So last Tuesday I went and pick up the exclusive invites to this year's Arthur's Day. As you know from my previous Nuffnang post, Taio Cruz alongside with our local acts will be performing and celebrating 252 years of Guinness stout =)
And I decided to have Kyle, Sam and Ian to tag along for this event. I've missed the previous 2 years of Arthur's Day, so this would be my first.
This year the venue changed to Speed City KL, nearby Astro and The Mines. Traffic was heavy after turning into Sungei Besi area, and we spotted a few cars with passengers (note : girls) dressed in black.
Traffic officers were at the roundabout nearby the entrance to Speed City, they blocked the roundabout and all the cars that were supposedly heading to Speed City had to drive further to make another U-turn.
After another 15 minutes of extra traffic jam, we were greeted with this =D
After going through the ticket counter and what not, we're in the venue. So the first thing we saw was this globe, with 4 Guinness models posing with the people, Arthur's lounge further on the left, and the tabs on the right side, with the main stage in front of us. Moots and a Hitz.fm dj was entertaining the crowd with 'Club Hitz'.
Picture taken by Guinness Malaysia official photographer.
So before the concert starts Ian and I thought of having a few pints to drink, only to be denied entry to the drinking zone because we were under 21 =/ Oh shucks.
So this was how the crowd is at 8 p.m
Now Guinness Malaysia has asked the fans to vote for 1 of the handful of local acts to perform. I thought about voting for James Baum, but then I thought about checking out Prema Yin. And wow, I'm surprised how good her voice was. Her style was a mix of jazz, a lil rock and a lil soulful. I voted for Prema Yin, and damn...she didn't disappoint one bit.
Prema Yin came in 2nd place, Dragon Red won the voting competition to be the opening act but Guinness Malaysia was very kind enough to award the top 2 to open up. Thank you!!
I do not have pictures of Dragon Red performing, and couldn't find any of them on Guinness Malaysia's photo album, but thank goodness there's a rock act to rock out the stage. They were full of energy, and did pretty well on a cover of Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance'. The crowd around me was busy headbanging to their cover of 2010's smash hit.
So this is the crowd around me and the gang.
Mizz Nina, our very own Queen of Hip Hop, gave another energetic performance to remember. She belted out a couple of new songs, and also with the ones we know like Takeover and What You Waiting For. She sang, rapped and danced for us.
This picture sums up Kartel's performances. It was good, but they were on stage for WAY TOO LONG. Prema Yin, Dragon Red, Soler, Mizz Nina did four to five songs (if not mistaken), but I thought Kartel did one whole album on stage with SonaOne, Dandy from Silksounds and a guest appearance by a Japanese rapper.
1) SonaOne used autotune. I was surprised because its the first time I hear a local act using Autotune to perform. And Joe Flizzow at times tried too hard to sound like Lil Wayne. I'm serious, even Ian, Samuel and Kyle managed to recognize the style he was trying to copy.
2) Close to an hour on stage, that is way too long for a local act. Look at the picture, it was posted by a fan on Guinness Malaysia's Facebook page, showing crowds with the Guinness balloon making a X sign to show their feedback towards Kartel's performance. The energy just died after their 4th song because majority of the crowd probably never heard of Kartel or even know who is Joe Flizzow. Well, only some that actually followed Too Phat 10 years ago know that Joe is one half of the hip hop duo.
At one point, the crowd chanted 'Taio Taio!!" before Kartel started playing another song. Joe Flizzow and the rest knew the crowd was getting impatient, and told the crowd to give him another 5 minutes. 10 minutes later Kartel was done on stage.
This picture sums up Kartel's performances. It was good, but they were on stage for WAY TOO LONG. Prema Yin, Dragon Red, Soler, Mizz Nina did four to five songs (if not mistaken), but I thought Kartel did one whole album on stage with SonaOne, Dandy from Silksounds and a guest appearance by a Japanese rapper.1) SonaOne used autotune. I was surprised because its the first time I hear a local act using Autotune to perform. And Joe Flizzow at times tried too hard to sound like Lil Wayne. I'm serious, even Ian, Samuel and Kyle managed to recognize the style he was trying to copy.
2) Close to an hour on stage, that is way too long for a local act. Look at the picture, it was posted by a fan on Guinness Malaysia's Facebook page, showing crowds with the Guinness balloon making a X sign to show their feedback towards Kartel's performance. The energy just died after their 4th song because majority of the crowd probably never heard of Kartel or even know who is Joe Flizzow. Well, only some that actually followed Too Phat 10 years ago know that Joe is one half of the hip hop duo.
At one point, the crowd chanted 'Taio Taio!!" before Kartel started playing another song. Joe Flizzow and the rest knew the crowd was getting impatient, and told the crowd to give him another 5 minutes. 10 minutes later Kartel was done on stage.
JJ, Ean from Hitz.fm, along with former Hitz.fm crew Serena C were the MCs for the night, and they did a good job entertaining the crowd. Kudos. JJ was challenged by Serena to shuffle, and failed in front of 20 thousand plus people. Nevertheless, they managed to do their job well. I do hope they come back and MC next year's Arthur's Day event.
Finally after hours headbanging and singing along with the local acts and other international artiste, the main act of the night everyone's been waiting for appears on stage in style. The crowd went nuts the second he steps on stage.
A few days before the event, I actually thought Taio Cruz would lip sync or use autotune throughout his setlist. But I was wrong. Taio sang, with a minus one track accompanying him. He even played on keyboard during his first song of the night.
Taio Cruz also is probably the last few humble recording artist to exist on planet Earth. When Taio talks to the crowd, he sounds gentle and always thanked us after a song is finished. He always ensured that we had a good night before and after the event ends.
And that's when them big white Guinness balls then appeared. While I was recording one of his songs, one of the giant balls hit me on the head XD
Taio performed : Break Your Heart, She's Like A Star, Little Bad Girl (a David Guetta song which he was featured on), Dirty Picture, a new song off his upcoming album called Troublemaker, Higher and an encore performance with Dynamite.
To end the night off, the MCs called out all of the acts to gather on stage to make a toast to Arthur. And then....
Finally after hours headbanging and singing along with the local acts and other international artiste, the main act of the night everyone's been waiting for appears on stage in style. The crowd went nuts the second he steps on stage.A few days before the event, I actually thought Taio Cruz would lip sync or use autotune throughout his setlist. But I was wrong. Taio sang, with a minus one track accompanying him. He even played on keyboard during his first song of the night.
Taio Cruz also is probably the last few humble recording artist to exist on planet Earth. When Taio talks to the crowd, he sounds gentle and always thanked us after a song is finished. He always ensured that we had a good night before and after the event ends.
And that's when them big white Guinness balls then appeared. While I was recording one of his songs, one of the giant balls hit me on the head XDTaio performed : Break Your Heart, She's Like A Star, Little Bad Girl (a David Guetta song which he was featured on), Dirty Picture, a new song off his upcoming album called Troublemaker, Higher and an encore performance with Dynamite.
To end the night off, the MCs called out all of the acts to gather on stage to make a toast to Arthur. And then....
This happened.
The crowd, blessed with gold confetti and then
Fireworks for 5 minutes =DSo about after midnight, Arthur's Day Malaysia ended and Kuala Lumpur was chosen to be the finale for Arthur's Day. Singapore, you mad? XD
Took us 1 hour to get out of the car park zone, all because only one booth was opened for exit. Came back around 2 a.m, legs tired.
(some pictures were downloaded from Guinness Malaysia's Facebook page, and the rest were taken from Ian, Samuel and Kyle)
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