Thrills In The Night

August 15th, 2009 at Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach.

I got a ticket for my birthday! Courtesy of EeMay, of course. Before she got it, we were thinking of all sorts of ways to try to get the tickets, even entering MTV's contest although it clearly states that we have to be 21 and above.

We were kiasu, so we got there super early on Saturday so that we could get in immediately when the gates open. We were so early, that this was how the Surf Beach looked like.

Mosh Pit

And Red Zone.

They're so completely empty! You know why? Because all the suckers that queued up super long and some even plainly jumped queue, got distracted at the X-Pax booth while EeMay, Karmun, Benny (Km's lil bro) and I just blew them off. Bah! Who needs an iPod anyway!

MTV China VJ Andy and MTV Asia VJ Taya.

All five MCs for the night: Andy, Denise, Utt, Taya and Sean (from Korea).

I found this really funny because while everyone is busy having fun, this poor dudes have to work. I mean, yeah they've seen so many bands perform that they're probably already jaded, but it still sucks having to work while everyone's having fun. And also, it's so manual! The poor guy has to push the cameraman back and forth for the whole night. He'd better be paid good. Why can't they just make it mechanical? It'll be so much easier for everyone.

First band, Estranged.

They sang The Slave in Us, Ketika Ini, Yang Pernah and In No Time.

Homeboys did Malaysia proud! Oh, and apparently the guy in the Yakuza mask is not part of the regular line up and got everyone wondering who he is. Why so shy, young un? Haha!

Second band up, Boys Like Girls.

Martin Johnson. Go gaga, girls. And boys too, if you swing that way.

Boys Like Girls performing Love Drunk.

Hero/Heroine

It starts to rain again, but Martin goes "Looks like the raindrops are falling. Looks like we're gonna have a little Thunder." And the crowd goes wild, singing along to Thunder while the raindrops fall lightly onto their faces. Funny thing, the rain stopped after the song ended.

They take a mini-break, taking the opportunity to throw picks, drumsticks and whatnot into the crowd mosh pit before launching into their last song.

The Great Escape.

Boys Like Girls ended with a promise to be back in October. I can bet that Dila's gonna be there!

Next band up was Raygun.

Did you know the lead singer's name is Ray Gun? That's pretty cool as names go.

Just Because.

Waiting In Line.

Anyone realize that British boys can't dance? Look at Coldplay's Chris Martin. He prances around on stage when he performs, and so does Ray Gun. They all do this weird, retarded chicken dance. Like they've been shot in the leg and are trying to avoid getting shot again. It's so weird!

But they do know how to put on a light show, that's for sure. One of the prettiest light effects from the entire concert.

Pixie Lott came up next.

She's wearing one of the most fluffiest, ruffle-iest dress I've ever seen. It's pretty impressive how she's only eighteen and already she's doing all that. I mean, we're eighteen. What are we doing? Sitting home all day watching The OC? Oh well. It's not like our parents will really support us even if we had the determination and the talent to make it big. Or at least, mine won't.

She sang Boys and Girls, The Fall and Mama Do. She's so sweet, she kept going on and on about how much she loves Malaysia and you can really tell that she's putting a lot of effort into putting on a good show; the poor girl was sweating bucket loads! So much that when the camera goes into close-up mode, her face looks as though it's covered in glitter.

Aaaaaand then it's Hoobastank!

Loudest cheers of the night, after Boys Like Girls. I have no idea why they dropped off the radar after The Reason a couple of years ago. I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of theirs, but their music is good!

Doug Robb standing amidst the lights like a rockstar.

Hoobastank put on a good first song, My Turn from their newest album. Then the mics died. Haha. Malaysia mah. Always with the first world mentality and the third world maintenance. Although recently it seems like everything is regressing back to the third world status.

The crowd was insane! Hoobastank got into Crawling In The Dark and the decibel levels from the speakers are so so high, I bet the crowd in the mosh pit are going deaf. Even I was going a little deaf, all the way back in the Red Zone. But then again, I've got a psychotic screaming fan next to me (not you, Km, you know who I'm talking about. *snigger*).

And then, Doug paused and told us to guess the next song, with one loooong haunting note. At first I was like "What? Ghostbusters? Haha. Cannot be riiiight." But yup, Hoobastank covered the theme song of Ghostbusters, rock style! And ended it by smirking and saying that we're all "ridiculous". I'm sure he meant that in the best ways possible!

He's soooo good looking. Oh and because MTV was doing some Tweeting thing, some dude sent in a tweet asking if "the lead singer is chinese?" Hello, he's Japanese-American, and why does it matter?

The crowd starts chanting "The Reason The Reason The Reason" and some chick behind us screamed "The reason I'm here is because of The Reason!" Is that funny? No, not really. Shame on you if you think it is.

Excellent performance. The Reason could be the best song performed that night, up to that point, at least. I'm biased, I still think AAR were the best performers that night.

Y'know, I think MTV and Sunway Lagoon were being unnecessarily cruel to us. It was so hot and we were all dehydrated. And they go and put in like, 20 minute intermissions. It could have been 20 minutes, 40 minutes, they all felt the same!

And finally, The All American Rejects came on stage to the loudest cheers of the night. I'm pretty sure 67% of the crowd came mostly for AAR. I know I did! BLG and Hoobastank were just bonuses.

Tyson Ritter pranced lithely around the stage, wearing an oversized neon yellow shirt, covered in body glitter and badass guyliner.

Tyson Glitter! Yup yup, that's what we shall call him from now on.

The All-American Rejects were such awesome performers. You can tell that they're really enjoying themselves on stage, instead of just performing because they have to. They start off with Dirty Little Secrets, which the crowd lapped up. Next came I Wanna and I think all the girls meant it when they sang "I wanna I wanna I wanna touch you!" to Tyson Glitter. I meant it too,but for someone else. Haha. Swing Swing comes up and the crowd swings along. Then AAR played The Wind Blows, which is actually an incredibly sad song. It's quite amazing how they can switch from something so cheery to something so emotionally driven and the crowd just laps it up and begs for more. All in all, they performed a seven-song set, which was the most for the night. They threw in Real World, which was a surprise for me actually, then It Ends Tonight (I actually don't really like this song because Tyson Glitter's vocals are a little whiny on it) and Gives You Hell.

Ohh dude, listening to a 20,000 strong crowd chanting along to Gives You Hell's bridge is insanely mindblowing! The crowd was so loud that they almost managed to drown out Tyson Glitter. Maybe they did, I don't know because I was already partially deaf by then, thanks to the aforementioned psychotic fangirl next to me.

Tyson Glitter scaling the support poles at the very end of their set. Look how agile he is. The lights are incredibly bright, but I still like this picture. Makes him look saintly. Haha. The man is a six footer. I'm gonna look so short standing next to him, if I ever do stand next to him, that is.

I don't know why they put Kasabian as the headlining act, it's so obvious it's AAR who are the real draw for the night. Kasabian sang Club Foot, Fire and some other stuff that I don't know cuz I just couldn't be bothered anymore. I was that tired. Plus, my phone died and I think my energy levels are actually in proportion to my phone's battery life, so I died as well. Had to drag my feet to get to my parents at the end of the night.

Oh, I think it's awesome how my parents were willing to drive all the way to Sunway to pick my bro and I up at midnight. I know I complain a lot about them, but they're not too bad, really. And also, whole lotta love for KayKay for sending me to Sunway in the morning! I don't deserve such good people in my life, I really don't. I'm gonna try to be a better person now. No more hogging the TV to watch Powerpuff Girls when Mummy wants to watch her boring AEC shows. No more asking Daddy to go away when he tries to wake me up at 9am, 9.30am, 9.45am, 10am and 10.30am. No more poking KayKay in places that tickle.

Nope, nope, gonna be good now. For about a week lah.