching my girl happily enjoying the whole gig. I really wanted to see her happy, watching me performing like she always wanted to, and enjoying the same taste music together. Of course, we'll never forget about the girls we met there, all sexy and pretty. Wow...

Anyway, me and my girl fetched cy back home, and we listened to our recordings... Aw damn, bad shit. Too bad, i thought i could share it to other close friends i had. So many times of recording experience and still we fucked up at it. I think i must prepare a nice recording gadget for our next gig.

Well, you know, after the gig, me and my girl had our own private celebration... You know, i know la... Hehe...

I thought i might not getting up punctual to work the next day. I have 3 alarm clocks that could fucking wake me up, just afraid that i'm not determined to wake up only...

Ah... There goes another gig... No memories, but pictures blurred taken from my girl, who's not so experience holding my cellphone in still mode. Can't blame her much, she's only used to digital camera. She had one but her brother took it.

So far, i'm fucking satisfied our performance. Like how come?

We got no pressure of getting tightness, it's our nature to be real at music and communication, that's what we've been practising...

"one take for the infinite and reference sound"