Good Vibrations Festival 2007

Thanks STOMP for the complimentary tickets! Tagged along with Ryan, Kate, kengz, japster86+friend, and later into the night, Julian.


Our tickets were VIP ones, so we got either the orange or pink ones, and got to go through without queueing up.

Here's the schedule of performances. I originally pined for Beastie Boys - they're the highlight of the whole festival, being veterans in punk rap - in addition to Saw Loser, Bushmen and Electrico which are local favourites.


4pm, and the venue's pretty empty. It's held in the main arena of Fort Canning, in addition to a smaller dance area behind called the Chinese Laundry.




Saw Loser
Saw Loser's previously known as Pug Jelly, being famous for their hit Give or Take. They're a local emorock band which had gained some popularity among the South East Asia lately.

However, the performance was sort of lacklustre, as there wasn't really much of an audience to play to, being early. It might be cruel to say so, but they've been riding on the fame of Pug Jelly's hit Give or Take and may well fizzle out like all other one-hit-wonders in time with their poor performance.

NDC

We took a saunter over to the Chinese Laundry stage, and were wowed by the smooth and jazzy beats that the DJ fashioned.

Bushmen
Bushmen, a local reggae band, has achieved quite good popularity here over the last year or so, and it's easy to see why. Their catchy reggae tunes may sound a little unoriginal, but they groove on all the same. They got the crowd moving and throwing beach balls wildly over the whole place.

Best local band today, I gotta admit. (Which, obviously, means that Electrico would be a disappointment. Be prepared for it, dudes.)





Wicked Aura Batucada
Lovely African-influenced percussion group. The lively and intricate beats keep you perky and raring for more. It's a surprise favourite among the crowd, and Kate swears she had seen them perform in Orchard before!


Electrico
If you haven't heard of Electrico, gee, were you living under a rock? They're a local rock-pop band that managed to make a huge dent in the airwaves. Their first album So Much More Inside saw several great singles including Runaway and Good Time while their current album Hip City is receiving good sales figures.

But what happened to this gig? Despite the enthusiastic crowd, I can't help to feel that the whole gig was a roughly copped-out trailer for their upcoming concert in March. (They did remind us of their upcoming concert more than a couple of times.)

They didn't play a single song from their first album. Neither did they play any of the favourites from the second album. They jumped straight into tracks that are yet to be released as singles, as sort of a taster.

They seemed weary. Their tracks sounded all the same. The cliched U2-style echoey guitars, the droning rhythms. What had happened to Electrico?





Hung around and got to catch a bit of Cut Copy which didn't tickle my eardrums at all, since their works aren't exactly exciting or new. They sound like a mishmash of 80s favourites like Erasure and Sonic Youth. That's about all to them.

Jurassic 5
Hiphop. While they're pretty well-received, I have to admit, it's just not my kind of thing.


And now for the band that every member of the audience was waiting for:
Beastie Boys

The crowd had really built up. The anticipation's really killing everyone. A couple of false alarms. And Beastie Boys finally emerged...


...in New York-esque shirts, suits, ties and bowler hats. And they jumped straight into rocking the whole arena. A great medley of their hits - they didn't forget their old stuff - including No Sleep Til Brooklyn, Ch-Check It Out, Sabotage.

The thumping rhythms, the way they use silence and interruptions in the beat for good effect, the creative use of vocoders, the frentic percussion and quirky bass and guitar riffs, who can possibly not love the Beastie Boys?



The audience was particularly wowed by Mix Master Mike's flawless turntable skills, especially when he did a really impressive solo during the encore, just before the band burst into the crowd's favourite, Intergalactic.

They may be old, having more than twenty years of stardom under their belt. But the white hair and maturity belies their youthful enthusiasm and energy they put into every one of their songs. And no, they do not forget their fans. I wish you had been there, then you would have felt and heard what I mean.