Franz Ferdinand in town

It's so clear tonight that I stood in the garden looking at the stars for a few minutes. Orion's Belt. Check. Little cluster of stars. Check. Large stand-alone stars. Check. (I don't have a whole lot of background in astronomy.)

This was quite a contrast to last evening's entertainment. Yes, I attended my first rock concert. Franz Ferdinand at the Indoor Stadium. Mogan had complimentary free-standing tickets, and since his girlfriend is back in Germany for a while, I was the backup date. We had some adequate fried rice for dinner and then cold sake to get us buzzed for the concert. I downed quite a few until I was red in the face and neck.

We were a little late getting in and had to push our way to somewhere near the left speakers. They were huge speakers with the bass booming so loudly I would have been blown away had it not been for the billion bodies that rocked and shook violently beside me, so close that I couldn't tell whose sweat it was on my bare arms. It's hard not to be sucked into the music. Those wicked rhythms. There was a fair amount of headbanging and beating the air and shaking fists above the heads. I mean me, of course. Yeah, I had a good time. And the crowd was literally hopping mad.

It was a brief concert. Just a couple of hours, but there were good moments. Like when three of the guys (I couldn't really see who was who; most of the view was obscured by persons taller than me, which was nearly everyone around) started playing on the same drumset. And then there was a minute when a shirtless white guy got lifted or had his friends lift him so that he rode above the crowd not too far from me. I was taken by the band's genuine happiness at being in Singapore. They even invited all of us to an informal after-concert party at the foyer of the Hotel Intercontinental. "Bring food," Alex Kapranos said. And if we had any problems getting in, we were to look for the general manager, who was now a pal of Alex's.

Mogan and I had our left ears facing the speakers, which resulted in our being hard of hearing on that side. Mogan said he felt a little wounded by the blast from the speakers. My ears did hurt during the concert but after that, it felt more like someone had stuffed cotton wool - loads of it - deep inside. We decided to bow out and let the youngsters have all the fun at the party.

On our way out, I watched teenagers - Asian, Caucasian, South Asian - whip their drenched locks with the fury (or glee) of wet dogs. A few sets of parents had accompanied their children. A few guys looked like they'd probably been around long enough to have attended a few Rolling Stones concerts back in the day. I felt a little old myself, especially during the performance when I got into the whole hopping thing for a few seconds and then my knees started hurting.

We decided to wait for the traffic to clear, taking a walk to Kallang Bridge and airing our ears out. It seemed the after-concert party had already begun at the back of the Indoor Stadium where screaming youths had waylaid the band and demanded autographs.

Later, we had more drinks at Blooie's, a laidback, airy bar very near my home. I slept quite soundly after that. It isn't too hard when your ears are temporarily out of order.

Posted by Monoceros at February 17, 2006 10:06 PM