Hillsong Conference 2013

29th June-8th July 2013
Hillsong Conference 2013

I have wanted to attend Hillsong Conference for the longest time. And finally, my very first trip to Australia!

So glad we had rented cars. We stayed at the Oaks Goldsborough Apartments which is really near the Darling Harbour. Managed to check out the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from a ferry ride. Haha. Such a tourist!

The conference started the next day and it was solid days at the Allphones Arena of the Sydney Olympic Park. I really love the main sessions with the guest speakers as well as Pr Brian and Bobbie's team. The workshops are pretty general and understandably because of the wide range of delegates attending it. Without this Conference, I doubt I would have the opportunity to hear so many speakers from Texas - and those who live next to it. Conference joke.

Guest speakers include Bishop T.D Jakes of The Potter's House, Joel & Victoria Osteen of Lakewood Church, Craig Groeschel of Lifechurch.tv, and Judah Smith of The City Church. Also guest worship leaders Kari Jobe, Leeland and Israel Houghton.

What I love most is to see the volunteers at work. It is so encouraging to see them serve with all their hearts. The volunteers are combination from all the different campuses. Truly amazed at the number of people involved in the conference every year. Think they mentioned that it takes about 2000 people to make it happen. Their technical team is huge too. Just watching how quickly they transition props and equipments on stage! So many more were working backstage. Salute to the team! Thanks for the inspiration.

Jacky Cheung 1/2 Century Tour

12th May 2012

I have always dream of attending Jacky Cheung's concerts. So watching him live is a dream come true. Think I sound like a fangirl… because I am.

Since I bought numbered seats, there is no need to rushed to Stadium Merdeka like my previous concerts. It was a magnificent sight. The stadium was absolutely packed. Don't think any other event would have such a crowd. Staring at the 3 large LED projection, I remember a tech supplier once mentioned Jacky Cheung's concerts rents the most equipment - 100 moving heads - this was at least 4 years ago.

At 8.30pm, the lights dimmed and the crowd roared, video playback started and the crowd went crazy (hey, no opening act!) Dancers with umbrella dancing and suddenly…YAY, Jacky appears on an elevated platform. As he tap dance, the visual of water splashes on the LED screen behind him was just timed perfectly. The video playback was a love story specially designed for his live concerts to communicate the message of his songs even better. The video stars Shu Qi.

After a few dance number, he headed to the swing with one of the dancer and they kinda flew. The swing was lifted up to the video projection of the moon behind. Very nice! Next, the screen suddenly seem to have disappeared and Jacky appeared on an upper level of another stage. After a few songs, the stage he was standing on started to tilt from 90 degrees to an angle he could just walked on to an elevated platform. Amazing! What come next made everyone realized in awe that as it flips over 180 degree, it is actually the same LED screen we saw in the beginning of the concert! Nice.

He wrote a song in dedication to Lydia Sum of her influence in his life. Dancers dressed in costume with mascot and large balloons were pretty cute. After all that, he toned down and came to a smaller lower stage to the audience and did a little Jazz session with his pianist and double bass. He was a little disappointed at the response of the crowd after the 1st song, well you don't expect everyone to know how to appreciate Jazz. Haha, but the crowd continued to encouraged him as his following Jazz songs were jazzed up version of his popular songs. It was pretty nice, as he puts it, he could see the faces of this sitting near him, and this is just something he enjoys doing. Normally he does only 1 song, but somehow one lead to another and yea, it was nice, gives a nice touch to familiar songs.

After that he returned to fast paced songs (he claims to have seen people yawning) that he…or he used to have danced very well before. Remember that he ended one song with a split and that really got the crowd screaming. I am little jealous that he can still perform a split at his age. Then there was a little chopper that appeared midway of the songs and it flew like the swing earlier. It was spectacular with fireworks and laser lights. Truly a great show. It was nice to hear him interact like how he wants us to remember his dancing because he wasn't sure when will he be back and if he could still dance that way. Throughout the concert, he repeatedly apologize for his performance in December 2011. Apparently he was unwell (during the 4 consecutive nights concerts) I am truly impressed by his spirit of excellence and the energy. At 11.30pm, he asked to confirm that the audience was not working the next day because he wanted to sing more songs….We ended around 12.10pm That was a solid 3 hours and 40 minutes concert with very short interval for costumer change. Salute this guy and his voice never fails to deliver each song perfectly.

Technically, I thought the band and Jacky sounded amazing. Great job sound engineers! I sat at the very extreme side of the stadium and everything just sounded great! Vocals and instruments was very crisp and clear. Video playback was done very well and middle and side screen video mixing was really good. Lighting effects was impressive as it changes from one scene to another.

Another free concert

Attended the All American Reject concert last night at Car Park A of Bukit Jalil National Outdoor Stadium. I'm not a fan but I'm all for free concerts. OK, I think everyone else there got free tickets. Haha. Thanks to Andrea again. How did I find the concert?

Cool

1. The band
2. Location was probably better/larger than central park BU

Not cool

1. The long delay - final opening act only ended at 8.45pm, an hour of soundcheck - yup, AAR came out only at 9.45pm.
2. Sound wasn't as good for the opening acts - either hear the band/barely hear the singer or hear the lead & drums/can't hear the electric guitar.

One day...

One day, I want to go to a U2 concert. One with the massive monter set up! This is "The Claw". 50m high crablike monolith with rotating stage, moving bridges and 360° giant digital screen projecting montages and images...

This photo was shot by Dave.

Check out the rest of the photos of the concert.

Concerts!

I’m very blessed. I have been attending a number of concerts without paying. :-p

My first experience of a “concert” was probably when I accompanied Chen Ni for a mini showcase by Jimmy, a teen singer from Taiwan years ago. For someone who doesn't know his songs and having to wait hours...i meant many many hours at the door was...pushing my limits. Yes, we didn’t have to pay but... the waiting. :-p I told myself I should be more selective in free stuff in the future. Haha.

A few years ago, there was a string of concerts and I happily attended quite a few. I was trying to remember all the mini showcases but can’t recall much, so the following are concerts including the latest that I went yesterday.

Jim Brickman (23rd March 2002 at Arena of Stars, Genting)

I won tickets for this concert and went with Jee Ing. I can't even remember exactly what I did to win. It was really fun. Jim was really good. Everything he played was so effortless. OH, and we get to sit on the first row, VIP seats!

Linkin Park (15th Oct 2003 at Stadium Merdeka)
The only concert I paid for. That was after many attempts at the different contests. So in the end I cheated and ask my mum (who was working for a recording company then) to get me the inner circle tickets. Haha. I had to pay but I didn't have to wait in line like crazy. The concert was a blast! Wish it was longer. I managed to squeeze my way pretty near to the front. Jee Ing and I almost lost each other!

Mariah Carey (20th Feb 2004 at Stadium Merdeka)
I won free tickets from a contest for Mariah too. Who else to bring to this concert other than her biggest fan, Mei Peng. We were seated in the free seating area so we suffered quite a bit in the process of getting into the stadium. The downside about the concert was the delayed because some certain royalty decided to come late. And we were told to give standing respect as he/she entered the stadium. Yah, thanks for making Mariah and us wait! Because of certain rules imposed on Mariah, she did the whole concert in one attire.

Incubus (16th Mar 2004 at Bukit Kiara Indoor Arena)
This was interesting. We got some “vendor” passes from BK and being bold, we went across all the restricted area and no one stop us! Haha. Had a good view from an elevated area. No smelly, pushing crowds.

Blue (28th Sep 2004 at Bukit Kiara Indoor Arena)
Got free tickets for this. Can’t remember how. :-p Am not a fan so stood quite far back. Else I’ll be squished by the high pitch, screaming, crazy fans.

Switchfoot (2nd Feb 2008 at KL Convention Centre)
Somebody belanja me to watch! Can’t remember why. Maybe I did a favour. Hahaha. This was really good too. Probably the only concert venue that people won’t sweat. The hall was freezing cold when we entered. Unfortunately, I felt the organizers didn’t promote this concert enough. Most people didn’t know that they were here for a concert and I believe the crowd could have been much larger. We arrived late (the opening act was already performing) and yet we were quite front. I wasn’t complaining but I would think that they have more fans in Malaysia. Besides, the tickets were much more affordable than other concerts.

A Mei (20th Mar 2009 at Bukit Jalil National Stadium)
Thanks to Andrea for the the free ticket! After my 1st experience with the Taiwanese singer, I was a little reluctant. Again, I’m not a fan, my mandarin is not great. And this is not Jacky Cheung. But, I haven’t been to a concert for a long time and this is FREE! Hehe. No regrets! A Mei is the current most popular Taiwan female singer. I must confess, I can't even recite a single chorus of her song but she is very good. Hi-energy, non-stop performance for 3 hours with many quick change of attire. There aren’t that many Chinese singers with big and unique voice. She deserves to be the Diva of the Mandarin world.

Mamma Mia!

I watched my very first musical today...finally!

I have always always wanted to watch musicals. Missed Cats, Fame, Sound of Music, Beauty & The Beast. Ok, I've missed everything because I gave myself too many excuses and I guess I'm just stingy.

This Christmas, I received a present to watch it. Thanks to Debbie's fiance, Hoi Hian. Apparently I'm sparing him the "torture". He couldn't stand the movie. Haha. I guess it appeals to the girls more. I enjoyed the movie so much I got my Mum to watch it with her friends as well.

I think it is not right to compare the musical and the movie. They are different in many ways. I like Meryl Streep (coz she's a brilliant actress - sings pretty well too) and Pierce Brosnan (not so much his singing but hey, how many men look that good at that age!). Plus there were magnificent sceneries in the movie.

I really like the musical. There is something about watching things live, and listening to music live. I like all the dances very much - don't really know how to describe but the way they join in to a dance, break into acting... I think it is really cool and I would think it takes lots of practice and very good choreograph. My only critique was the instruments seems to be louder than the vocals most of the time.

Since this is my 1st musical, I watched very carefully all the scene change, props movement and stage space used. Useful to see how the pros do it. I thought the backdrop was simple but very well used. Only 2 pieces that are both 2 sided on wheels. They also had 4 cyclorama screens that covers the entire stage from the audience. One was used for the opening and closing like how stage curtains are traditionally used on stage - but moves much faster! They fully utilised all cyclorama after the interval. Before the musical started, we also managed to take a quick peek at the orchestra pit. Percussion and drums were in the aquarium and everyone had their own 16 channel mixer...;-p. !

It was also very interesting how they had small tvs with a video shot of the conductor! I wondered if those on the stage could really see it. Oh, the conductor is a really really cool guy. He can conduct the orchestra, play the keyboard, cue and stand up and take photograph - ALL that during the musical! Haha.

Towards the end, people began to stand and dance. During the finale, if you don't stand, you will only be watching butts. I dunno, do people do this at musical? Is it polite? What if there is someone REALLY short behind. But I guess everyone was just too "high" to bother. It was also at the finale they lowered the lighting on stage to allow the lights to shine into the audience. Probably to give that disco effect. It was a unforgettable experience for me. :)

My Philharmonic Experience

Yup, yesterday night, I had the opportunity to experience the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Nope, didn't pay for it. Hehehe. My cousin and his friends couldn't make it and had 4 extra tickets so my mum, aunt, Charmaine and I get to go. Always wanted to attend something like that but never really thought of booking months in advance, paying, going all the way to KLCC, alone.

The conductor was Kees Bakels. Also performing was Joost Flach, Philip Arkinstall, Daniel Hrinda and Sabina Pade on oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn respectively. Honestly, no offence but absolutely does not ring a bell. What to do, not really the kind who will read up on latest classical musicians. But all of them together with MPO are really great. They performed 3 pieces by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Extremely great dynamic controls man, and watching them play each note precisely spot-on…total RESPECT! Well, they ARE professionals!!!

I believe audio equipment is minimum in the hall. Only 6 mics hanging from the ceiling, 2 front fill speakers, some on the sides, and yet, it sounded so majestic. It's the canggih hall, the 1st Malaysian concert hall specially built for classical music. I wonder how much it cost :P

One other thing that really impressed me. The audience. No ugly Malaysian! Zero phone ringing, everyone abide by the dress code, no children screaming, no talking, no kicking the back of your chair....absolute silence through out the performance! People only dared shift position/cough when a part of the pieces ends! Oh, I know why, because more than 80% of them aren't even Malaysians!

But it’s really cool. Charmaine mention that if we had the opportunity to experience this when we were younger and still learning the piano, it would have really inspired us. I totally agree. :D SO, do grab a chance to go when you can. Bring your kids when they are tired of practicing their instruments (but please don’t bring them if they are unable to sit still-spoil saja). I am sure it will make a difference.