Mizore

My first time to Baybeats was last Sunday with Joanna. This year the indie rock festival was held at the Esplanade, spanning across three stages. I didn’t know it yet then but it was to become a day of reminiscence. As we sat facing the waterfront facing Shenton Way, we could barely make out our little office building from the skyline, and our line of sight soon came to Singtel.

Turns out Joanna had worked in Singtel for five years, and she was an absolute nightmare for her reporting staff.

Coincidentally I’d worked at the same company during one of my school vacations. It was then that I got to know Stacey. One of the most memorable incidents was about this Indian boy who brought his mom’s curry puffs to the office especially for her. During one rainy day, as we made our way to the mrt station, he offered to share his umbrella with her. Unfortunately Stace wanted to share my umbrella. The smallest details in life are simply delightful. The old girl’s currently back in Singapore for awhile. Hope her mom gets better soon.

In Frequency of the City, a joint collaboration with TV channel Arts Central, Kay and David, lead vocalist for Electrico showed us the process of making music from ordinary sounds in everyday life – chirping of birds from Tiong Bahru, buzzing sounds of a razor from a barbershop, hammering sounds of construction work. It was an eye opener to see these sounds get sliced up into a single beat, released in percussionistic forms in reborn in tasteful, rythmic beats. All done on an Apple laptop with a MIDI mixer. Amazing.

The best performance of the night had to be from Conclave Scream. The sound engineers and lighting engineers had prepared their set beautifully. The band unleashed serious waves of energy pulsating through the crowd, mostly in their late 20s and early 30s. I spotted a caucasian woman to be among a handful who were having so much fun, like me, that we danced to the beat of the music. It was a wonderful performance. A few minutes later, the crowd got into the act as well. Singaporeans, you should loosen up and not be afraid to have fun.

The evening was marred by the crowd at the performance of main draw Electrico. I was surprised to discover the crowd immediately in front of the stage to be made up of teenagers just barely hitting puberty. From the start, it must have been the sizzling hot and soggy weather, or perhaps the sight of keyboardist Amanda Ling appearing on stage that caused the crowd, shortly after to lose it. A huge group of Malay youths started taking off their shirts, and shoved everyone who was around them. Firstly to the front. Then to the back. Sideways next. The girls in the audience was certainly not spared. I didn’t mind the body surfing and the screaming bit, but this was certainly bordering on public safety. Found it hard to enjoy the performance when I had to balance watching the band on stage and looking out around me to push them away. These wild fucking ruffians even ruined my favourite (only!) pair of moccassins by stepping all over them.

At another performance, I had the pleasant surprise of bumping into Fauzi. We met six years ago at the underground computer scene in Singapore. It was a time of Dr^Bombay, luigi, cks, fauz1 and H0e convened using BitchX and tons of eggdrops, (Sim, do you remember his original nick? He changed nicks so many times I lost track) when scripts of code were compiled using gcc, and the security of unix servers were severely tested.

Six years later, Bombay lives in KL, luigi became a banker, cks works for DSO, fauz1 has just completed his studies at NUS and wants to be a mathematics teacher. H0e is still missing till date.

As I’ve said to Joanna, the past is past. The present is a gift. The future awaits.