Event: MAYDAY Reunion Concert 2003
Venue: Taipei Municipal Stadium
Time:
8.00 pm
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view guestbook :: sign guestbook new update ::: <Shi Guang Ji> Review ::: ¡@ 01. Arriving in Taiwan 02. Queuing (Part I) 03. New Friends 04. Queuing (Part II) 05. The Real Thing 06. Aftermath 01. Arriving in Taiwan
After waiting and waiting and waiting for this day to come, it finally did. We took a noon time plane from Singapore and arrived in Taiwan (after some delay) at about 7. After collecting out luggage and stuff, we headed for the earliest and fastest coach to the Taipei. By this time, it was already dark and it was pouring very heavily on the way to Taipei. We were hoping and praying that it wouldn¡¦t be at the stadium cos that would mean a wet butt and lots of discomfort and trouble. Of course, though we were quite tired on the coach, we were too filled with excitement to think of anything else but the concert...
After some major confusion, we finally settled down at our hostel and headed for dinner then the stadium. MacDonalds became our refuge for the moment from the surprising summer heat in Taiwan. We had dinner, which we later regretted having, cos¡K well, explain later. Full, headed for the stadium. We took the mrt there, and looking around, we concluded that all these people on the train with us, are probably headed for the stadium too, so it couldn¡¦t be too difficult to get there because we can just follow them. But when we got off the train, no one seemed to know the way to the stadium. Which made sense only after some time as people came from all over Taiwan to watch this concert, and that¡¦s probably the reason why a lot of the people are also not too familiar with the place. After some asking around, we finally found the place at about 11 plus, and as we expected, we were no where near the front.
02. Queuing (Part I)
Yes, we were no where near the front, that was expected. But what we din expect was the number of people already there! We stopped near the entrance to ask where the head of the queue was and which direction the queue took, and horrors of horrors! Just walking from where we stopped to ask (some 200 metres from the beginning) to the end of the queue took us almost 10 mins! The bloody queue twisted and turned round corners and we finally ended under this big tree, behind the stadium, next to this patch of grass that I assumed to be a park. We put down our bags and started chatting with this friendly girl sitting next to us. She came with her sister (too!) and a friend, from 3 different parts of Taiwan to watch the concert. Like us, she just arrived in Taipei, but unlike us, she came on a train. Thirsty, we decided to split up. I went to the convenience store to get water and newspapers (for us to sit on), xinyi stayed to ¡¥chop¡¦ our place in the bloody long queue.
Walking out to the convenience store took me round and round the stadium and allowed me to see the crowd that had already gathered outside the 2 entrances of the stadium. Of course, I was hoping and praying that wyt themselves will be out on patrol like they were 3 days ago. That was reported on e-news, and they even bought tea eggs for those people who were already queuing then! Anyway, newspapers were sold out at 2 out of the 3 convenience stores nearby and after finding newspapers at the third store, I was pretty much lost. So I thickened my skin and asked to follow this group of teenagers back. Chatting with them, realized that they are actually one of those in the beginning of the queue and they have had people there since the first of JULY! Btw, the concert is on 16th Aug. they¡¦ve been there for more than a month. Yes, unbelievable but true.
When I got back to the queue, xinyi was already pretty much settled down. Our new friends were also so kind to help us pay for the blue lightsticks first. Upon reflection, we were really lucky to meet this group of friendly girls. When I left for the convenience store, I took all our money with me. They could have just bought lightsticks for themselves but instead, they offered to pay for us too. I guess it¡¦s quite a small thing, but it does show a lot. Frankly, I don¡¦t really expect something like that to ever happen in Singapore. Btw, my little trip to the convenience stores took no more than half an hour. And within this half hour or twenty minutes, the queue behind us grew by more than 500 metres. That, my friend, was the speed of the people arriving that night. And this brings us back to our regret of spending time in macs eating dinner. We should have just went straight to the stadium man. Just plopped our stuff down and went straight to the stadium. That almost one hour we could have saved would have brought us soooo much further up the queue. But then again, if anything had been different, we wouldn¡¦t have met our new Taiwanese friends.
03. New
Friends Our new friends. One of the finest rewards from our short trip to Taiwan. We met them in the queue and just stuck together, queued together and watched the concert together. Just as a reminder to myself, they were ShiHua, ShiFeng and XiaoYu. It was quite interesting as it was through them that we exchanged little fact and stories and snippets of life in each others¡¦ countries. Like how they found it extremely amusing when we called spare change ¡§shan qian¡¨ and they called it ¡§ling qian¡¨, and when they told stories of concerts in Taiwan and the queue loving Taiwanese crowd. They told us so much about Taiwan that we would probably not know about even at the end of 2 weeks. Oh yes, they also treated us to this ¡§dou gan¡¨, basically dried beancurd that looks like bah-guah but tastes nothing like it. Honestly, it tasted horribly tasteless and yucky. Well, I guess at least we learnt to never ever ever eat dou-gan again. The sisters were really nice but I managed to click more with xiaoyu. We spent most of the time tog the next day queuing and chatted about almost everything we could. Mostly about mayday, me asking her about Taiwan, her asking me about Singapore, us talking about everything else. It was definitely very interesting and she¡¦s one person that I would definitely want to keep in contact with.
04. Queuing (Part II)
we spent the first half of our queuing experience in the dark of the night. Looking around, people were doing all kind of things. Cards mainly, games, chit chatting. Then suddenly, you realize that the people in front are all standing up! It¡¦s the ever chaotic re-shuffling of the queue!! Of course, this is the chance to gain unscrupulous progress in the queue and being evil as we are, the only major reshuffle of the night brought us almost 20 metres forward. When we finally settled down, it was already about 2 in the morning and all previous activities continued.
The people around us: the people in front of us are this group of boys who we suspect to be gay, or maybe effeminate young boys. It¡¦s really hard to tell actually. One moment we see them leaning against each other and playing around with each other and conclude they are gay, the next moment we re-think and decide that they might just be young boys playing around after all. Anyway, there was this boy we called ¡§pretty boy¡¨ who was really quite pretty, but extremely effeminate. On the other side of us was this huge bunch of kids, my guess is that they¡¦re probably only around 14. Huge bunch of friends who arranged to queue tog, keeping themselves busy with games for huge bunches of people like truth or dare. Rather entertaining sometimes but rather loud and annoying at times too.
After a while, all activities gradually died down and people starting falling asleep. On the tarred roads, on the cement, on the grass, or on little gravel like stones (us!). Wherever they were in the queue, just with cardboards, newspapers or at best, the foam jigsaw puzzles as cushion. It¡¦s was quite uncomfortable as the little pieces of stones started poking through the newspaper and cardboards after a while, making extremely difficult to fall asleep.
At the other entrance, restless kids continued playing basketball while others drifted off the sleep, trying to keep as far away as possible from the floating toilets which were placed there. Push cart hawkers lit up the dark carparks and the smell of grilled Taiwan sausages, glutinous rice sausages, deep fried food and pig and duck innards filled the air. People selling lightsticks, fans, binoculars and all other accessories you¡¦ll ever need for a concert were faithfully patrolling the place regularly. Groups of fans were also patrolling, exchanging other coloured lightsticks for blue ones since it was an arrangement among all the fans to present a ¡§sea of blue¡¨ during the concert. These fans went down the queue several times, exchanging blue lightsticks for other coloured lightsticks that the other unknowing fans bought. Personally, I admire them for that. But, what do they do with the rest of the lightsticks? Hmmm¡K something worth pondering over.
Laying on my back on the stones, looking through the trees, night gradually turned into day. Daybreak seemed to take extremely long. At about 5, old people wearing white t-shirts and white shorts or track pants started appearing and entering the stadium. Apparently, nothing stops these old people from their daily workout, not even if the stadium is filled with young kids queuing for the largest concert in Taiwan. Curious people stopped to ask what we were queuing for, and when they heard that we were queuing for a concert, their reaction were all predictably shocked and mystified as to what possessed all these kids to camp out outside the stadium like that. If I didn¡¦t remember wrongly, almost all of them left with a confused, amazed, yet mocking smirk on their face, not understanding how anyone can queue like that for anyone else.
For most of the night, I was laying on my back, trying to coax myself to sleep. At 5.30, I gave up since the queue numbers were supposed to be given out at 6 am. From 4.30 am onwards, time seemed to crawl ever so slowly. And at 6 am, I feel like I¡¦ve been queuing there for days. The old people previously mentioned gathered on the grass patch near to us and started their rather amusing morning exercise. With the hustle of the morning, I lied down once again and awaiting the queue number to approach us. And ever so expectedly, everyone started standing up just as I was about to doze off. As the queue numbers were give out, the queue was reshuffled into rows of eight. By this time, we were again moved forward, almost reaching the front of the stadium. Our numbers were 2207 and 2208. We were at the stadium at 11.30 pm the night before and there were already 2206 people in front of us. Keeping in mind that that is actually the result of our unscrupulous nature. If we had a conscience, I really don¡¦t know where we would be.
The morning period was exceptionally hard to pass. After what felt like hours and hours, the time on our mobiles still showed single digits hours. Accidentally, I walked into a huge tent in the middle of the carpark and realized that that was where the merchandise was going to be sold. Of course, not wasting time, I immediately joined the queue that had already formed in front of the tent. According to official release, they were going to start selling the merchandise only at 12 noon. it was only 9 am. By 9 am, the sun was already bright and definitely sunny. Worse thing about queuing at the bloody carpark is that there is no shade at all. A huge, shadeless carpark not only with the sun overhead, but with heat radiating from the ground as well. The umbrella seemed to be pretty useless under the record high temperatures of 36.5˚C (which we found out about later). But any shade at all was appreciated. I had the umbrella, my fisherman hat and loads of sunblock on. Though that didn¡¦t really help us avoid getting sunburnt. Queuing at the merchandise stand meant we had to scrap our comfort plan of going back to the hostel to bath. Xinyi left for the hostel to bath and deposit our stuff while I roughed it out in the sun.
As usual, when the conditions get unbearable, it¡¦s the only people around that alleviate the situation. After just staring at each other and keeping mum for some time, we finally broke the silence and started talking with one another. I can¡¦t remember who started talking first, but not long after, we were all chatting happily, despite the heat. one thing I remember clearly was the mom of the girl behind me telling her daughter that she¡¦ll be coming after the concert to pick her and her friend up to staying over at their place. I was rather amused. She didn¡¦t seem young enough to warrant that kind of attention from her mum, but her mum seemed happy enough to do it anyway. Of course no complains if I were her. As usual, we chatted mostly about the normal stuff, until I asked a question that I have always wanted the answer for, ¡§what is ji che?¡¨ or rather, what they meant when someone is described as ¡§ji che¡¨. And I know now what it means! Ask me if you¡¦re interested. But mostly we were complaining about how hot it was and how long the queue seemed to be taking. Again, owing it to the kindness of these new found friends, we got a free blue mayday lightstick - the official one! They even queued for it for us!
I clearly remember there were no more than 20 people in front of me in the merchandise queue, but when 12 noon came and went, the queue didn't seemed to move. By the time I got to buy my stuff, it was already pass one and the wristbands were already sold out! I found it rather unbelievable that 20 people could buy all the wristbands for the day. but well, they did. As I was queuing for the merchandise, the Singaporeans who were also here for the concert came to look for me in the queue. Meeting them for the first time was rather amazing as we really didn¡¦t know anything about one another other than the fact that we were all here for the concert.
After buying the merchandise, it was back to queuing again. They reshuffled the queue again and again, keeping us in our places. The heat just escalated and the only consolation was that there was a cart selling frozen mineral water, which was a brilliant idea in that kind of weather. Lunch was pork ribs bento which was not exactly delicious but apparently very Taiwanese. Queuing and more queuing later, excitement seemed to fill the air slowly but surely. With each step we take towards the entrance, excitement and anticipation escalates as we approach the concert we¡¦ve been waiting for. A year for us, 2 years for others, for even longer for their loyal fans who followed them ever since the beginning.
It was originally rumoured that they will start letting people in at 5, and when 5 came, we waited for 6. all these while, sounds of rehearsal could be heard clearly from outside the stadium. By 6.30, the sounds did not stop and there was still no movement forward. At this time, we happened to be queuing on raised steps and all we did was to sit on the raised parapet, staring at the entrance for any slightest movement. 6.45 came and finally, the first people were let in! queue numbers apparently came into use as they only allowed one in at a time, calling about a hundred numbers each ¡¥section¡¦. Every once in a while, there would be this huge rush forward, where everyone pushed forward, whether they were willing or not. It was almost like a stampede as everyone stomped over the sea of trash left behind by queuers. But every push forward will be followed almost immediately by the pouring of people backwards. This to and fro action repeated itself until everyone was admitted.
One thing worth mentioning, I think, is the sea of trash. It was really a sea of trash. Rubbish: plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard, foam jigsaw puzzles (those that were sat on), food. Whatever you can think of cover the ground so totally that the ground was hardly visible. According to xiaoyu, this is nothing new as record companies usually get fined heavily for rubbish left behind by fans. And as we later found out, it was just one of the many fines that was the by product of concerts.
While we were moving forwards and backwards and forwards again with the crowd, we were discussing our strategy to land ourselves a good location in front of the stage, and were faced with the ever so important question. Centre back or side front?
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back to drieddeadfish's head. 05. The Real Thing
As we realized later, it doesn¡¦t really matter what our answer to the previous question was as before we knew it, we were already squashed in the crowd in a position that we didn¡¦t really have a choice over. It was not the best position but it wasn¡¦t like we actually had choices. As the stadium filled up, the evening soon turned into night.
We waited for the concert to start in the crowd and we were really in the crowd. Everyone was skin to skin, sweat to sweat and for short people like us, the air was just so musty and sweaty that you can hardly breathe. To keep us entertained, the big screens were playing their mtvs, advertisements of sponsors, kong ling qi said something, and then they played the movie.
Of course, everyone has already seen the movie, but everyone still enjoyed it like they have never seen it before, laughing at all the jokes for the hundred and twenty seventh time like it¡¦s the first time. And when the classic scene of ashin introducing zhi ming yu chun jiao came up, everyone recited together with him ¡§you yi shou ge, you liang ge ren, dai zhe wo men zai Taiwan, cong bei zou dao nan, mei yi ge ren, dou kai shi ren shi wu yue tian shi shen me le¡K.¡¨ And one quite amusing Taiwanese guy proclaimed rather loudly ¡§wah, mei ge ren dou hui bei le!¡¨ it was at that moment that we realized, so we were not the only ones who watch the concert vcd over and over again until we could actually memorise it. then kong ling qi came on again, saying something else, which got everyone pretty annoyed cos no one was really interested in what he had to say. everyone was excitedly guessing who the special guest might be. SYZ, BQ were high on the popularity list. and suddenly, someone said "if it's kong ling qi, I'll just faint". I was kind of amused, and secretly, I agree with him.
At this time, everyone was already expecting them to pop out from behind the screen any moment. Suddenly, the movie ended abruptly and the introduction to the concert began on the screens, with instructions teaching how to fold paper aeroplanes, and telling everyone to throw their aeroplanes into the air at the end of the countdown. Then, a frenzy of aeroplane folding began and everyone hurriedly folded their aeroplanes. My paper tore into half cos I have been holding it in my sweaty hands. So, hahah, I had 2 small planes instead.
3, 2, 1¡K and the paper planes flew from the 40,000 people standing and sitting in the stadium. It was a grand sight, I suppose. But personally, my planes were rather disappointing as they flew no further than the guy¡¦s head in front and crashed after it¡¦s moment of glory¡K
After the planes flew, a spaceship flew onto the stage and mayday appeared from it, wearing their white robes-like space suit and the concert began with ¡¥wu zhuang¡¦. In my own opinion, ¡¥wu zhuang¡¦ is a perfect song to began with. Especially since it begins with such an anticipatory mood and suddenly bursts with energy with the second stanza. In my layman terms, it is also the kind of song that makes you nod, nod vigourously, jump (according to your degree of participation) to the song, and that is what lifts the atmosphere!
I don¡¦t think I need to go through exactly what happened in the concert. Partly because that¡¦s what you will see in the vcd/dvd and partly because I can¡¦t actually remember what happened exactly. Three hours flew past so fast and after it did, everything just felt like a dream and nothing of it remains except the muscle ache. I know it sounds really ridiculous that I don't remember the actual concert, and I was mocked and questioned by the people whom I told this to. however, after going through the SG concert, they all had no choice but to agree with me. the moment it ends, you start forgetting. and no matter how hard you try to remember, or how much you want to hold on, they just slip through your grasp uncontrollably.
But anyhow, here are the highlights of the concert to me: 1. what they said. Masa¡¦s ¡§yi zha yen¡¨, monster¡¦s ¡§hui bu hui tai OVER le?¡¨, ashin¡¦s ¡§zen me hui xiang ku?¡¨. 2. I love you bo bang. It was great. I can¡¦t remember what song it was before that but it was of those that you scream and shout. And when it ended, it just led up to ¡§I love you¡K¡¨ and everyone was singing along to it with their hoarse, croaky voice, and it was just¡K gan dong. 3. kah-ciah. Kah-ciah was probably the highest point in the concert where everyone was at their peak. Everyone was screaming and singing along and water was sprayed and that got everyone higher. It was hot, wet, steamy, and extremely high altogether.
The lowlights: 1. the crowd. There were soooo many people. When we started, we could barely see the stage, not to say see them singing. But as we manoeuvred through the crowd, we came to a point where we were so near the extension stage, we could almost almost (like 3-5 people away) touch ashin when he runs out. But of course the down side of that was that a lot of attention and energy was spent trying to move through the crowd, gain advantage when there¡¦s a sudden surge when they run near, trying to strategise where to proceed to gain the most advantage, etc etc. And in doing so, we couldn¡¦t totally concentrate on the concert. 2. the tiredness. After queuing in the blazing hot sun for 12 hours and not sleeping the night before, we were all extremely tired. And it wasn¡¦t only us. It was pretty obvious that everyone else went through the same ordeal as us and were feeling as exhausted. Everyone obviously wanted to participate and keep up the energy level, but we were all too tired. People were feeling faint just minutes into the concert and everyone was dehydrated. During the concert itself, it was also extremely hard to concentrate while straining your neck and back and calves because that just makes you feel like fainting. Encore cries were weak and many people left even before mayday came up to dance. Arms waving the 5-sign were weak during ¡¥gong lang¡¦ and although many people wanted the concert to go on forever, they really couldn¡¦t take it physically, yours truly included. All in all, the concert was an amazing experience, I just wished that I had been able to concentrate more and enjoy totally what mayday had prepared for us.
06.
Aftermath * official apology: i'm sorry if you read all the way to the end to find out that i only talked about myself and not much about the concert. i apologise for wasting your time. i just wanted to give a accurate but personal account of the whole experience. ¡@ |
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