The Nation Celebrates with Mud and Dung


Finally, the day came for Concert by the Bay at Marina South, an event that is part of this year's National Day celebrations. Dim Sum Dolly (now a Mayday convert), her fren D (a Mandopop guru and crazy-enough Mayday fan), and I (ahem, quite ONs Mayday fan), trooped down to join the HORDES of Singaporeans at the carnival.

What greeted us was the unmistakable stench of dung. Cow dung. It had rained earlier, so the ground was terribly muddy. And I don't know why it contained dung. Anyway, we endured the smell as we sat from 7pm to 11pm along the muddy-footprint-scarred makeshift wooden benches, enjoying the spectacular fireworks show and of cos, MAYDAY!!!

But before that, of cos, we had to listen to Rui En and Taufik belting out Reach Out For The Skies before the fireworks started. And this whole row of very cute, mixed-parentage kids (see picture above) started chorusing very loudly when the song started. Complete with the dance steps you see in the MTV that plays every minute of the day on TV!!! Oh man!!! And they even raised their hands and swayed to the song. Propaganda at work!!! Fancy ingraining citizens with such patriotic feelings at such a tender age.


A Portuguese team was at the helm of a beautiful 15-minute display of fireworks, which danced to the lively tempo of a medley of fast songs. One moment, they were a sudden burst of red showers, another moment, they were sprinkles of gold dust, like a trail of magic dust from a fairy godmother's wand!


And yet another moment, they were like great spots of bright lights shooting upwards carefully, before spraying a pattern of blue or green sparks that faded into a canvass of night black. Absolutely captivating. My pictures do no justice to the moment.

After this initial euphoria, it was back to endless waiting for my beloved Mayday. A total of six artistes, including Mayday and Emil Chau, were to perform. Of course, they saved the best for last lah. Emil made a short appearance during Mayday's act and sang a Beatles song as well as Knocking On Heaven's Door with Mayday as the backup band and vocalists. What a rare moment!

Emil is my childhood idol (HAHAHA, I went to his concert when I was in Sec 3, with three other schoolmates!!!) And Mayday is my current idol. And they were singing English songs that I like!!! WOOHOO!


Ashin looked hot in pink man. Unfortunately, I was too far away to get a good picture. Here he is with Stone, who is on the electric Stratocaster (I think it is, leo ever identified it for me). But, was so sad, my camera ran out of power after I took the second shot of Ashin and Stone :(

Anyways, the entire concert ended up like Mayday's own mini-concert cos they sang like eight to 10 songs, whereas everyone else only did three to four. SO HAPPY!!! D and I had run onto the muddy field to sing with the crowd and see Mayday more clearly, and D ended up with her feet all brown with mud cos she wore slippers. Haha. Dim Sum Dolly - the not so crazy one - wisely stayed on the benches.

All in all, mud or dung, the experience hao HIGH wor (as the Taiwanese would say)!!!