Anyone Seen My Self-Esteem?

Who’d thought a concert without spiky-haired rockers and heavy guitar riffs would ROCK?

It’s official - I’ve fallen in love with Japanese culture, all over again. And their lovely people wearing lovely kimonos and walking oh-so-adorably like geishas. Not to mention J-Pop singers that makes fabulous music like Utada Hikaru. Ooh, not forgetting the food (sushi is mouthwatering. Period) What is there not to love about

Japan

?

Anyway, on Saturday (

20/1/2007

) night, I went to Istana Budaya, near Jalan Tun Razak, for the cultural performance "Japanese Drum Concert: Beating & Blazing". The show started at

8.30pm

, but I & my college mates had arrived at the Istana Budaya to line up since

11am

for the 100 free tickets they were giving away. And after 1 hour and 45 minutes of entertaining ourselves by playing kindergarten games like ‘Cap-cili-cap’, ‘Spelling Bee’ or ‘Charades’ (hey, we were BORED. And they were pretty fun :P), we finally got our hands on the tickets.

It was

12.45pm

. And another 7 hours and 45 minutes till the show. And so we spent our time (and $$$) ‘voyaging’ around KLCC - having late lunch at Burger King (sitting next to a group of loud Iranian girls with body odour. yuck), window shopping stuff with price tags ridiculously expensive, and ‘cuci mata’-ing people that caught our fancy. Typical teenager outing

6pm

. We headed towards our bus and made a move to Istana Budaya, with the intention of avoiding heavy traffic usually associated with KL. But the roads seemed only clear. On a Saturday evening? KL-ites must be using public transport more often, now that Sami Vellu hiked the prices of toll rates. Thanks, Sammy!

Around

7.15pm

. We took pictures with an American-accented Japanese women in her 20’s, donning a beautiful kimono that compliments her lovely peach-shaped face, by the name of Noriko. She was helping her mother Muramoto (if my memory serves me right), who is a flutist, to promote her album entitled “Jambatan” (Malay for “Bridge”). At RM90 per CD? I could only dream of owning such a pricey collection. Muramoto apologized for the price tag, explaining that their target market is high-income earning businessmen/corporate slaves/CEOs/whatevers.

Precisely

7.30pm

. Totally Japanese to be punctual, a mini performance featuring Muramoto and some well-known Malay guy playing the guitar (I’m terrible with names. My bad) was held, as to give the audience, now starting to amass, samples from her album. Stunningly captivating flute playing, coupled with amazing hands dexterity of the guitarist, seemed to blow the crowd away, especially when she played her rendition of popular Malay songs, like “Awan Yang Terpilu” and “Getaran Jiwa” (made popular by Ning Baizura and P. Ramlee respectively). What a treat to my Pussycat Dolls-infected eardrums!

8.15pm.

We entered the hall to our seats, on the second floor, not far from the VVIP Seats. The only VVIP that we did spot was Ako Mustapha, whom seems to have gained pounds by the extremely chubby cheeks (I swear, my hands felt like attacking those round cheeks and pulling them sideways / diagonally / vertically).

Chubby cheeked celebrity aside, the show started around

8.40pm

. I seriously did not expect myself to be highly entertained, especially by a ‘drum concert’. This is a first for me, probably for most of the other members of the audience as well. Yet, when the first performance by two male drummers banging a VERY huge Taiko drums with such passion and energy, I was excited out of my socks! Following suit, was the Hono-o-Daiko all-female group, all three clad in silky white kimonos, drumming smaller drums with such grace and power that continued to enthuse the audience. For the next hour, the Hono-o-Daiko drummers gave lively drumming, which seem to match the energy of the all-male Tokyo Dageki Dan group, which also shook the atmosphere of the auditorium with their highly synchronized and clever beats. I couldn’t contain my enjoyment even when a 15-minute break followed soon after.

9.30pm

it was, and the 15-minute break was used wisely by the audience to munch on overpriced sandwiches and drinks (no food or beverage were allowed into the auditorium), ‘paying a trip’ to the toilet, or simply chatting about how amazing the first half of the performance was. I did all the above, and was overly excited like a boy watching a circus performance for the first time. Maybe “WWF/TNA Wrestling for the first time” in the context of today’s children.

9.40pm

was when the announcement “The show will resume in 5 minutes. Please take your seats” came out. The Hono-o-Daiko trio once again gave a few interesting numbers that was equally as enjoyable as the ones in the first half. Yet it was the boys of Tokyo Dageki Dan’s amazingly synchronized and comic 3-men wood rice container (or something like that) battering performance that left the audience in stitches and awe. Oh, if only words could describe the concert! Another captivatingly beautiful performance was the combination of the flute, Taiko drum, and (surprisingly) the gamelan, which sort of brought back the audiences back onto solid ground after the exciting pieces before this. It was nothing short of mesmerizing, even though my friend said it was a tad boring and sleepy – hey, it was ten something, and we did stroll around KLCC for nearly 5 hours.

At the end of the show, the final number was a collaborative performance between Hono-o-Daiko and Tokyo Dageki Dan, with them jumping about to a rhythmic beat, which got the crowd clapping in unison. I seriously felt like getting to my feet and dancing around, like what audiences in the West would do, but I guess since the audience were Malaysians, everyone else were seating. Some even took the chance to leave early, and some didn’t bother to clap. What a spoilsport, the crowd, or else I’d totally enjoyed myself. Anyway, the crowd, who were definitely entertained, showed appreciation by giving a loud round of applause to the performers, who bowed with pride and honour. Some people, like myself, gave a standing ovation, notwithstanding there were too few of us. I didn’t care, because I simply LOVED the concert!

10.45pm

– picture snapping time! With the stream of people making their way out of Istana Budaya, climbing down the stairs while talking non-stop about the awesome performance, even me and my friends couldn’t contain our excitement. Definitely didn’t regret being part of the highly memorable show.

Now where do I sign up for the Hono-o-Daiko and Tokyo Dageki Dan fan club?

27/1/2007, 4:25am

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