Some Enchanted Evening at MPO

Project 365 #84: Friday, 8th May 2009

I spent a good one hour setting up my tripod, light stand, etc only to discover that my stupid cheap flash unit has that recurring problem of going into sleep mode after 5 seconds – cellophane tape, velcro + rubber, etc did not help. And just for the sake of putting up a pic for that Friday night (snapped after midnight actually), here’s one on my bed: I studied mostly Macroeconomics 2 and managed to finish drawing out notes at near midnight.

Project 365 #85: Saturday, 9th May 2009

Shawn initially told me that he could go to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra on Thursday with me, then told me on Friday evening that his chef suddenly wouldn’t allow him to take the day off since Saturday’s a Wesak Day and they’re predicting a huge influx of customers and so I was forced to look for a replacement (and failed), and then later on at night he said that his chef changed his mind. -___- But whatever it is, I was glad that I could hang out with my best buddy – I can’t even remember when the last time was we had such an opportunity like this, all of us have been terribly busy.

In Shawn’s Saga on the way to KLCC via NPE – left at nearly 6pm sharp, then Shawn dropped me at RB’s house for a while as I wanted to borrow his coat ‘cause Jerm told me about the incredibly strict dress code by MPO..

Ultra-wide angle lens made this shot possible – we were chatting all the way in the car, catching up on each other’s lives with Shawn mostly ranting about his current workplace lol.

Bah I failed to capture the exact moment (forgot my camera was on self-timer mode and the lens cap was still there -__-), but there was a huge gathering of teens/youths at this junction near Bukit Bintang, then out of the blue, a bunch of Malay teens started running across the road, some even knocking into Shawn’s car’s front wtf.

We arrived at KLCC rather early at about 6.45pm-ish, then we walked around to the top floors as I thought the MPO was there, and on failing to do so (we found out later that it was at Petronas Tower 2 or something), we decided to eat instead (also had a talk about my run-ins with cops last month, which Shawn put into perspective, something I didn’t really thought of before). Shawn suggested McDonald’s, but the thought of two guys in suits waltzing into McD’s evoked a rather strange imagery, so I thought we should upped a class to Chilli’s or something, which was also Shawn’s 2nd choice. On reaching Chilli’s, we saw that it was packed so we resigned to go to McD’s (just a floor directly below Chilli’s), but when we saw McD’s, I thought what the heck, let’s just head to Chilli’s instead, and off we went.

When we arrived, Shawn talked to the staff managing the queue of people. We declined sitting at the bar, and then we were given a table with rather high chairs instead, which wasn’t a problem for me.

Shawn.

Moi.

Ee Leen and Jon arrived not too long after we ordered our food. Jeremy came to Chilli’s briefly to pass me the tickets for me and Shawn – May Peng and Poh Yuen were there too.

Another look.

My Oldtimer with medium-well beef. I thought of ordering the same beef burger as Shawn (under a different name – forgot its name) and asked for one without cheese, but then the waiter who was serving us suggested that I get the Oldtimer instead: it’s cheaper by RM2-3 (the Oldtimer’s about RM18) and doesn’t come with cheese unless specifically requested. I liked the fact that he actually went out of his way to give suggestions even though I didn’t ask for ‘em – definitely what I’d consider as an exemplary service.

We were actually rushing for time as the orchestra was due to perform at 8.30pm and we only began to pay our bills at 8.15pm.. On arriving, we took a look at the prepaid parking ticket counter that was selling parking tickets for RM7 and discovered that we (Shawn and I) couldn’t utilise that ‘cause we went into the parking lot at 6.43pm, and the prepaid ticket can only be used if we entered the parking lot after 7pm. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me why it worked that way.

Announcements were constantly made throughout the intercom indicating how many minutes left before the MPO was due to begin. When it was announced that we had 5 minutes left, we hurriedly decided to enter and I was stopped and asked to stow my camera bag away at the counter one floor below (which also rents out coats for free to the men who don’t have them) – I quickly did that, rushed back upstairs, strode towards the washroom, entered.. and discovered that it was the ladies when I saw one woman coming out from the cubicle and the kakak, with a mop in her hand, pointed me to the right direction. <_<

When we finally entered the famed Petronas Philharmonic Hall, two things hit me in an instant: that the hall was somewhat smaller than I had anticipated (definitely way smaller than the Istana Budaya), and the warm yellow lights were really pretty.

Aforementioned pretty lights. It was also announced repeatedly that photography wasn’t permitted, but on hearing for what probably was the third time, I heard that photography wasn’t permitted during the performance – but still I exercised discretion anyway with my cameraphone. Shawn took this pic and the subsequent pic as he had the best view from his position.

The ensemble getting ready – this exclusive picture of the inner hall of the Petronas Philharmonic Hall is brought to you by Clem (and Shawn) wtf.

And then it began – the conductor, Carl Davis, entered the stage and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. The ticket also mentioned “KL Children’s Choir” right beneath the names of Carl Davis, Conductor and Sir Willard White, Bass Baritone, so I half-expected the kids breaking into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or something wtf.

But I was quite enchanted throughout the 90 minutes (not including the 20-minute intermission) blend of first-rate orchestra – it lives up to the name given for the performance tonight, “Some Enchanted Evening”, and as a first-timer attending the MPO (or any live orchestra for that matter), I was more than impressed.

Carl Davis told us after the first song that tonight’s performance would be a “mixed bag”, in that it has songs across the spectrum ranging from movie songs to pop to god knows what else as I don’t exactly have very much knowledge about music genres, but the songs were absolutely breathtaking. I was mesmerised with the ensemble as my eyes wandered from player to player, from the cello to the violin to the saxophone to the drums to the piano to the harp (holy shit, yes, it was the first time I saw a real-life harp, and this one was completely in gold) – would’ve written a bit more on the list of instruments used that night, but I don’t know the names for some of them. :/

A single word formed in my mind when the orchestra began to play: delicate. The music was intricate, carefully contrived, and it was then I began to actually see how the instruments worked in perfect harmony to form an amazing piece one could proudly term as ‘music’. The conductor energetically danced his hand all over (to be honest, I still have no clue how this act of conducting is supposed to work), and when Sir Willard White (his name is an irony considering his dark skin lol – he’s a Jamaican) went on stage to deliver his powerful bass baritone for the song Farewell Jamaica, we were held under his spell – Shawn told me after the song was over that his mum used to sing that song to lull him to sleep when he was small.

A girl, whom I thought could be Japanese, who was standing to the top-left of the stage, constantly moved around from instrument to instrument for various songs (with another guy – also during the first set, the angmoh drummer moved very quietly to the top-left too wtf), and there were at least two songs when the xylophone was employed – and this absolutely amazed me, because hell the only time I’ve even heard of the word ‘xylophone’ was when I was a toddler and was learning my ABC’s – and the xylophone added a tinge of cheekiness to the songs. She even used the cymbals once too.

I didn’t buy the RM5 programme booklet, so I don’t know the names to most of the songs, but here’s a rundown on the memorable songs that were definitely my favourite of the night: Farewell Jamaica; Hansel & Gretel in a Dance (or something like that. This was when the KL Children’s Choir started to sing and I was ashamed to have quickly judged them ‘cause they were beyond the word ‘great’ – Carl Davis told us how he heard them sing last year and was so impressed he told the choir that they had to sing for him next year ); If I Were a Rich Man, a funny song from the Broadway musical and movie adaptation called Fiddler on a Roof; a song about bananas (silly, but it’s a total riot) that required the audience to sing the word “Bananas” at specific intervals which I thought was a pretty good touch; and my top favourite of the night, I Bought Me a Cat – this second-last mischievous song of the night is an old American folk song reportedly from Kentucky, and it was just downright hilarious that the audience laughed out loud throughout the most parts of the song. You’ll understand why this is against conventions, ‘cause Ee Leen told us that the last time she came here, the conductor (not Mr. Davis) stopped the orchestra midway when he heard coughs coming from the audience.. seriously wtf.

Also during the song of I Bought Me a Cat, the team of cellos spinned their instruments in one swift move that had me really speechless – talk about acrobatic feats in an orchestra!

The night wasn’t without a hitch as it was really stuffy in the hall (reasons for which I don’t know) and there were two or three songs that were sleep-worthy, but I’m not complaining. I’ve heard of people telling me about how they fell asleep watching an MPO performance (Alvin told me he nearly fell asleep when he came here once), so it’s either they’ve been to the wrong performance or that their taste in music is highly questionable.

Towards the end, the claps were getting louder and longer, and when a Chinese woman and her son went onto the stage (I could only presume that she’s the coach/teacher of the KL Children’s Choir), there was a standing ovation – I was suitably impressed with what I’ve been listening that night that I thought that the standing ovation was just appropriate to convey how I really felt.

Dude in white hair’s Carl Davis – there’s an autograph-signing session right after the concert.

Shawn et moi.

Jerm, Shawn, me, Jon, Ee Leen. Click to enlarge.

Poh Yuen took this.

Shawn, Poh Yuen, Jerm.

Poh Yuen and I. God I love RB’s coat.

Another shot of us.

May Peng, Jerm, PY.

A shot of Sir Willard White (the dark-skinned dude sitting down).

Sir Willard White with his wife, presumably.

Spying on Carl Davis talking to someone. I like being able to zoom in from afar like this.

This would be the perfect shot of Sir Willard White if it wasn’t a tad bit blurrish.

Another shot of the powerful singer.

We had already planned to watch a movie after the orchestra, Sell Out! (Shawn wanted Wolverine, but I’ve already watched it, and I wanted Star Trek, but Shawn said he’s not into it (I’d like to reiterate that I’ve never watched a single Star Trek movie in my life but the trailer looked promising), so Sell Out!’s one where we were mutually interested to watch), so we didn’t join Jerm and co. to Jalan Alor to eat even though Shawn was the one who suggested it wtf. We decided to just go to Pyramid to watch the movie instead as the parking at KLCC was extremely expensive – RM3 for the first hour, and RM2.50 each hour thereafter, and when we left at nearly 11pm, we had to pay RM6.50 (heck, even cheaper than the prepaid tix when we thought it’d be more expensive without the prepaid).

We moved on to Pyramid – rang up Ding on the way to get him to find out the showtime for us – and we wasted no time in heading straight to the cinema. On arriving, we saw that there were only two shows available and Sell Out! wasn’t one of them – but we went to the counter anyway and asked if there were any seats left for our movie choice. The girl manning the counter told us that it was full and there were only front row seats left, but when I insisted that she show us the seats anyway, turned out that it was half-empty and there were certainly more than ample seats to accommodate at least 30 more people. WTF seriously, a conspiracy against a local movie?

The movie was scheduled to begin at 11.45pm, and as we had about 15 minutes left, we went a floor down to A&W to drink some rootbeer, then hurried back up to our hall.

I echo many reviews out there that it’s a laugh-out-loud flick from the start to the end – it’s a hilarious musical comedy of sorts that pokes fun at many Malaysian quirks (some subtly so) and the art films that won awards at film festivals, plus the few songs that were sung were rather nice to listen to (cue the money song, and the song sung at the clinic, “You’re Not My Type”).

Peter Davis’ acting was a tad bit wooden but nevertheless, he was a great eye candy – Jerrica Lai was stronger in the acting aspect though. The final scene is just genius imo – you have to absolutely get it as it was a parody of an earlier scene which had me laughing when I realised what the hell it was about – Shawn was wondering what on earth I was laughing about and I told him what it was.

Overall – it was a great Malaysian film, in fact, I don’t think there were many good Malaysian flicks as this and Yasmin Ahmad’s movies. There were one or two rather pointless scenes (the ‘splitting’ arc of the story was rather weak imo, but I wouldn’t want to say anything further that would give it away), but considering the amount of laughs generated from the rest of the show, it’s a gem all the same – I’ll give it an 8/10.

Walking around at Pyramid at 1.45am.

And the concourse or whatever.

When we walked out, we spotted a huge commotion at Barcelona with a large number of people looking on at someone or something – there were even policemen around, and seems like there was a fight going on which eventually just fizzled out. A small group of girls were comforting another crying one (they were all dressed rather skimpily, highly unusual for Malaysians – either that, or I’ve not been out for too long wtf) but we didn’t bother to stick around to find out.

Tonight is arguably the best night out I’ve ever had this year. During our dinner earlier, I told Shawn that he was the least person that I’d expect who would even be remotely interested to come with me to the MPO as the few people I’ve asked weren’t interested – when I asked him about it a few months ago, he agreed to it without pondering further (especially after I told him that the tix was just RM10, as Jerm had the connections to get cheap tix). I mean, a future chef whose main interests in life were cooking and watching the WWE doesn’t seem to be the type who’d listen to a live orchestra, but I was glad to share an exceedingly entertaining night with him: one spectacular orchestra, and one comical local movie – c’est la vie.

I was initially a little worried about not studying enough for my upcoming exams, but you know what at the end of the day? I’d remember this night more than my other nights spent cramming for exams that I’m absolutely certain would not remember what I studied for the moment I leave the exam hall.

Project 365 #86: Sunday, 10th May 2009

Spent my entire waking hours studying Law of Investment. This is a shot of what’s next to my laptop – my handphone, a ticket from the MPO, a puncher taken from my dad’s room that I didn’t use in the end, and some bunch of papers lying around that need to be disposed once my exams are finally over.