Romeo, Juliet, and Solid Snake

If March had been merely busy for me, April soon came around and decided to turn it up a couple of notches.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, Carrie, Annette, Chow Shern and I helped out with a Universiti Malaya production called Ju & Meo.  First, a little background.  Megat, a student at UM, had to direct and produce a theatre performance as part of his evaluation.  The story (written by another UM student, Nur Ahmad) was a novel take on the famous Romeo and Juliet tale, imagining what it'd be like if, after snuffing it, Romeo and Juliet's spirits continued to roam the world together for 500 years in a never-ending honeymoon.  Apparently, 500 years of ghostly romance bores the shit out of people, so the play explores how Ju and Meo¹ cope with their lives metaphysical existences.

So, the four of us YKLS peeps were to provide ambient music and/or chanting, depending on the mood and flow of the story.  To prepare for this, we had between two to three practices each week for slightly over a month before the show opened in Istana Budaya.  Thankfully, the singers and other musicians (there was a cellist, two pianists including Chow Shern, and a guy on the sax) didn't have to do too much; most of the heavy lifting were done by the lead (also the only) actor and actress, Amri and Mardiana.  Needless to say, they had a crapload of lines to memorise.

Stolen from Picture courtesy of NST Online

Chow Shern

To contrast the white costumes of the leads and to create a deathly mood, we were given rather interesting costumes to wear.

The saxophonist buat hal.

Aku pun boleh buat hal.

It was quite an eye-opener performing for this play, with the script being especially intriguing due to the language; they made the Malay sound contemporary at the same time completely avoiding the use of English².

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And now, for my story on Video Games Live.

A little bit of background first; you can say that I'm sort of a video game music enthusiast.  Unfortunately, since I can't play any musical instruments, I have resigned to merely being a listener.  It sort of began when I was studying in Singapore, and I needed music to keep me awake on all those late nights I sometimes spend mugging.  When it was time to pack up my belongings and leave the hostel for good, my iPod (may it rest in pieces) had over 700 Final Fantasy songs in it⁴, as well as the discography of several other games.  I really liked listening to them because having played those games, the songs sometimes gave me that goosebump-inducing nostalgia that could sometimes beat coffee at prolonging my lucidity.

My sister, also an avid gamer, was naturally a fan of video game music like me, too⁵.  She was the one who, about two months ago, told me that Video Games Live will finally be coming to Malaysia on 17th April.  As soon as tickets went on sale, I got ourselves some RM71 student-priced ones (though I've graduated, my card's expiry date has yet to lapse).

And then one day, at Chamber Choir practice, Tracy sat us down for a briefing.

Tracy:  So we've got two upcoming gigs to prepare for.  I've got a friend from NSO (National Symphony Orchestra) who asked me for a favour, since they're just the orchestra and they don't have a choir.

She proceeds to write the number 1 on the whiteboard, then 7, after which I prayed out loud "Please, please, please not April"... And then she wrote April.  I sighed and let her know that I've already got prior plans.

Me:  What time is the gig?  I've got an appointment in the afternoon, so if it's at night I might be able to make it...
Tracy:  It's for the entire day, they're doing two shows.
Me:  (Sighs again)  Where is this going to be?
Tracy:  At KLCC.
Me:  MPO (Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra)?
Tracy:  No, KL Convention Centre Plenary Hall.
Me:  Huh?  But on that day Video Games Live is happening at the Plenary Hall-
Tracy:  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, we're performing for Video Games Live.
Me:  HOLY CRAP!

I totally did not expect the briefing to end that way; in one night I went from being a mere ticket-holder into concert-performer.  Also, I actually spurted many other expletives, but you get the idea.  It's not often that shit like this (the good kind) go down in your life.  Thus, I was justifiably jubilant (awesome alliterations, Batman!).


And so, that's the story of how I became part of the VGL Choir that performed on 17th April.  Because over half of the Chamber Choir members couldn't make it due to prior commitments, Tracy brought in her students from SMK Damansara Jaya as well as some of Susanna's Malaysian Institute of Art students to fill in.

Together, we sung the songs from Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Sonic (we just sang the chords for "Sega", that you hear at the beginning of the games), Warcraft/WoW, Guitar Hero (we just yelled "Jump" throughout Van Halen's song), Halo, and the perennial crowd pleaser, One-Winged Angel (incidentally a very easy song to sing).  My sister was so jealous of me.

We took a picture onstage, because we're hardcore like that.

It's also times like these that I'm so thankful that I'm in the Young KL Singers; it has given me the opportunity to do so many things that I never thought I'd ever do in my life.  Singing the Lord of the Rings Symphony, backing up for Sarah Brightman, and now this.

I wonder what other surprises lie in store for me at YKLS in the future.


Footnotes:
1 - You have no idea how fitting the Malayanised names of Romeo and Juliet are; "Ju & Meo" sound right just about right.  The same could be said about the show's subtitle, Cinta Agung Melayu; not "Grand Malay Love", but "Grand Love Wilting", as in Me-Layu.  Of course, I didn't get it at first, and I doubt anybody would have unless explicitly told so.
2 - There was an exception, though, when RoMeo sang a song called Aku Playboy Suci. For serious.  The song was a fun, uptempo jazz piece composed³ by Chow Shern based on the original script.  One of the themes of the show was that despite being unfaithful, Meo is so pure and loyal that he will return to the arms of the one he truly loves.  I wonder with whom did he cheat on Ju with, actually... other ghosts?
3 - Every other song sung/played in the show was adapted from varied composers such as Faure, Debussy and Evanescence.
4 - Once again, for serious.  The runtime is almost 8 hours, and the files are just over 3GBs.  Of course, some songs are rehashes, remixes, orchestra versions, piano versions, etc.
5 - This is probably the first time I'm plugging her blog.  She blogs a lot more consistently than me, and she even did the skin for her own site.  She's got mad skillz.  She's even a Grade 8 pianist while I... sing.  I'm still cooler, though.  Unfortunately, the title of the coolest sibling in the family probably has to go to my hip-hop dancing brother.  I just take pride in the fact that my England is better than his.  Thing is, he can converse in Mandarin and Cantonese, whereas I can't (without sounding like a rambling idiot), which makes this point somewhat moot...