I left my office slightly early and even braced the pouring rain to get to the KL Convention Center for the acoustic installment of Live and Loud KL 2007 last Thursday. Dayang Nurfaizah, Rick Price and James Morrison were to perform that night - acoustic style. There is something about me and acoustic performances. I enjoy listening to clean, undistorted sounds of the acoustic guitar and piano.

Live & Loud KL 07: Acoustic | Narrowband.org Images

It rained so heavily that evening but thankfully the traffic wasn’t that bad. The toughest hurdle I encountered was the floods. Water levels were so high that my car could easily pass as an amphibian vehicle. I once read that in order to prevent your car from breaking down in a flood, you gotta shift to low gear, keep the revs high and steadily drive through the water. I forgot why, but that’s what I did. I couldn’t risk missing the show. Of course lah, I paid for it mah!

Live & Loud KL 07: Acoustic | Narrowband.org Images

A huge crowd was already queuing up outside the concert hall when we arrived. Duncan, Dee Lern and I stood for about half an hour before Sat and Lingster came and joined us. Neither of us brought a camera. And I was kicking myself in the behind for not bringing my baby along. Apparently, still photos were allowed but video recordings were not. I saw a couple of people with bigass DSLRs, which would have dwarfed my baby had I brought it along with me.

Live & Loud KL 07: Acoustic | Narrowband.org Images

Didn’t bump into anybody familiar, but the next morning Mademoiselle Moy told me told me that she saw someone who “looked like” me at the concert, and asked if I was there -_-”. The concert started with Dayang Nurfaizah belting out a couple of jazzy tunes, including some from her new album. Despite not knowing any of her songs, I must say that she put up a splendid performance that night. Her songs was pretty good actually. It was also the only time the drum set was used.

Live & Loud KL 07: Acoustic | Narrowband.org Images

Rick Price was the second artiste to perform. It was almost without a doubt that everyone, including myself, was looking forward to hearing him perform one song in particular, the song that we all knew and loved. Here’s an audio clip of that song, recorded live and acoustic using my trusty phone (listen to how much the participative audience loved it):-

At least one person screamed “Heaven Knows!!” when Rick was still not done with his other songs. He played mostly songs that were close to his heart, in particular the song he wrote for his son, and the songs related to the place where he lived and grew up. Rick actually responded to that by saying “We’ll get there baby, we’ll get there”, much to the amusement of the audience!

Live & Loud KL 07: Acoustic | Narrowband.org Images

Finally, it was James Morrison’s turn, but not before a long break where we thought there was a problem with the audio systems. The audience was already getting restless due to the delay. James started singing at about 11pm. Not that we hadn’t been warned anyway… our tickets clearly stated “8:00pm - LATE”. James was a soulful performer, in that he completely immersed himself in his music as he sang. His unique voice and style, kinda drove the women (and some men, too) crazy that night. Here’s The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore, recorded during the concert:-

Awesome stuff, awesome stuff. You could just feel his music when he sings, totally engaging. He played most of his songs from his album Undiscovered, plus some covers. James was a funny guy with a wicked sense of humor, which was also a great delight to the audience. There was an encore too, just as everyone was readily leaving the hall! Kinda funny, but we welcomed the encore nonetheless. Most of us were already standing near the stage, about to exit. James ended the show with Last Goodbye, sung to a group of tired but otherwise appreciative crowd.

There was one thing that irked me that night - the visual coverage of the show. The cameramen did a poor job in providing live visuals to the audience. There were two big projector screens but the cameras failed to capture what mattered most. When Rick played the piano, the cameraguy had to peer through some obstructions just to capture Rick’s face. And there wasn’t even any camera placed at an angle where we could see the piano keys (WTH~)! At one point, I think the cameraguy dozed off or something because James’ face was off-focused to the bottom of the screen - for at least 10 seconds. Dee Lern said to me “How’s that for ‘camera angle’?”.

The visuals aside, thank goodness the music was good. At least the artistes did everything right, and we were well entertained. I look forward to Live and Loud KL being made an annual event!

P/s: All photos and recordings are taken using a Nokia N95. More photos can be found on Duncan’s fotopages.

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