Lonely Afternoon

I forgot - Here are all the locations of Gramophone branches:

1) Capitol Centre #01-02

Tel : 6337 6828

Opening Hours : 11am - 9.30pm Daily
2) Ngee Ann City #B2-23

Tel : 6235 2011

Opening Hours : 11am - 9.30pm Daily
3) The Centrepoint #04-12

Tel : 6736 1852

Opening Hours : 11am - 9.30pm Daily.

4) Parkway Parade #B1-83F/G

Tel : 6348 2848

Opening Hours : 11am - 9.30pm Daily.

5) OUB Centre #03-01

Tel :  6538 4828

Opening Hours : 11am - 8.30pm (Monday - Friday), 11am - 2.30pm (Saturday) , Closed on Sunday.
6) Holland Rd Shopping Centre #02-14

Tel : 6219 9837

Opening Hours : 11.30 am - 8.00 pm (Monday - Friday) 10.30 am - 8.30 pm (Saturday - Sunday)

7) The Cathay #01-21/22/23

Tel : 6235 3105

Opening Hours : 12am - 10.30pm (Sunday - Thursday), 11am - 11pm (Friday-Saturday).

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I was roaming Gramophone (@ The Cathay) with my friend before
catching a movie, and voila! I heard my songs in the store! Such a
weird feeling.

And while I was queuing to pay for 2 Cds of Gabrielle,  I caught a glimpse of the lady behind me, with my album.

I was thrilled to bits of course. But I was silently happy (in a strange fashion) that no one knows that album is mine

Wow. I survived the 2 days. It wasn’t just the performance jitters I
had to face, I mean the jitters came to me only after 4pm, because
before that, I had to DIY a lot of things…for a start, I had to deliver
my cds to Gramophone myself (all thanks to Fabrice who helped to carry
the heavy boxes for me), erm, I even had to type out my own delivery
order, rush down to Mediacorp to pass my cds to Chongqing and Lilian,
and blah blah blah..So I didn’t really had time to worry about the
performances.

I think the 1st evening was not as good as I want
it to be cos I was soooo nervous. Yes, for me I need to have home-grown
feeling like some footballers; I don’t perform at Esplanade as often as
at certain hotel ballrooms. The 2nd set on the 1st evening was much
better already. But the 2nd evening was even better. Here are some pics
from the 1st evening; thanks to ZQ who took these photos with his
mobile phone (will post more when I get more pictures from others). The
last one was taken by Shoujie during post-rehearsal lazing-around time
while waiting for Matthew to get ready lol:

Matthew
(piano & bass), Tien-yao (guitar), Jon Lim (saxophone) and Shoujie
(violin) really did an excellent job to bring out my music. I felt the
"alive" feeling in my heart when we were rehearsing….wow! How cool that
would be if my album is so acoustic!

First of all, I have to say
a big thank you to each and everyone who came specially for this
launch. Really, thank you. Without you, this wouldn’t have been so
successful. I am also very amazed by passer-bys who bought my cds on
the spot, thank you so much. There was even one from Israel (Yes Alex,
I remember you!).

Thank you for buying my cd and spreading the word around, it means a lot to me.

My next challenge is probably to find more performance opportunities so that more people can hear me live.

And
I was thrilled when Chong Qing from 93.3fm introduced this album and
played "When I’m 80? on-air at around 6:16pm on Thu! Wow. I passed
the cd to him only that afternoon, that was really fast.

This is just the beginning. Let’s go!

It seemed only yesterday that I had put up a performance at the
Esplanade last July, and now here I am again, going to do another
performance at the Concourse again. But this time round, I celebrate
the fact that I have 2 evenings to share my music, and I celebrate the
fact that I’ll have a fantastic band of musicians to back me up this
time round!

I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed for the EP album to be ready for sale on these 2 days. I hope to sell them before, during and after the performances.

I really like this poster which Esplanade has done up for me:

More info

Please come down and have a listen if you are free!It’s on 23rd (Wed) & 24th (Thu) @ The Esplanade Concourse.

My unsung heroes for the evening will be: Matthew, Tien-yao, Shoujie, Jonathan Lim.

Who knows, I may ask them to sing so they won’t be unsung?

Voila!

New photos from Gabriel Mendes who was very kind to take them for me. A couple of them may go into my EP album. Check out his fantastic portfolio here.

Bigger versions can be seen here.

01 Dec: Allan & Jane

Photo courtesy of Nick Goh

This wedding got me into tears. It reminded me how fragile life can
be, how it could take the most precious things away from you, and give
you the things you love most, all at the least expected moments.

01 Dec: Jackson & Magdalene
This has got to be the most special venue I have ever been to for a wedding - Presbyterian High School.
Jackson & Magdalene were secondary schoolmates, and to celebrate
this fact, they held their wedding there! How sentimental!

02 Dec: Royston & Cherlyn
One of the funniest grooms I have ever come across. He is animated, he
is passionate about music and live bands. In fact I felt very honoured
to be able to sing for him.

No, he did NOT sing with me…he was posing only! I nearly went
berserk when I saw this photo because I didn’t remember him singing a
duet with me.

See how cheeky he truly is!! Photos courtesy of Eugene Goh of Chris Ling

02 Dec: Kenneth & Charlene
This is usually how it’s like!

Kenneth and Charlene are extremely lovable. And Kenneth even hid the fact from me that he could speak French! AHH!! Test me huh huh huh! (Photography by Gideon Koh Photography)

05 Dec: Steffen & Elisa

Photo courtesy of Gabriel Mendes

08 Dec: Derrick & Phyllis
Surprise #1. I actually knew this Derrick from a music project
previously. We lost touch after that. He even called me up to
coordinate a few things but I didn’t realise it’s him. Got the shock of
my life when I knew he was the groom.

Surprise #2. I got to know this wedding planner who has not turned
professional even though he has planned 38 weddings for his friends.
He’s scared he might lose his passion once money is involved. WOW.

09 Dec: Jimmy & Joel

I love the balloons!!!

09 Dec: Kenny & Lynette
Another of those tear-jerking weddings when the bride sang a song to the groom. Lynette sang “Wo shi xing fu de” by Liang Jing Ru. Kenny was trying his darnest not to cry.

09 Dec: Schmike & Alice
90 tables of guests, can you even start to imagine? That’s 900 people in a ballroom!

10 Dec: Philip & Shiwei
A gig of love-and-hate relationship - I was dying to sing I just can’t stop loving you
because it’s one of my all-time favourites from Michael Jackson. But
this gig had many musicians - vocal teachers, saxophone teachers, and
even a British examiner from London College of Music - how daunting! It
turned out fine, all thanks to my strong musicians’ backing

12 Dec: Mike & Hwee Hoon
I had a fantastic time jamming with Joel (piano) and Leo (sax). Chemistry rocks!

16 Dec: Cindy & Benjamin
I still cannot forget the way Benjamin passed the rose between his teeth to Cindy, ending up in a kiss.  WOW.

16 Dec: Shu-er & Nicholas

First time I wore this gold dress, I love it!

18 Dec: Kelvin & Joanne
My ex primary cum secondary school classmate Kelvin finally got
hitched! I had no idea he is this romantic when he recounted his first
date story during his speech, and even serenaded his wife with ‘Ni shi wo zui shen ai de nu ren‘
(You’re the woman I love the most). I guess you can never judge a book
by its cover; not even when it’s a topic you think you know until you
flip and read through it.

23 Dec: Huijun & Wern Yuen
Huijun dedicated ‘La Vie En Rose’ to Wern Yuen’s mother because she is
a French teacher. I was on cloud nine when she came over and tell me my
diction was good! Ahhh… All those sat 9am lessons are worth it

And, I finally got to sing extremely cute song - Baby it’s cold outside

28 Dec: Rachel & Stephen
I hope people have not forgotten Too Much Heaven

I mean, who sings and write songs like this anymore!?

29 Dec: Martin & Ying
Another teary wedding! It’s so heart-warming to do things for the one you love, and they cry out of joy.

30 Dec: Shiyi & Clement
I knew them back from NUS Geyao (Chinese Society) , and it’s great to
learn that they have stuck it out over the years and finally hitched!

And I got the chance to sing this love song - Better Together. Very
good songwriter! Sometimes a good song is a good song because it’s a
good song, and not because of the arrangement. We need more of such
good stuff!

And finally, our ad in Her World Brides Dec 07 issue!

Photo courtesy of Feldberyl

1 Nov: Lafarge Distributor Conference
Honestly I do not like to do corporate gigs for many reasons; main
reason is I do not feel happy. I think weddings are more my kind of
thing. But I do enjoy singing non-wedding songs like Lu Guang (Stephanie Sun) and Bad Boy (Ah-mei). Reminds me of my days at The Ark.

3 Nov: Louis & Belle
This is one wedding which wrenched my guts - the groom tattooed his
whole upper left arm with the face of his wife to show his dedication.
WOW. Do watch the video clip when he went to get the tattoo. I feel faint already just thinking about it.

4 Nov: Tom & Angie
A really tiring wedding for me, because of the preparation involved.
But the couple’s love and passion for each other made everything
worthwhile. Scottish men are romantic huh huh huh!

10 Nov: Daphne & Kidd
One of the guests happened to be Xu Qiong Fang, a veteran in the entertainment circuit.  When I sang the mandarin classic ‘I want your love‘, she took the lead to echo to us. Now that’s the interaction we love!

11 Nov: George & Allison
My first time stepping foot on Raffles Marina, a breath-taking yacht-resort. Makes me wonder how I can have a yacht!? Or even rent one

17 Nov: Jacky & Jasmine
The first time I’m singing for a twin! I didn’t know until the day
itself, and at first I thought the sister was the bride. Then I was
seeing double.

I also enjoyed learning and singing ‘Till the end‘, a love song by local songwriter David Tan.

18 Nov: Ricky & Mei Mei
It was great to have Shoujie (violinist) to play for us, I am now a hard-core violin fan! Also, finally a chance to sing ‘You Gotta Be‘ in a wedding. I love love black singers!

19 Nov: James & Li-Hwei
This has got to be the most memorable weddings I have ever done - the
father performed magic tricks during the customary tea ceremony and
sang Jingle Bells to some Hokkien lyrics asking the guests to ‘lim lim
lim (drink it up)’; the uncle was the emcee and concert -style singer,
trying his best to ra-ra the crowd. Eye-opener for me!

24 Nov: Ethan & Karen
Another special wedding when the bride wrote lyrics over a melody
previously composed by the groom, a suprise for him of course. She got
my band to perform the song at their wedding live, and Ethan was so
stunned when he heard his melody, with words! He had to halt the
photo-taking session and grab Karen up onstage for a slow dance.

Photo by Eng Hong of 39 East

25 Nov: Adrian & Joanne
A lovely weddings with lovely couple, lovely sizzing salsa dance, lovely cupcakes and lovely guests.
The most thrilling part for me was getting to sing ‘We could be together‘. I was a Debbie Gibson fan growing up, and this is one song that got and still gets me going everytime I hear the song!

29 Nov: Terry & Su Lee
My ex secondary school classmate Su Lee got hitched and got my band to
perform for her. If there’s anything I need to mention about this gig,
it’ll be I’m so happy she has found such a nice man! This is really
cute:

If you think November is mad, wait till you see my Dec log.

Some clips to share from this event:

Not Just A Number

La Vie En Rose
Thanks to Genevieve for taking us down. Yes you can’t see me, but you
can hear me for sure lol. Camera phone courtesy of Mad Boy Tienyao, who
was performing with me.

Happy New Year everyone!

2007 has been a great ride, and I look forward to the next lap in 2008.

What’s best about 2007 for me, is the help and love I received from
family, friends, and people I did not initially know.  It’s a wondrous
feeling.

I have so much to blog about! Just need to find the time