This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Saturday, September 16, 2006 |
As part of HCI's "Cultural Enrichment Programme", all sec 2 students had to attend the A Capella Festival Concert which was held on 16th and 17th Sep. Although i don't think i was really very much culturally "enriched" by the concert, the performances were definitely impressive and most of us enjoyed ourselves.A cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment So the performers were, like, performing Evanescene's My Immortal without any musical instruments. THEY were the intruments, doing all the beats, whistling, trumpet blowing, etc. Sounds almost like the actual stuff, if not better. Truly amazing what you can do with the human voice. The concert went well until almsot the end, except for some idiots clapping to the wrong beat on purpose to screw the performers' rhythm up (in which they failed). Then for the final performance, the organisers had invited the SuperBand Juz-B. And man, did the girls go wild (and some boys pretending to scream like girls too). Took a few minutes for them to settle down and for the emcee to speak, and then a few moments later, they would suddenly start screaming again for no apparent reason. I suspect some of them bought a ticket just to see their favorite band in action. The interesting thing was that they were supported some guy called Wei Qi, who i suppose is a member of Juz-B. At the very first scream of "Wei Qi!" i thought i was some joker from our class who was trying to niao our WQ from 2N. Then later, it escalated to "Wei Qi!! 我们永远支持你!! Wei Qi, 我爱你!! WOOOOOO~!!" and i realised that they were actually cheering for some guy up on stage. Such a coincidence. Wei Qi must be very excited that he has so many female fans. xD And then, throughtout the performance by Juz-B, the girls were screaming again. And then, at the end, they screamed again. And again. And just to niao them, some of the HCI boys screamed as if they were girls also. Extremely ear-splitting considering how high-pitched their voices are. The question is, are these girls supporting the talent and music of the band itself, or is it more of their looks and packs? If you do watch American Idol, you would observe that the audience supports their idol by clapping and cheering, then staying silent throughout the performance, then giving them a standing ovation. Whereas in Singapore Idol, the supporters (mostly girls) simply scream and shout rubbish like "I will always love you!" the whole time. This disrupts the music, so it is really the music they care about, or is it more of simply the sight of their "star"? Ken is so right when he says that "Singapore Idol is more of a competition of looks and personality." Seriously, if those a cappella singers had joined Singapore Idol, they would have owned the other performers' socks off. Paul Twohill can't sing for nuts, and he managed to stay on until the top four when much better singers like Mathilda were voted out, until he was finally eliminated. (phew!) So this shows that he got through more because of his hip factor and his frggin hair covering his eyes, because the very performance he combed up his hair, he got voted out. So why don't those singers join Singapore Idol? My guess is that they have much better things to do. Why join a singing contest which is actually more a contest of appearances, and you become famous not for your singing but your looks? Its definitely not the true fame for their talents that those singers wish for. I think the supporters of all those "talent" contests like Singapore Idol are mostly teenage girls who have nothing better to do than to spam smses and look at hot hunks and punks. That's also why for both Seasions 1 and 2, the final 2 contestants are both male. Cos the females don't excite those girls, Its thanks to these manaical girls that Singapore Idol is able to earn so much money. It's not to say that the Singapore Idols can't sing well. Sure, their singing is definitely above average. However, the really good singers do not get noticed or gain recognition, because the Singapore teenages would rather support handsome singers than truly great singers. That's why America Idol produces so much better singers than ours. I am sure that Singapore is also able to produce such talented performers like theirs. But Singaporeans have to become more matured towards such subjects first. |
'Twas teh winnar at 11:57 pm.
