C:

So last Saturday/ 22 Feb was just downright amazing. The whole morning was taken up by a fieldtrip in which we more or less mapped the old European Town/ the places that people first settled in when Raffles came to Singapore. So we moved around from City Hall onto Esplanade Park, to the back roads of Chinatown/ the old CBD area and drove through it to Victoria Street before ending up in Little India under the bright afternoon sun and then eating thosai.

But the most exciting part of the whole day was the Hostess Club Weekender Festival which started at 3pm. Like I was so damn bloody excited about it the whole week before that cause the line-up was effing amazing. Court and I went early and just sat in the hot sun right smack in the middle of the field- not too front and not too far behind. But as time went by we shifted progressively downhill.

When Buke and Gase started, people were still streaming in and the sun was shining directly in their faces which made me feel bad for them cause it was damn hard to look out into the crowd and play music given that they were wearing black and long sleeves. But omg that buke and that gase (their hand-made instruments). They sounded much better live even if I could barely hear the words, but like it was really hard to summon up enthusiasm because the sun was making everybody squint and die under its glare. I have burnt shoulders. Still, it was really sexy and they did try to play for the crowd.

The next act was Asgeir. And sheeet his voice was actually goosebump-inducing even under the sun. The melody was just gorgeous. He opened his mouth, and just woahh the hallelujah choirs of angels came out. But then again the sun the sun, he barely looked up cause the light was full-blast in his face. So I just closed my eyes and swayed a little along to the music. It was so surreal sitting in the sun listening to such beautiful sounds. He alternated between Icelandic and English but he was still lovely. I really wanted to get his cd, but the stupid cd thing doesnt work on my com haha so I decided not to. But woahhh I fell in love with his voice. Court and I just smiled stupidly at each other after his set was over.

Also, HE'S ONLY 19/20. OKAY HE'S MY AGE. WHUT WHUT WHUT.

So after him, Mogwai came on. So frankly, I didn't expect to enjoy myself with Mogwai. I'm a blues/ soft rock/ bluegrass-folk kind of girl haha whereas Mogwai is post-rock and I just don't get post-rock. It's like me and metal. I'll never understand the full appeal of metal/ death-metal that my brother used to be really into. So there I was standing there, with the dark coming in, and more and more people inserting themselves into the front, and feeling self-conscious. And then they came in with their Scottish accents, said hello and played and blew me away.

One of the reasons post-rock and me never really clicked was because I found it too loud haha if that can be an excuse. I generally like things to be understated and minimalist, or I go the other direction and I like things lush and overbearing, but elegant. Like Stars, or the sparse folksiness of The Low Anthem or the restrained toe-tappiness of jazz. Things are sexy when they're slightly hemmed in or when they hold themselves in just a little bit before exploding into a riot of feeling.

But Mogwai, ah Mogwai. They just jumped right into the fray. Discordant sounds blasted everywhere, it was so loud I couldn't hear myself think. It was like I was drowning in sound. I figured then that I had nothing to lose. There's a line from A Room with a View that goes, "If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting." This was my exact feeling at that moment. Mogwai plays music about life, if I just jumped into my life the way they jumped into making music, the effect would probably be similarly glorious. I marvelled at the way the sounds shouldn't have made sense together, but did. I marvelled at the skill involved in making sure that each guitar fit each other's sound to create the impression of a wall of music built all around me. Just solid sound. It was bloody exhilarating to lose myself and live moment to moment as notes got entangled around each other.

So I moved. I tried to dance or something like it haha just shaking my head, jumping in time to the music, moving me shoulders. If there is one thing I admire about angmohs, it's their inability to feel self-conscious. All around me were people who were also caught up in the swell of music, moving their limbs. Basically just having fun. I spend half my life trying to reel myself in that I get caught in the fishing line, cause I pay too much attention to being appropriate but forget to cut myself some slack. I hold myself to really high standards that sometimes when I lower the standards, I kind of panic because I feel like then I can't live up to all the potential I have in me. It's like low self-esteem not caused by failure, but by the thought that I will eventually have to/ will fail somehow hahaha.
It's stupid I know, but that's a demon I'm currently wrestling with.
It's the age-old problem of vanity; the fear of looking and then feeling like a mortified dumbass.

But anyway, having Mogwai play live in front of me, surrounded by loads of people losing themselves to music made me realise how brilliant life is when we forget about how we look and tackle life with gusto.
It reminded me of St. Irenaeus's saying "The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God."

I'm not saying that we should follow the whole YOLO thing which is a stupid excuse for mistreating your body and emotions because if you only live once, then you should try anything even if it hastens your death or hurts you right? Wrong.

I think instead, that being fully alive is when we are most able to accept ourselves for who we are, when we recognise that our bodies and our souls are so wonderfully and fearfully made, when we decide to ignore the world's counter-message that we are not fearfully and wonderfully made, that we will always have less than everyone else. It's when we decide not to give in to our fears and insecurities, that we can then see ourselves as brilliant and glorious and really truly live.

The last act of the night was The National!!!! Again, I was bloody bloody terribly excited because next to Stars, The National are my favourite band. I have no idea how I stumbled on them but I fell in love with Slow Show and then one thing led to another hahahaha so yes. Anyway they were crazy crazy amazing!! They absolutely didn't disappoint and the lights came on in flashes of different colours, you could almost imagine yourself no longer in Singapore. And all around were people going crazy and cheering and dancing and omg it was awesome hahaha AND THEY PLAYED SLOW SHOW!! I was praying that they would hahaha and they did. My life was made there and then. It was absolutely gorgeous.

You know I dreamed about you for 29 years, before I saw you.

I'd never imagined that they would one day come to Singapore again and I'm really sad I didn't go for their previous gig but they were officially the highlight of my year. And when they ended with Mr. November, it didn't feel right. People were waiting and cheering for them to come back even after they left the stage, and then they came back, and played Terrible Love AND Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks which was amazing because I was praying that they'd play Terrible Love before the night was over hahahaha. So Terrible Love was beautiful and explosive and we jumped up and down and cheered and danced and didn't care and wrapped the moment around us like an afghan blanket. I've filed it away into my store of happy memories for safekeeping, and I'm still riding on the high.

And then the whole crowd sang Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks together with Matt and yeah it was a wonderful feeling, to be in tune with the people around you and dancing and smiling and singing your heart out. It was perfect even when Matt went off the stage into the crowd and got mobbed by fans hahaha and the whole crowd was surging towards him so that even if you didn't want to move, you had to. And it was perfect when we left Fort Canning singing VCG over and over again.

All the very best of us, 
string ourselves up for love
All the very best of us, 
string ourselves up for love
Vanderlyle, cry baby, cry...

It was pretty awesome.

Sidenote: To cap off a perfect night, I caught the last train but it ended up terminating at Kranji which is utterly stupid because no one stays in Kranji. So I was planning to catch a cab home and I told my parents so. But my daddy drove down with my mum to pick me up from the station even though it was 1am thereabouts. C: Just wow. Hahaha it was a beautiful feeling to know that my parents cared so much for me haha. I guess sometimes we or at least I, forget that even if I don't feel all that important, my parents have always loved me and they still do. It made me feel so warm and secure inside. Haha I eventually shared this with my catechism kids cause the lesson was on love especially Agape and one of the pillars is faithfulness- the willingness to continue to love even if there aren't any returns. And I thank God for my parents and the wonderful wonderful day.