Starstruck – Michael Bublé

Fresh off from a Saturday night of chillaxing with Jerm, PY and Mei Ling (and Choy and his friend) at Alexis where we were soothed by a jazz band (although we only got to listen to the final half of the performance as there weren’t any seats anywhere), I was doused with some sort of lethargy the next morning perhaps due to the two glasses of wine that I had. I briefly contemplated forgoing that afternoon’s badminton session but forced myself to attend, and had an hour of excellent workout (I was even persuaded by a trio of very good players playing at the court to our left to join them when I was sitting down to rest, and lord was the game intense—thankfully my new partner and I managed to win it). In fact, after discovering that Jeremy and co actually plays badminton quite regularly every weekend, I resolved to join them to get some needed exercise as well as to unwind and let loose.

At about 5pm I had to leave, after an hour and a half of playing, as I had a concert to attend. Earlier in the week I was given two tickets by my boss (not directly, but he already told me about it and he along with most of my colleagues were going to Tokyo for an event and was caught in the seismic activities of the recent 8.9 earthquake that devastated the country), and I was flabbergasted to see the prices attached to each of the two tickets: RM898.

I had a quick shower, and Andy came to pick me up where we decided on McDonald’s in Taipan for a quick dinner before setting off via a shortcut near USJ 4/USJ 3 towards Shah Alam’s Stadium Malawati. We arrived at about 7pm right before the rain set in (which was awfully lucky) and waited for a while at our exclusive seats.

Me and Andy.

View of the seats to our right which are mostly empty at the time as we were pretty early. There was also an old Australian couple behind us.

Yeah, with the Maybank “banner” on it for the premium customers I’d imagine.

Najwa began her soulful performance as the opening act for a bit, before the real star of the show moved in.

The stage with Najwa.

And then Michael Bublé was up on the stage nearly on time, just about 5-10 mins late. From start to the finish he was absolutely charming and hilarious, and there were some moments where he knew how to get to the audience’s hearts (which consists of a lot of screaming girls… and surprisingly, angmohs—at least for our extremely expensive sitting area) by performing briefly Journey’s (or as seen in Glee) Don’t Stop Believing, and Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.

Of course my entire experience was slightly marred by the fact that the dude sitting to my right brought in his DSLR with him. :/ I asked him if the security checked for it and he said no, and I was debating internally throughout the week trying to decide if I should bring it or not, and finally decided against it after some friends told me not to. Now this is a point of contention because ALL of the videos I took with my Lumix point-and-shoot and ALL of the pics I snapped.. had Michael’s face completely overexposed to the point that you can’t see his face at all. At all. To the point that Photoshop couldn’t even save it le sigh.

Nevertheless I loved his charming banter with the audience which I had videoed even though you really can’t see his face—sitting far away also didn’t help wtf.

ALTHOUGH at one point he walked towards the audience (with security in tow of course) and legions of screaming girls were trying to get to him. One of them did and kissed him on the cheek wtf, and then he walked towards a makeshift stage directly in front of where I was sitting (I also spotted Jacklyn Victor among the crowd) and yeah it was as close as Andy and I could get to Michael Bublé wtf. Definitely the highlight of the night where we could see he really wanted to interact as close to the audience as possible instead of just standing on the stage and belting songs from there for two hours (like he mentioned).

Example pic of him being so close to us when he was performing his song Home and his face was completely overexposed. T______T And I could’ve gotten a bloody excellent shot at this close range too with my DSLR..

Yes it’s actually him and not some random dude wtf.

It was a fantastic night, and IS the best concert that I’ve ever been to. Or considering that I’ve been to very few concerts anyway wtf.

OK so you can see him a bit in the screens here wtf.

Bits of paper flew down in his epic finale.

Close-up shot.

Even when I woke up the next morning (on a working Monday at that) I was still completely enveloped in the afterglow of his music and entertaining performance. Can’t believe the two hours whizzed by so quickly.

Anyway, here are some videos I managed to upload (from my office, we just installed UniFi yesterday =D):

Part 1: “Cry Me a River” and “All of Me”

Part 2: Introduction and Interaction with the Audience

Part 3: “At This Moment” and “Mack the Knife”

Part 4: “Everything” and Band Members Introduction

Part 5: “I’ve Got the World on a String”

Part 6: “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “A Whole New World” and “Crazy Love”

Part 7: “Georgia On My Mind”

Part 8: “Billie Jean”, “Twist and Shout” & “All I Do Is Dream of You”

Part 9 (Final): “Home” and “Save the Last Dance for Me”.

Unfortunately that’s it—there are 6 more songs I believe but I didn’t manage to record them as my memory card space has ran out. I knew I should’ve brought an extra!

And the setlist for his concert in Malaysia:

1. “Cry Me a River”
2. “All of Me”
3. “At This Moment”
4. “Mack the Knife”
5. “Everything”
6. “I’ve Got the World on a String”
7. “Crazy Love”
8. “Georgia on My Mind”
9. “For Once in My Life”
10. Medley: “Billie Jean” / “Twist and Shout”
11. “All I Do Is Dream of You”
12. “Home”
13. “Save the Last Dance for Me”
14. “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”
15. “Heartache Tonight”
16. “Haven’t Met You Yet”

Encore
17. “Feeling Good”
18. “Me and Mrs. Jones”
19. “A Song for You”