Our big gig is just three days away, and the pressure is building.
After spending just a little under FIVE hours last night preparing chord charts for Wonder Boy’s debut show this Sunday, our rehearsal was canceled.
We were supposed to be at Sheila Majid’s top-notch Akarkarya studio in Uptown, PJ putting the finishing touches to our set, but our lead vocalist Liang developed a whooping cough and guitarist Steve Lam got a fever.
So it was down to the rhythm section, me and drummer Aaron Chew, so we had to cancel it, which really sucked. I was really looking forward to playing with all the chords locked down with the charts for the first time.
Now we’re down to one, possibly two more rehearsals before our show at Artista (in Tropicana City Mall, PJ) this Sunday night.
The good news however, is that we finally found a replacement keyboardist. Both our keyboardists – music instructor Emmanuel Chan and highly-sought after sessionist Rebecca Yau – had to pull out from the project. Emmanuel realised the gig coincided with a trip to Finland, and Rebecca just had too many other gigs to work on.
But I guess that’s the way it goes, right? You’re gonna get your ups and downs when your working in a band, and you’ve just gotta deal with it. Cancelled rehearsals and scheduling conflicts are all part and parcel of the business, and to quote a particularly colourful participant of America’s Next Top Model, if you can’t handle the heat, stay outta the kitchen.
Stevie Wonder video of the day
Today, we have a live version of the romantic My Cherie Amour, which is about a guy who’s secretly in love with a girl, and how he longs to show her how he feels.
This is from a relatively recent concert, Live at Last in London, 2008. Check out how lovey-dovey the crowd is! So sweet… And I hope all of you will sing with us like them this Sunday 😉
Keyboardist! Finally…
Thankfully, my friend Ian Lingarajan, the bassist from Cinco, was able to recommend me a couple of keyboardists – Vivian, also from Cinco, and Linet, who plays for Juanopobia.
Linet agreed to help out, but the problem is, we haven’t got time for any rehearsals. She already has a few gigs lined up with Juanophobia, so now we’re really scrambling to make time for at least one session with her before Sunday.
Meeting Madan
I had a meeting yesterday with singer-songwriter and guitarist Madan, the guy who’s in charge of Artista’s Sunday night slot.
So he’s the reason we have a venue and are getting the whole Sunday night to ourselves (thanks to Ray Cheong and Sharmila Naidu for introducing us too).
Anyway, I told him that we’ll be doing around 7 songs, cos Liang has to preserve his voice for his Christmas musical Follow The Light, which runs till Dec 19 at the PJ Live Arts Centre in Jaya One. [Go watch it!! It’s got great reviews so far!!]
But Madan said that 7 songs for an entire night won’t be enough, so he’s offered to sing with us! We’re thinking about doing Isn’t She Lovely or Higher Ground. Should be fun =)
Also, he’s gonna help us get another couple of local bands to play after us to fill up the programme on Sunday. Let’s hope they don’t make us look bad =P
Tell us what you think!