20100828 五月天 @ adidas 大連活動

Mayday (minus Stone) were in Dalian as ambassador for Adidas.

is that suppose to be a V sign?

More pictures from the event here

Mayday at summer festivals

Busy week ahead for Mayday - they will be performing at the 2010夏戀嘉年華活動 Hualien Summer Festival tomorrow alongside their fellow B'in Music stablemates Magic Power, Cosmos People, 831 and Yen-J.

The following weekend, on 4 September the band will be performing at 2010苗栗水舞嘉年華 Miaoli Music Fountain Festival. Once again, the festival will also feature performances from other B'in Music artists: Ding Dang, Magic Power, Cosmos People, Won Fu, 831 and Champion.

The week after Mayday will be performing on 13 September 2010 at the launch of Xbox 360 game Halo: Reach in Taipei.

Ashin the Genius Contemporary Lyricist

The MV for 伯牙絕弦 is out today

The song marks the second time Ashin and Leehom collaborated on Leehom’s album. Ashin had previously written the lyrics for 在梅邊 in Leehom’s 2005 album 盖世英雄

Leehom wanted to pen the 伯牙絕弦 lyrics himself, but ended up sleep-less and lyric-less after 3 days so he went to Ashin for help. Once again he was so satisfied with the lyrics he called Ashin a genius contemporary lyricist.

It reminded me of the first time they collaborated on Fish Leong's 絲路. Leehom was so impressed with Ashin's lyrics that he texted him on the phone complimenting his awesome lyrics. Ashin admitted he had to look up a dictionary to find out the meaning of awesome. The funniest part was the dictionary gave him the wrong meaning LOL!

18 Martial Arts KL signing

Leehom's 18 Martial Arts signing session last Saturday was held at One Utama.

It's been a very long while since I saw such a big turnout for a signing session in KL. The queue for the event which was scheduled to start at 6:00pm had swelled by early afternoon. Not surprising at all. This is Leehom afterall. The music man whose KL concerts never fail to attract a full house audience, no matter how big the stadium is. The turnout for his autograph sessions in KL is probably far larger than what some artists see at their concerts LOL

The event also saw a big turnout from the media industry. I've never seen so many media in a local signing session - including media from the non-Chinese segment.

can you spot the homeboy?

Leehom didn't appear onstage till almost 6:30pm. Apparently Leehom was originally suppose to sing 3 songs. It was later cut down to 2 songs and finally just one song [你不知道的事], in the interest of time as he had a flight to catch later that night.

mr sexy back

Leehom had to take a toilet break in between signing. After consulting with his people, he jumped into his car and went back to the hotel for a brief toilet break. When he came back, he patted his tummy with both hands and gave 2 thumbs up LOL

Due to the overwhelming crowd, Leehom couldn't sign all the CDs as he had a flight to catch later that night. When it was first announced that Leehom couldn't sign all the CDs, the crowd got rowdy. I saw some fans jumping over the barrier to get into the last queue for signing. Those who were still behind the barrier were pushing and shoving. A couple of fans were seen crying when they heard the announcement.

Leehom stayed on for a bit to sign more CDs and left about 9:25pm. By then he had already signed 7,000 copies of 18 Martial Arts @.@

part of the crowd at 8:20pm

Some years back he infamously sprained his wrist after signing too many CDs during his signing session here. The year after when he returned for the concert signing session, the organiser, fearing that he may sprained his wrist again, arranged for Leehom to "stamp" concert posters instead of signing. haha!

All Homeboy photos by bloodbubble 2010

Movie Man in KL

After a busy Leehom weekend it's time to get back to some updates.

Last weekend Leehom was in town for 戀愛通告/Love In Disguise and 十八般武藝/18 Martial Arts promotional activities. On Saturday, Sony Ericsson held a special screening of Love In Disguise.

Before I go on, I'm gonna digress for a bit here: Last Saturday Mayday attended 劉若英Rene's concert at Taipei Arena, with Masa appearing as her guest artist onstage.

And now back to the story - the special screening of the movie kicked off with an interview with Director Wang, which to my surprise, was conducted entirely in English! I was lucky to be seated 3rd row from the stage/screen, smack in the centre right across from the interviewer and Leehom =]

It was so good to listen to Leehom speaking in English - it's such a rare opportunity to listen to him being interviewed in that language in Asia. After the interview, Leehom was ushered into the lounge for another round of interviews with media before the movie screening.

He entered the cinema clutching a box of popcorn and could not stop popping them into his mouth (wonder if he was really that hungry or was the popcorn really tasty?) A couple of my friends saw him picking his teeth LOL there was even a shot of him hiding his face behind the popcorn box XD

He sat two rows behind me, right behind my 2 friends. Sadly he did not sit through the entire movie.

Director Wang in da theatre!

All Leehom photos by bloodbubble

STAYREAL@創意潮流文化節

the Stay Real gang

The 3 day Street Fashion Festival 創意潮流文化節 at Huashan held last week from Fri 13/8 to Sun 15/8 saw participation from STAYREAL - represented by 八三夭feat. 史派蘿小姐, 阿信feat. Magic Power and 旺福. Ashin appeared onstage to sing 我是誰 我是誰 我是誰 with Magic Power

Longest concert at Taipei Arena: Super Slippa

Taipei Arena's longest ever concert, yesterday's 「Super Slippa超犀利趴」concert ran for 8 hours featuring performances by 9 bands: 1976、旺福、宇宙人、Tizzy Bac、熊寶貝、拾參、Magic Power魔幻力量、嚴爵& Jazz Band and 五月天. The concert which started at 3:00pm ended at 11:15pm, exceeding's Taipei Arena's 11:00pm time limit for which they were fined NT$50,000.

In conjuction with the concert theme, Mayday turned up in slippers except Monster who revealed that he was afraid he might fall if he wore slippers.

Backstage, the performing bands got to chill with all sorts of entertainment and even buffet

Rundown for Super Slippa

Rundown for tomorrow's 8/14 犀利趴 A.N.D無限放大版 Super Slippa concert at Taipei Arena:

15:00-15:45 旺福樂團
15:50-16:35 拾參樂團
16:40-17:25 魔幻力量
17:30-18:15 熊寶貝樂團
18:20-19:05 1976
19:10-19:55 嚴爵
20:00-20:45 Tizzy Bac
20:55-21:40 宇宙人樂團
21:45-???? 五月天

Mayday at the movies

It's movie season in Taiwan. Ashin attended the premiere for 近在咫尺 in Taipei last night

And today evening, Ashin, Monster and Masa attended the premiere for Wang Leehom's directorial debut 戀愛通告 Love In Disguise.

movie was too painful for Ashin to watch

Mayday is Ashin Monster Masa and Leehom

20100807 五月天 @ 羅志祥舞法舞天 3D WORLD LIVE 上海演唱會

Show Luo's 2010 羅志祥舞法舞天 3D WORLD LIVE concert last night at the Hongkou Football stadium in Shanghai  was attended by some 30,000 fans and Mayday, who were Show's guest, dubbed as 亞洲舞王 meets 亞洲天團. The band sang 知足 and performed 離開地球表面 with Show.

Ashin joked during the concert that Guan You was 上一代的國標舞老師 and that Show was 上一代的亞洲舞王 LOL

Mayday X Show

Ashin X Show

Monster X Show

Leehom showcase

Having missed Leehom's「十八般武藝」pre-order signing in XiMen late last month when I was in Taiwan, I'll get to see him here instead - Leehom will be having a special showcase on 22 August 2010 (Sun), 7pm at Central Park Avenue, One Utama.

B'in Music family Rock & Roll September concert

Further to my last entry on the 2010 Miaoli Music Fountain festival, the full line-up for 搖滾九月-相信音樂家族演唱會 has been announced which includes (other than Mayday): Ding Dang, Magic Power, Cosmos People, Won Fu, 831 and Champion.

8000 tickets daily will be up for grabs for 3 days on August 27, 28 and 29. Each person is entitled to claim two tickets.

Kool Kula Shaker at KL Live 5/8/2010

My first ever Kula Shaker gig was also my first time at KL Live.

complimentary Kula tix

Didn't like the venue. Poor sound system, bad acoustics and far too smoky for my liking. Halfway through the gig I could feel my eyes burning @_@

The concert didn't start till 8:45pm and thankfully there was no opening act. The small venue was barely filled up by the time the band took stage. I reckon there were only a couple hundred folks in the crowd. A shame really. Hope the band weren't disappointed with the low turnout. I couldn't tell, but they look like they couldn't care less. If they were they certainly didn't show it.

The entire set was just under 90 minutes. Some songs felt a lot shorter than the studio version. Setlist included Sound of Drums, Peter Pan R.I.P (a great live song), 303, Hush, Hey Dude, Tattva (cool video in the backdrop with Sanskrit writings), Die 4 Love, Mystical Machine Gun, True Love Will Find You In The End, Govinda, Great Hosannah, Govinda

Crispian was much fun to watch on the guitar. Mr Guitar Hero looked good with his shaggy blond hair and was so full of energy: jumping about, playing on his knees and occassionally chucking his guitar in mid air. Not so cool when he missed the catch and the poor guitar took a hard landing onstage. Roadie came rushing to make sure guitar was alright. Haha.

Mr Guitar Hero

There wasn't much interaction with the fans. Other than a couple of one liners from Crispian, the other band members - Alonza, Paul and Harry (did the guy just stepped out of the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band portrait?) who each had a microphone, didn't say a word onstage.

The moment the band ended their set and went backstage, fans started chanting "Govinda Govinda Govinda" Barely 5 minutes after the Govinda chant, the band was back onstage for encore. They saved the best for last. After a couple more songs, they closed the night with Govinda with everyone singing along... "Govinda Jaya Jaya Gopala Jaya Jaya Radha-ramanahari Govinda Jaya Jaya Nrsingadeva Jaya Nrsingadeva.."

Peter Pan RIP

A day to go before the Kula Shaker Live in KL gig!

So I'm learning the new songs and the one that I particularly like is "Peter Pan R.I.P", the first single from the band's latest album Pilgrim's Progress. That's their most Beatlesque track I've heard and fans are saying it sounds like Eleanor Rigby. The band are dressed up in Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club outfit in the MV below and Crispian Mills look like he hasn't aged at all

2010 Miaoli Music Fountain Festival

Mayday will be performing at this year's 2010 Miaoli Music Fountain Festival [2010苗栗水舞嘉年華藝文活動] Homecoming gig for hometown boy Guan You :) 10,000 fans are expected to attend the event which has been been moved to the stadium this year (to accomodate the massive number of mayday fans XD)

The concert will take place on 4 September 2010 from 7:00 to 10:00pm

DNA afterthoughts

And so it ends. DNA 2009-2010 World Tour. Ashin posted in his blog that it will be a long while before they commence a next major world tour of this scale. Monster mentioned it will be at least 2 years.

Since 2004, upon their return from their temporary hiatus, they've been touring non-stop. From the 2004-06 Final Home, 2007's JUMP 離開地球表面, 2008's Down To Earth 回到地球表面 to 2009-2010's D.N.A

That's 4 major world tours over a span of 6 years! It's high time they took a break.

I've many fond memories of the D.N.A World Tour - from the kick-off 3 nights in HK, 2 nights in Singapore, 4 awesome nights in Taipei Arena, 55555人 in Kaohsiung, 4 concerts across the US of A from Connecticut to LA and San Jose, the disappointing DNA Singapore (which I did not blog about), DNA KL and the Taichung grand finale.

Along the way friendships were made and rekindled. It was really good to see all my friends across the Pacific ocean: my Boston homie Elly whom I cannot thank enough! There's also Lily who I last saw in 2007. And the West Coast peeps - founders of the now defunct Mayday America: Joanna from San Jose and Steve from San Francisco. Dorothy from Toronto and Leehoon from Sheffield. You guys are da bomb! And not forgetting all my friends across Asia. Net from Jakarta, who flew out to hangout with me and support my favourite band. A very special shoutout to my homie Tik in Taipei, without whom all those front row DNA tickets would've been impossible. A million thank yous!

And some of the highlights from the tour:-

Mohegan Sun - I have never ever seen such an empty concert hall for a Mayday concert!! Ashin couldn't take his eyes off the empty seats

San Jose - the concert that almost didn't happen. Again, hall was half empty and the band arrived so late
they didn't have time to fully set up their props

LA - easily the best organised and promoted concert of the N.A tour. Great venue, awesome location, fantastic fullhouse audience and a really intimate gig. What more could a fan ask for? ;)

HK - saw Eason Chan roll his eyes upclose. Not a pleasant sight. Make you wanna poke his eyes out.

Taipei - believe it or not, there were too many people down in the front row who look like they'd rather be elsewhere

Taichung - mudfest #2. chucks got ruined for the second time. too much fun.

KL - the only standing DNA I've attended. Q-ing up is no fun.

SG 2010 - mudfest #1. least favourite gig of the tour. the least said the better.

Kaohsiung - one of my favourite gig of the tour. massive human crawl.

Stay Real X Rock Coco X Doraemon

Stay Real X Rock Coco X Doraemon collaboration... toooo cute!!!! *squeels*

Free Kula tix

When I first found out about the Kula Shaker Live in KL gig on 5 August, I was raring to go as I have been listening to them since their debut album but have yet to see them live. That was until I had a look at their recent setlist and realise I only knew 1/3 of the songs! (I only have their debut album & a couple of singles and none of the albums thereafter) So I decided to give it a miss. I wasn't going to pay for a gig which I barely know the songs.

A couple of days before I went to Taipei, Chris sent me a link to a contest by Junk. They had 5 pairs of tickets to the Kula Shaker gig up for grabs. Contestants only need to submit a slogan.. sounds easy?

I didn't hear from them till days after the contest had ended.. when I saw the 'Winner of a pair of Kula Shaker live in KL tickets' in my mailbox this morning

Oh yeah!

Super Slippa tickets

Tickets for the SUPER SLIPPA「超犀利趴」concert on 14 August will go on sale at 12:00pm on 3 August priced at 2200元、1800元、800元、500元

Biggest star in China 2009

Who had the biggest record in the biggest territory (China) last year? According to UK music magazine Word in its August 2010 edition, the winner is Wang Leehom. In the issue, the magazine had listed the biggest stars in BRIC nations of the past year based on sales figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Congratulations Leehom!

photo from sunset2712 - thanks!