Black Eyed Peas

In a sea of largely lackluster and manufactured noise churned out by waves of irritating boy bands, holier-than-thou bandleaders and the Simpson sisters; the Black Eyed Peas are a refreshing Katrina-like typhoon with their joie de vivre and relatively unattractive mugs. The rancid state of popular music today is forgiven by their mere presence. It may be the "cultural diversity poster" makeup of the band, their sheer energy, their unorthodox style that simply refuses to succumb to any version of what constitutes "cool" or the wonderful, glorious cacophony of noise they relentlessly produce which just gets you up and bopping (there is just no way to stay morose when listening to a BEP song). I have no idea. Like most love stories, my complete adoration of the BEP defies logic or comprehension. I love them, that is all.

Thus after much to-and-froing and back-and-forthing, Tuesday night found the Posse (if you could call Jean, Arp and Arch that; actually as it turned out, they were completely deserving of that term :-) and I at Kallang Indoor Stadium. Since, as usual, we left it too late, we all had seats in different locations. To remedy the situation we did some "migrating to better pastures" which did not work out too well initially. Especially since we were unduly influenced by Sriram and the RH gang who were happily seated at the most expensive seats diagonally across the stage from our area (in other words they were freaking far). Nevertheless, the four of us trekked across the continent that is the Indoor Stadium and happily seated ourselves next to them. The boys then proceeded to confess that they were not actually supposed to be there either. Being in possession of the cheapest tickets, their allocated seats were up in the stalls, light-years away from the stage.

Needless to say , we were soon booted out by meticulous ushers (don't you just hate people who are dedicated to their jobs :-). The boys were likewise ejected and in the ensuing melee the sexes were separated. We (actually I was more of a tagger-along) plomped our butts down on one of the stairway cum walkways between aisles and formulated a Grand Plan Of Action. The salient points of the GPoA were as follows :-
a) sit on stairs till concert starts.
b) jump barrier to front once concert starts.
c) blend into the crowd by jumping up and down.
d) try to jump up and down in time with music so don't look like idiots.

Being the chicken-shit that I am, I was pretty terrified of the GPoA. My repeated bleats of "see there are four seats right here, let's just sit there" were largely ignored by the Posse. The ushers ever intent on faithfully executing their duties eventually sniffed us out and told us to "get back to our seats" with the assurance that the concert would start soon. We did not budge of course and reinforcements were sent for. Cisco cops brandishing flashlights turned up. Caught like soon-to-be-roadkill in the glare of a car headlight, we scampered into the 4 empty seats I had previously staked out. Happily ensconced in my seat, I ignored the Council of War the Posse were having and prepared for the concert to start. By this time it was almost 930 and the crowd was getting mutinous (or as mutinous as a crowd can get in Singapore) .

Finally they were here! The BEP themselves. Unfortunately, I don't remember those early moments clearly 'cos the Posse ejected from their seats and dragging me along rushed to the barriers (along with hundreds of others). We joined the queue jumping the barriers, me bleating helplessly throughout. Jean, Arch and Arp were soon up the barrier and through to the other side. Arp did it effortlessly in her short-short skirt and all. I sorta got erm.. stuck.. so to speak. Arch (bless her heart) was all like, "come on!" I just shook my head mutely. But she was persistent and finally I was up and through as well. Just in time too. For the cops soon converged to reinforce the barricades. We then proceeded to execute the rest of the GPoA without a hitch :-p

Concert moments I loved :-
A) almost everything but specifically;
i) the freestyling bit by the bandmembers especially the tagalog song
ii) the handphones doubling as lighters moment dedicated to the tsunami and Katrina victims
iii) the "Stomp" intermission
iv) the butt slapping moment when the instrumentalists were introduced.
v) the introduction of the instrumentalists
vi) the cartwheels!
vii) all the songs! but especially the classic-anthems Don't Phunk With My Heart, Where Is The Love and Let's Get It Started

B) special bonus
viii) Shana's almost-Marilyn Monroesque Moment