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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Caroline Lufkin Live In Kuala Lumpur

I angsted about the fact that I had to go to Caroline Lufkin's live performance at KLPac all by myself on my previous entry. Since then, I tried calling numerous friends, offering to even buy them their tickets for them as long as they can go with me, but my efforts were in vain.

(There were some who said yes at first, but circumstances forced them to say no moments later. It was VERY frustrating for me.)

Humanity smacked me in the face. Hard.

Don't worry, Wota gang, I brought my little sister along instead.


I initially wrote this entry out of spite. I wanted to reproduce the wonders I witnessed at the performance, so everyone else would know how much they were missing. Consumed by hatred and disappointment towards humanity, I wanted them to know that by turning their backs on me, by embracing mediocrity, by refusing to accept something new, they missed the opportunity to witness one hell of a performance.

I took photos, I shot videos. Unfortunately, I did it only with my mobile phone, I was unaware that I could bring my trusty camcorder or digital camera into the place, until I saw a couple of others around me snapping photos and shooting videos (actually, quite a number of them were doing that, so I expect more uploaded videos of this performance on Youtube within the next few days)

The two supporting acts were good. The first one was Dian Bang, a local indie band whose music revolves a lot around Electro - shoegazing or experimental pop.


Dian Bang


The second one was Aspidistra Fly, a Singaporean band that combined their music (also of the electronica genre) with visual effects shown on a screen behind the band members (a guy and a girl, who spent their entire performance behind laptops... I've never seen anything like that before!)


Aspidistra Fly


I liked the supporting acts. I even started wondering whether Dian Bang wanted to do a music video or something with the help of... yours truly *winks*

And then, Caroline finally came onstage, and stood just a few feet away from me. Never have I been to a performance that felt so up close and personal!

But this is the part where I blame myself for overestimating the capabilities of my Sony Ericsson K510i mobile phone. The photos I took were grainy.

Many of you guys remarked that she was beautiful in those photos I posted in my previous entry. But you know what? Seeing her in real-life made me realize that neither of those photos really did her justice! This realization stunned me.

Some of photos I took of her.

Caroline Lufkin at KLPac 3

Caroline Lufkin at KLPac 2

Caroline setting up her laptop before performance

Caroline Lufkin at KLPac 1
Caroline singing


Perhaps it is better this way. My inability to completely preserve my experience at the performance had left me feeling a tinge of bittersweet regret. And things will linger longer for me because of this. In the end, the best video and photos I have of this performance are the ones that reside within my mind.

Many have said that she had a voice that could make angels weep. But I will not post videos of her singing, since the video quality is much too low. That were many audiences who couldn't stop snapping pics or videos, understandable at first, yet I felt that ultimately, they missed the chance to really look at Caroline with their own eyes, it was unnecessary to look at her through mobile phones, camcorders and cameras when she was just standing mere feet away.

Thus I took some short videos, mostly only when she WASN'T singing. The rest, I enjoyed and savoured with my own eyes and ears.


Caroline setting up her laptop before performance


Caroline speaking


Those speculations that she would perform to an empty room were unfounded. The Indiecine room at KLPac was really packed (there could be 250-300 in the room for each performance), though I'm sure many didn't expect to actually sit on the floor. I guess I have underestimated Myspace's reach over the Malaysian audiences, maybe with this, word-of-mouth will spread, many will either post photos of her performance on Flickr, or videos on Youtube.

Hmph. Maybe there's hope in humanity after all.

(UPDATED 25th of June: Check out Jin and MelzKC's blog entries about the second session of the performance, which sounded rather different from the one I attended)