Rubbed raw
Crazy night busking.
After the jazz gig at Hotel Rendezvous for the Engineering PhD students, where we tried to pretend "Sunday Morning" was actually a jazz song, and where I forgot a few lines from the only song I had to learn, we( KY, Val, Jiawei, I) decided it was high time to go to Holland V and strut our stuff, jiggle our jazzfeathers so to speak.
We get there, and set up - it is raining, so I grab some cardboard and lay it on the ground so that our stuff doesn't get ( too) wet. We start with "Pumped Up Kicks", which just made everyone walk by with a very puzzled face. My guitar string breaks, and I take what feels like an hour to fix it ( although in reality it was probably about 10 minutes). We move on to some other song, "Crazy" or something, and things start getting a lot better. People are stopping, especially everytime Jia Wei breaks out in sax. Move on into "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"(I think I'm getting the order all wrong) and it's at this point that money really starts to flow in. At one point I think 5 different kids came forward to put something in.
We sing a variety of other songs. "Stand By Me", "Somewhere Only We Know", " Summertime", "Champagne Supernova", "Come Together", and whatever else I could think of. KY goes crazy on the cajon, and by the end of it her hands are red and sore. Val keeps up on the guitar. Jia Wei's saxophone garners the most number of stares, cameraphone shots and I believe money. It is not often you see such a motley crue, in a corner of Holland V.
A few notable incidents:
1. A man comes up and asks if we do originals. He is from Blujaz, and invites me to perform, when I return from the US.
2. A troupe of dancers from some JC walk by, singing "We Are Young" by .fun. We join in, and they all stop and start singing with us. People are taking out their cameraphones and snapping like crazy all over the place.
3. An elderly angmoh man comes over and stands in front of us for a while. He does this little feet-stomping, thigh-slapping dance, and I notice he is fixated on the cajon. When we finish, he claps loudly and shouts " Brilliant!" and then walks away.
4. A group of boys walk by, twice; on their second time, they ask how to get a license. I am very glad to tell them.
5. The first couple to give us money - angmoh, and after putting in a two dollar bill, they stood there and listened and smiled, and smiled, and smiled, and smiled.
Tons more happened. I can't remember it all. I just know that by the end of it my throat was raw. But it was a pretty good session.
Big, big thanks to jumbiez, ireveal and kuoying for making tonight possible.
This post is unlocked for kuoying, and tze ern.
After the jazz gig at Hotel Rendezvous for the Engineering PhD students, where we tried to pretend "Sunday Morning" was actually a jazz song, and where I forgot a few lines from the only song I had to learn, we( KY, Val, Jiawei, I) decided it was high time to go to Holland V and strut our stuff, jiggle our jazzfeathers so to speak.
We get there, and set up - it is raining, so I grab some cardboard and lay it on the ground so that our stuff doesn't get ( too) wet. We start with "Pumped Up Kicks", which just made everyone walk by with a very puzzled face. My guitar string breaks, and I take what feels like an hour to fix it ( although in reality it was probably about 10 minutes). We move on to some other song, "Crazy" or something, and things start getting a lot better. People are stopping, especially everytime Jia Wei breaks out in sax. Move on into "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"(I think I'm getting the order all wrong) and it's at this point that money really starts to flow in. At one point I think 5 different kids came forward to put something in.
We sing a variety of other songs. "Stand By Me", "Somewhere Only We Know", " Summertime", "Champagne Supernova", "Come Together", and whatever else I could think of. KY goes crazy on the cajon, and by the end of it her hands are red and sore. Val keeps up on the guitar. Jia Wei's saxophone garners the most number of stares, cameraphone shots and I believe money. It is not often you see such a motley crue, in a corner of Holland V.
A few notable incidents:
1. A man comes up and asks if we do originals. He is from Blujaz, and invites me to perform, when I return from the US.
2. A troupe of dancers from some JC walk by, singing "We Are Young" by .fun. We join in, and they all stop and start singing with us. People are taking out their cameraphones and snapping like crazy all over the place.
3. An elderly angmoh man comes over and stands in front of us for a while. He does this little feet-stomping, thigh-slapping dance, and I notice he is fixated on the cajon. When we finish, he claps loudly and shouts " Brilliant!" and then walks away.
4. A group of boys walk by, twice; on their second time, they ask how to get a license. I am very glad to tell them.
5. The first couple to give us money - angmoh, and after putting in a two dollar bill, they stood there and listened and smiled, and smiled, and smiled, and smiled.
Tons more happened. I can't remember it all. I just know that by the end of it my throat was raw. But it was a pretty good session.
Big, big thanks to jumbiez, ireveal and kuoying for making tonight possible.
This post is unlocked for kuoying, and tze ern.