Sa Ding Ding music showcase at Movida, 29 April 2010

I wasn't terribly excited going to this. At first I was, but it was a week night performance starting at 9.30 pm, at the not-too-convenient location of Harbourfront, and four hours before the event, I somehow got myself a mild case of diarrhoea. But I had free tickets, and never one to let anything - especially anything free - go to waste, I managed to drag myself there. And whadd'ya know? I actually enjoyed the music. Really, properly enjoyed it. At least more than any of the past concerts I had to fork out money to attend in the recent music festivals. Story of my life. The more expectations I have of something, the higher the letdown. Expect nothing, and enjoy everything.I first heard Sa Ding Ding perform at this beauty pageant on TV last year (I forget which) and found her music and persona intriguing enough to google her. Turns out she's this Sanskrit/Tibetan/self-invented-language-singing, half-Han half-Mongolian singer-songwriter (yes she's one of those multi-slashers) who hit it big time when she won a BBC World Music Award in 2008 and has since released her third album and performed in over 20 countries. She's even been invited to perform in Algeria, which has a 50,000-strong Chinese population.
Watching her sing and perform live, I have to say she's a natural. She's one of those born to be onstage. It's not just that she's talented and beautiful and has a really unique style. She's all that, but when she's singing and dancing, you get the sense that she's really - to steal a favourite phrase from Inside the Actor's Studio - in the moment. Never mind that this might be one of the smaller venues she's played at, never mind that part of the crowd might even be paying more attention to their drinks than her, never mind that she tripped up on some of the lyrics in her one English song - you never for one second doubt that she is anything but totally immersed in this other world that she's created in her music. I'm reminded of the Athena character in The Witch of Portobello, a woman who goes into a kind of spiritual trance when she dances. Some times SDD looked like she was going to go careening into her guzheng-player at the corner of the stage, but it never happened. This must be the apogee of performing that judges on Idol-type shows talk about - to possess both spontaneity and control, and just deliver a damn good show. She even managed to combine her brand of world-folk-spiritual-chant music with electric rock, and not have it sound totally ridiculous.

Well ok I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the English song she performed, which was mainly her chanting a series of incomprehensible English words, until she suddenly lets rip a "... this must be your LUCKY DAAAAY!" at the end of the chorus. But other than this one mis-step, she seems to have found her unique niche in music. Controversial as it may be, she is to traditional Chinese music what Vanessa Mae is to classical music and Sarah Brightman is to opera.

Her last song, an encore piece, was Alive, which she sang in Sanskrit, and which is the first song I heard her sing. She had a post-show autograph session, but I had to rush off as I was minutes away from missing the last MRT ride home. A Chinese girl I met at the event said that SDD was a big star in China (I guess for a non-mainstream artiste), and that she thought it was a pity the audience here didn't seem to really appreciate her music. Well I'm not sure about the uncles and aunties (not being ageist, but what were they doing there?), but the crowd that night seemed pretty entertained. I hope people stayed for the autograph session. And if she ever has a proper concert here in Singapore, you bet I'll be there.

Dinner at Mya Nandar

Was desperately looking for cheap food to fill my stomach after walking out of 99¢ Dreams (this completely plotless, artsy-fartsy, "truth/flow/roots/freedom/life"-themed SIFF film I wasted $11 on) half an hour into the film. I think it's only the 3rd time in my entire life I've ever walked out of a film, and this early.

After walking in the drizzle for about 5 minutes, decided to pop into the Peninsula Plaza basement, which had developed a reputation as a kind of Burmese food haven. This place looked the most inviting (and wallet-friendly) of all the basement eateries:The food in the glass shelf looked exactly like what you'd find in 菜饭 stalls, and have probably been left there for the whole day. No thanks. Outside, they had only one item in their menu file, the National Dish of Burma - the Mohinga (sounds a bit african):It's the National Dish! Of course I had to get it:

According to Wikipedia, Mohinga is rice vermicelli in fish soup [and] usually eaten as breakfast." Imagine oyster mee sua but less viscous and salty, mee siam but not spicy, fish porridge but with vermicelli instead of porridge, and you get something like Mohinga. Which was exactly the comfort food I needed in the cold wet weather. It also has this yellow crispy cereal-like ingredient that I haven't figured out yet:Yummy. Am definitely going back for more.

Lunch at Nakhon Kitchen, Bedok North

Stuffed myself silly at lunch today. I pass by the Hougang branch of Nakhon Kitchen on my way home from work everyday, and it seems that ever since the Zaobao Sunday supplement ran a small feature on this place a couple of weekends back, queues have been lining its corridor every evening. So I thought to lunch there with ma and yipuo today. Discovered there's a Bedok branch when googling for its address, and went there instead since it's so much nearer.

OK, before I bring on the food porn, very important information for anyone who wants to go to the Bedok branch, its at Bedok North Avenue 3 Block 136, not Block 133, which was the address I found online.

Now for the meat of the post.

Clear tom yam soup with seafood. It comes with prawn, fish, mushroom, cherry tomatoes and the usual vege garnish. There's squid too, but we asked them to leave it out. Ma said it was good, so I'll have to take her word for it. My first sip of the soup was so spicy I pretty much stayed off the soup for the rest of the meal.Pretty (and juicy) cherry tomato from the soup.
Asparagus. The Thai waitress recommended this. I thought it was pretty ordinary. But its relative blandness was a good foil for the more fiery flavours from the other dishes.

Spring rolls. Simple dish perfectly cooked, probably my favourite of the meal. Wonderfully crispy, not too oily, and tastes great with the sweet and spicy chili dip.

Fried Chicken with garlic. Also waitress' recommendation. Chicken was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. If I had one quibble though, it was that the cabbage the chicken was served on was not fresh, and the leaves were lined with black edges. Yes, I know those were meant as garnish, but I've been even more conscious about leaving food on the plate ever since reading that Singaporeans throw away 570 million kg of food each year.


Phad Thai. Thai kway teow. Sort of. This one's sweeter than the ones I remember tasting at Thai Express. Very fresh, crunchy bean sprouts, and good bean curd too.

Ruby. With jack fruit slices. The ice and coconut milk were much-needed antidotes to the spicy heat from all the chili sauces I've been dipping my food in. Ma wasn't such a fan though.
They even provide free tissue paper (OK it's really a toilet roll) in a pretty rattan case:and the chili dips that caused me so much teary-eyed grief:

And all that for just $32, for three people! They don't charge for GST or service charge (yet), so what prices you see on the menu is what you get. We're definitely going back there before they change their mind about their no-additional-charges policy.

Lunch at Ramen Santouka, The Central, Sunday 21 Mar 10

(1st post on my new desktop!)

Sorry peeps. This is long overdue. But to hazard a cliche - better late than never! Anyway, a recap of our little ramen adventure two weekends back.

My ramen set:comprising of ramen ...... in shoyu soup ...
... a healthy and refreshing salad ....... and natto (aka Weird-Tasting Japanese Fermented Beans I Shall Never Again Order).You guys were much smarter with your side-dish choices of:

negimeshi ...charhan ...
and char siu rice.

So when (and where) is our next ramen outing gonna be?

A woman in sari

So this Indian student was asked how the India map looks like. And he said it's shaped "like an Indian woman holding out her sari". And he's right. What a lyrical way to describe the shape of the country.

Mosaic Festival: Kings of Convenience Concert, Esplanade Concert Hall, Thurs 18 Mar 2010

Erlend (or was it Eirik?) said they never have a set list, and instead talk to each other after each song to see what they felt like singing next (usually they have the same song in mind). So I guess you won't hear the exact same group of songs in the exact same order anywhere else but during Thursday's concert:

1. (missed this one)
2. 24-25
3. Love Is No Big Truth
4. I Don't Know What I Can Save You From (my favouritest KoC song, instrumental guitar part makes me swoon)
5. Peacetime Resistance (brilliant saxophone skatting from Erlend here)
6. Second to Numb
7. Power of Not Knowing
8. Mrs Cold
9. The Girl from Back Then
10. Rule My World ("...this one's for the people in Singapore...")
11. Me in You
12. Gold in The Air Of Summer
13. Thirteen (sang in sort of tribute to Alex Chilton of Big Star who just died this Wednesday) (if my note-taking is accurate this was their 13th song - spooky if it's not planned like they say they don't plan songs)
14. Know-How
15. (missed this one too, but KoC got the audiences up on their feet from this song onwards)
16. Misread
17. I'd Rather Dance With You
Encore
18. Homesick
19. Toxic Girl
20. Cayman Islands (this one came with popular demand from the audience, people have been randonly calling out this title all night long)

When KoC first performed at the 2006 Mosaic Festival, I absolutely adored them. The music was a dream, Erlend (with his too-small green tee) and Eirik were so cute and funny, the crowd practically worshipped every note emanating from their guitars/piano, and they even invited a group of audience (who had to battle the security guards) up onstage to dance with them during the last song. I thought it was probably the closest thing to Woodstock I would ever be a part of.

Back to Thursday's concert. (Photos below courtesy of KoC's relaxed no-photography-during-first-30-mins-only policy, so people started snapping away from 8pm sharp)

I have to confess. I was kinda underwhelmed. Still liked the music, the guys are still cool with sense of humour intact, crowd was still screaming their heads off... for some reason, I just never really got into the whole thing. I recognised a few songs, sang along to a couple of lines, but the songs seemed to be getting blurrily similar to me - at one point when they were strumming the intro to a song, I remember thinking to myself, "Wait a minute, haven't they already played this one?". And during the encore bit when the whole booked out concert hall of 1500+ people were close to bringing the roof down with their "woooooh"s and "I love you Erlend/Eirik!"s, I was more like, "OK I'm jealous. What are you guys so high about?".

Argh. I'm getting tired of this "it was great but I didn't get it" refrain. Has it really become impossible for me to properly enjoy a concert? Or is too much of a good thing, well, too much? Gonna spend money next few weeks on movies instead. SIFF coming soon anyway.

Mosaic Festival: Pink Martini Concert, Esplanade Concert Hall, Wed 17 Mar 2010

Edit: Went back to Esplanade Thursday and snapped this photo from the poster:


and this one from the Mosaic snapshot board:


It was a good concert, great, even. The audience gave rousing applauses after each song and a standing ovation at the end. But it wasn't quite nearly an enjoyable concert for me. More on that later.

Song list.

1. Boléro. Interesting choice for an opening song. But in a way, it encompasses what every good piece of music, and musical performance, should be - quiet but intriguing at the beginning, with more instruments and layers coming in throughout the middle, and a grand smashing finale.

2. Let's Never Stop Falling in Love. Lead singer China Forbes sang the second half of this in Malay. Pretty decent diction. The audience went mad.

3. Anna. Apparently the theme song from a movie about a nightclub singer-turned-nun.

4. Sympathique. Probably their biggest hit, and the reason I bought their first album and tonight's concert ticket. They got a laugh from the audience when China translated the famous chorus into English, "I don't want to work, I don't want to lunch. I only want to forget. And then I smoke."

5. Lilly.

And this is where someone from the back row tapped me on the shoulder and said in a gruff voice, "Can you please turn that off? The light is very distracting." I was typing the song names on my handphone and the backlight had gotten too much attention. So I put away my phone, dug for pen and paper from my bag, and spent the remaining hour making notes in the semi-dark, trying to be as un-distracting as possible. I can't help it. I'm thin-skinned, I over-think, and comments like these get to me, especially when they're not entirely without a point. Nevertheless. Tried my damndest to concentrate on the performance.

6. Cante e Dance.

7. And Then You're Gone. About a angry woman who slams her door at her always-disappearing lover ...

8. But Now I'm Back. ... who shows up at her door explaining that he's just gone for a snack. A pair of songs from two opposite perspectives. I love this group's sense of humour. This article does a good job describing the inspiration behind the song pair.

9. instrumental piece, dunno which. Gave some members of their 11-piece band to have solo showcases. The drummer stands out in my memory. They also have a pianist, guitarist, bass guitarist, cellist, trombonist, trumpeteer and I think 2 or 3 other people who play the several different types of drums they had on stage.

10. Amada Mio

11. 我等着你回来. This got another huge response from the audience. Again, really good pronunciation; except for a few words, you wouldn't guess it was a non-Chinese singing it. And she's got the perfect voice to sing this sort of old, sultry songs.

12. Una Notte a Napoli

13. Over the Valley. I learnt that Portland, Oregon (where the band originated) lies in a valley. China invited us to visit the place, but quoted Thomas Lauderdale (Pink Martini pianist and founder) talking to the Californians, "You're welcome to come here, just don't stay!". Everybody laughed. I'm not really sure I got the joke on this one.

14. Tuca Tuca

15. Andalucia. I liked it in their first album, but never noticed how nice the piano music was till now. Gotta go find the sheet music for this one.

16. Hey Eugene

17. Yolanda. Another very catchy number from the first album.

18. spanish song with "quando sufras" in the lyrics. Google search threw out Piensa En Mi but I remember it to be a happy upbeat song.

19. Dosvedanya Mio Bombino. About a Russian-Italian guy (supposedly someone China met at a party), who can't decide between Russia and Italian. I love all these little stories behind their songs.

Encore (there just had to be one, the audience was clapping and cheering and stomping like crazy)

20. another un-googleable instrumental piece

21. Brazil. Perfect closing piece. 2nd final song on their first album, and it's just one of those songs that every so often, pops up in your brain, and makes you wish that you were in some place with nobody around, so you could belt it out to your heart's content. China belted it to everyone's heart's content. Half the concert hall got up to 'dance' (really, people were just bobbing standing up rather than bobbing sitting down) to the music.

Sigh. It was a good show. Wished I'd enjoyed it more. Wish I'd more time to soak in its afterglow. Wish I'd bought and listened to all their 4 albums. Am dead tired now. To bed.