Rie Fu ~ Growing Singapore: Construction Site Paintings & Acoustic Live

Two days ago, I finally managed to watch Rie Fu live in Singapore. :)  The Japanese singer songwriter moved to Singapore about a year ago and is currently based here for now.  During this time, I knew that she sang and held a workshop at Hood Bar & Cafe and also at J-Obsessions at Cathay but both events were on a Sunday afternoon which made it hard for me to attend because it clashed with my classes.  This time, this event was held on a Saturday afternoon so I grabbed at the chance to go.

Admittedly, outside of Rie Fu's anime related music, I didn't really know that much about her music at all.  And I didn't even know she painted till the Japan Creative Centre put up an art exhibition showcasing her paintings which were very cool.

source

The event was held at the Japan Creative Centre on Nasim Road and Rie Fu performed on the opening and closing day of her art exhibition.  The cool thing about it is that it's a free live, you just had to write in to apply for a "ticket" to get in.  I applied for the closing day because it was on a Saturday and hence, made it much easy for me to attend.
The location of the live isn't very big at all. It's just a small room but it made it quite nice and intimate.  Of course, since this isn't a proper concert hall, it lacks proper sound proofing etc, so the acoustics can't possibly be stellar but it was fine for the most part.  It's an acoustic live and Rie Fu's music tends towards the pop folk genre so its a pretty simple set-up.  Basically, it's either Rie Fu and her guitar or Rie Fu and her keyboard.  That's all that's needed actually since Rie Fu's vocals and songs are great, hence, a simple set-up is all she needs. The only hiccup was that the speakers which played back the sounds from the acoustic guitar were kind of strained which was a pity.  But when she switched to the keyboard everything was great.

 

Here's the set-list from yesterday afternoon.
Source (click me)

1.Sunshine on my Forehead
2.decay
3.I Wanna go to a Place
4.5000 Miles
5.Butterfly
6.TSUKIAKARI
7.For You
8.Life is Like a Boat
9.I Met You
10.Singapore

Rie Fu has a nice sense of humour and got us laughing a few times during the MCs. She knows that a lot of people, at least a lot of those outside of Japan, came to know about her and her music because of anime.  And during one of the MCs she said that she was not going to sing Life is Like a Boat from Bleach because if she did, we might all leave immediately after. LOL. Well, I doubt if we would because her music is GOOD!!

Her MCs were also quite interesting and insightful. She talked about her music and her paintings quite a bit.  She touched on what some of them meant to her, her state of mind when she wrote these songs or painted these paintings etc.

I found her music quite captivating and enjoyed her style of singing.  I liked virtually every song she sang, even the ones that I weren't familiar with and didn't come from anime.  In the end, my favourite song on Saturday afternoon was a song I had not heard before called I Met You.  There was a little sing along bit where she asked us to sing the phrase "never give up, never give up".  But I think the audience was a little shy in the beginning so we were really soft at first but I think we did warm up and ended up sounding kind of decent later on, I hope. :P  Anyway, it wasn't the sing along bit that made me like the song. I really like the song itself.  Love the opening bit and loved the way she sang it at the live. Check out this preview from her YouTube channel. Nice, yah? :)



After the live, we took the opportunity to check out her paintings.  There are a couple of larger paintings in the room where the live was held and another hundred smaller ones in the room next door.  I wish I took nicer photos of the larger paintings but there were several people milling around and I didn't really want to get in their way, so I took most of the larger photos at a less then optimal distance.  When I got to the next room, there wasn't anyone initially so I was able to get closer.

      

I have to say, I really like these paintings.  I'm really not well verse in Art at all.  A half semester crash course in the university on the history of Art from the Renaissance to Modern Art is the extent of my academic knowledge.  What I do know though is that in general, I like landscape paintings and the English Romantic painters like John Constable and J.M.W. Turner struck a particular chord with me.  Yeah, so I really can't say anything intelligent except that I liked Rie Fu's paintings. Rie Fu's paintings are like landscape paintings but with construction sites as the theme.  That's actually kind of cool because I don't think I've ever seen a painting exhibition with construction sites as the main theme.  I particularly like the use of light in some of them.  Like this painting.

I also like some of the textures in some of the other paintings like these.

 

It's nice too that aside from several paintings on sites in Japan, many of the paintings depict Singapore too. I really like that and I guess in many ways, it's quite appropriate to paint construction sites in Singapore.  There are construction sites everywhere and Singapore's landscape is still in constant flux.  I remembered that when I was studying overseas and came back after a few years, I couldn't recognise lots of places because buildings that were once there were no longer there and they were replaced by either other buildings or new train stations and lines.  I felt like a tourist because I actually spent some time taking the train around Singapore just to look in amazement at just how much had changed in such a relatively short amount of time.

Since we're talking about Singapore, Rie Fu also wrote a song about Singapore.  It's on her YouTube channel too.  It's really nice, my mum likes it too because she's humming along now because I'm playing the song as I write this bit in this post. :) Check out the English version here.



At the live, she said that the saree was quite difficult to wear.  I've never tried wearing one but I'll keep that in mind and if I do try in the future, I think I'll ask one of my Indian friends for help. :)

Since I believe in supporting artist and their music, I decided to buy one of her albums.  I picked up her latest album titled I (you can listen to samples of the tracks here) because it contains the song Singapore and I Met You. It's nice that she autographed the albums too and took photos with us.  But I'm not uploading photos of us because I'm not a celebrity blogger and I like to be as anonymous as possible online.  I will, however, do my usual unboxing thing and show you photos of the album.  The packing is quite nice. :)

    

Please excuse the Pokemon Cafe coaster.  The autograph is personalized and the coaster was the closest nice thing I had nearby so I used it to cover my name. :)  And, um... in hindsight, maybe I should have shot the unboxing photos on a different background.  Somehow a Madoka Magica desk mat as a backdrop for a Rie Fu album doesn't really work.  Unfortunately, it's too late for that because I'm too lazy to re-shoot them on a more neutral backdrop. :D

If any one else who resides in Singapore chances upon this post, I do encourage you guys to keep an eye out for future Rie Fu lives in Singapore.  Now, that she's based here for now, the likelihood that she'll perform live in Singapore again is always there.  It was a really enjoyable live and we enjoyed it a lot, so if you guys can go, do go check her out.

Before I head to bed, I'll leave you with this three video clips of Rie Fu singing live at the JCC two days ago. :)  JCC kindly uploaded three of the songs that she performed that day on their Facebook page.  There are photos of the session that day as well, so you can go to their FB page and check it out if you like. (CLICK ME)  All of them are related to anime, so most of my anime watching friends who occasionally read my blog will probably enjoy them. :)

From Gundam Seed Destiny, I wanna go to a place.

Reifu performing her single 'I wanna Go To A Place …, the ending song of anime GANDAME SEED DESTINY.
Posted by JCC (Japan Creative Centre) on Saturday, 9 May 2015

From Darker than Black, Tsukiakari.

Reifu performing "Tsukiakari" , the ending song of anime "DARKER THAN BLACK"
Posted by JCC (Japan Creative Centre) on Saturday, 9 May 2015

From Bleach, Life is like a Boat.

Rie fu performing 'Life is like a boat', ending theme song for popular anime series Bleach.
Posted by JCC (Japan Creative Centre) on Saturday, 9 May 2015

I think I'll have to do my Daruma factory post another day, hopefully before the Kalafina ring your bell singles reach me.  It's not that I think anyone is really desperately waiting to read my post on the visit to the Daruma factory in Gunma :P  but I did tell Asahi-san that I would write-up something so I have to.  If I don't have to put in massive hours of OT these few days, I'll attempt to do it within the next two days.  For now... it's time for bed... good night!! :)