Hello boys and girls, a little report from Bangkok. Two days of music, well.. almost.
We arrived in Bangkok after a delayed flight on Thai Airways, sometime in the late afternoon. Coincidentally Ngak and Eric from Timmy were on the same flight as us. I didn’t know half the crowd I was going with, I just decided to join in and take advantage of the package offer one of them had sourced out. We paid about $300+ for airfare and accomodation in a ‘3 star’ hotel with land transfer. As for the tickets we got an almost 40% discount. Don’t ask me why, I happily took out 3000baht to pay for my ticket which was worth 5000baht and got CHANGE, sweeeeeeeeeeet!
Sweet like this giant cob of corn, 60baht only!
So the festival decided on day one that there will be no beer allowed inside the concert area. Here we are, lack of rest and raring to go and they won’t let us have a beer WHILE inside. So we ran around and found ppl selling beers for 50baht a can, a tad expensive but hey we needed fuel! I gotta say, these guys selling the beer from the backpacks, at least the sold them COLD, not like the lukewarm, half-assed ones at Esplanade….
I’ll be honest. I had no idea what I was in for. I was promised two days of decadence: good music, good food and copious amounts of alcohol. Man, I am easy bait.
Spunky enters the gates…
Security: No KAAMEEELAAA, No KAAAMEEELAAA!
Spunky:...????
Security (points at my bulky Canon in my hand): No KAAAMEEELAA!
Spunky: But how?
Security: You, go infoormashion counterrrr!
I wasn’t gonna leave the camera at the information counter and not have peace of mind. I decided I didn’t wanna lose my mother’s camera in Bangkok.
So the camera went hiding in Jana’s jeans, at her ankles, she limped her way in to prevent if from falling out. Good on ya, Jana!
Ian Brown was up when we got there. I was pretty excited to see what the former Stone Roses has been up to. No I have not heard his albums when he went solo. No I did not do any last minute homework (e.g listen to someone’s iPod for a taste..) and no i did not enjoy his set in the end. Ian Brown came out in a pink track suit and looked like he was teaching us the groovy version of The Great Singapore Workout. We got pretty sqaushed up in the sea of people and the sound was kinda crap and I couldn’t hear a word Ian Brown was singing cos he was cover the mic the whole time. Most of the ang mohs who went there were shouting their displeasure after the set. People these days can be so hard to please…
The whole festival was buzzing with activity, CDs and DVDs were being sold, T-shirts, exhibitions of the bands, clothes, food, drinks. Almost everywhere I turned I bumped into someone I know from Singapore. The lines to the portable loo were long but they moved a lot faster than any lines in Singapore.
Note: please excuse the dodgy festival shots cos my mama’s camera only 3.2megapixel and I wasn’t too near the stage most of the night….
Franz Ferdinand was up next. After hearing Joan rave about them in Singapore, I was very excited to check them out. This band did not disappoint cos the crowd was dancing and jumping and singing and by god the singer Alex Kapranos (who looks like a manlier Brett Anderson) has such a sexy voice! The band was tight and they really rocked to entertain. I is pleased, very very pleased.
Seeing that I was out drinking till 530am on friday night before the flight to bangkok… my energy level started to wane towards the Oasis show. When I first saw one of their earlier live shows on DVD many years ago, I knew I wanted to see this band live not because of him….
.. but because the band is very tight and they really work hard on stage. In between when Liam Gallagher walked away and and the band shone with Noel singing, I couldn’t help but wonder why this band was being plagued by bad sound.
We left day one of the festival tired but raring for more beer. We were invited to an after party at the Met Bar but by the time we went back to our rooms, Miho and I decided we’d rather go chill with Ngak and Eric. The food was great in this little place not far from Khao San and their big bottle of Chang cost us 60baht only!
After our supper (which was actually my dinner cos alls I had was the food on the flight) Ngak decided to buy some fried insects. Grubs, crickets, beetles, worms… you name it. Ngak actually got 10baht each of almost everything….I was gonna ask for the deep fried grub, but chickened out when he tried to feed me the deep fried FROG.
It was a WHOLE frog, I could still see the HEAD.
Fuck that, I ain’t going for it. I begged Ngak to just let me have the legs, he insisted I take the whole damn thing.
No thanks.
I ended up leaving the whole packet outside our room, hoping someone else might find it tasty….
