The band was brought in to perform at the soft opening of Millian. And it was a free live so we thought, we'll check it out since we like Japanese music, we like lives and from what we could tell from the music videos on YouTube, they seem interesting.
Millian is located at St. James Power Station. Now if, you have never been to St. James Power Station, it might be a little tricky finding the place. We got a little lost, not terribly, but there's no signage once you get to the building, so instructions would be useful. So I'll give some simple instructions here, should any of you ever need to find Millian, you will be able to.
First, make your way to Vivocity. There are many ways to get there via MRT, bus, cab or car. Google Maps can help you with that. When you get to the mall, make your way to where the Golden Village Cinema is located on the 2nd floor. Don't go into the cinema. Instead, walk around it to where the 7-11 is and you will find the link bridge to St. James Power Station at the end of that corridor. Take the link bridge to cross the road and at the end of the bridge, you'll find a building that houses several clubs and pubs. That's St. James Power Station. Now, to get to Millian, you'll have to walk round to the back of the building. Once you turn the corner that brings you to the back of the building, walk to the far end and that will be the entrance to Millian.
Now it was raining yesterday which was not a good thing at all. That's one of the disadvantages of this new live house + nightclub. It seems like there is no sheltered way to get to the entrance of Millian, so if it's the rainy season or if it looks like it may rain, it's a good idea to bring an umbrella with you.
Once you get in, it's all pretty cool. The hall itself is pretty nice. I didn't really shoot very nice photos of it because I didn't really intend to write a post about it last night but then I changed my mind. So these ugly photos and some imagination will have to do. :P
Once you enter the hall, you'll walk past this bar counter to get to the actual dance floor. Sorry, the photo's really crappy but it's the only photo I have so it'll have to do.
That's the dance floor taken from a slightly elevated position. This is the largest area.
The hall is divided into three unequal areas. The floor where the bar is slight raised by a few steps. from the dance floor. That's how they divide the two main levels. At the opposite end of the stage, you have a few squarish areas that are also elevated from the dance floor. These are lined on three sides by cushioned seats and I think there's a table in the centre. The sound mixing area is directly opposite the stage and flanked by the seating areas... I think because I didn't actually walk to the other end of the hall to take a look. Yeah... I was a bit lazy and so were my friends. We are lazy people. :P
The hall has a pretty high ceiling and has circular lighting set up which is pretty sophisticated for a small dance hall. I don't have a photo of that, so I'm going to borrow the photo from the Barks article.
 |
| source |
We couldn't quite estimate the capacity of the place but the Barks article states that it's 1000 standing 700 sitting.
The article also states that there is currently no such capacity live house in Singapore and that is, to my knowledge, accurate. According to the article, one of the reasons why Amuse opened this live house is to fill this void.
Well, we have Scape Warehouse (which is apparently called The Ground Theatre now) which has seen many Japanese music lives. I saw KPP, Perfume, AAA, flumpool, Scandal, and Weaver at Scape. But as all of us know, Scape Warehouse is hardly the best place to hold a live. The place is pretty much a multi-purpose hall and the reason why they were used for lives was that there really is a lack of small concert halls in Singapore. Although I can't find the maximum capacity for Scape Warehouse on their official webpage, a Straits Times article states that it's 500 capacity. But I think that's sitting capacity and standing capacity is closer to 700-800 maybe.
Standing in Millan yesterday, we weren't sure which was bigger. Was it Scape Warehouse or Millian? We thought it was Scape Warehouse actually because I guess one large rectangle seems larger than three divided areas? Or maybe it's because we've all been squeezed like sardines in Scape Warehouse before where we felt that there must have been at least 1000 people in the hall with us.
There's the Esplanade Theatres by the Bay but the Esplanade halls are all fully seated halls. And the refurbished Victoria Theatre is also a fully seated hall which is now smaller than it used to be. It used to seat approximately 900, now it seats 600. Anyway, these aren't even live halls. They're pretty much concert halls and probably pretty pricey too, with the Esplanade being the most expensive. The other options are much, much smaller. CLICK ME. There's also the Hard Rock Coliseum but it's an outdoor location so acoustics will always be a bit of a problem. Also seats 1000 which means standing capacity should be maybe 1300? And given that it's on Resorts World Sentosa, I suspect those rental rates are possibly a little pricey too. And anyway, it's an outdoor location, so it's not even a live hall too.
After going to Tsutaya O-East (for Kalafina) and Zepp DiverCity (for Ieiri Leo), it really did strike me that Singapore really has a lack of small live halls. So when Amuse Singapore announced the opening of Millian I was immediately intrigued. This is also probably why my supposedly short post about the gig at Millan turned out to be a much longer post talking about the location itself.
The six of us at the live yesterday didn't know much about NOISEMAKER except for the few music videos we had seen on YouTube. And I know that at least three of us were there with the additional motive of checking out the location. I was one of them. :)
The live started late yesterday, largely because of the rain I think. And maybe also because the EW MRT line had some service disruptions yesterday evening which meant some people were probably delayed by the slow trains and the crowds that had accumulated at the affected stations on the line. I think it started at least half an hour late. I think the organisers waited so that more people could fill the hall before they started.
They did provide free drinks at the bar though but nothing alcoholic. I think it was stuff like coke, sprite, ginger ale etc. I asked for water because I am actually still recovering from a cold and even if they offered anything alcoholic, I would not have wanted it. Anyway, it was a free live, and free drinks were a bonus we didn't expect.
Before the live began, one of the executives from one of the companies came on stage to give a very short speech. I really can't remember who he was but I think he's most likely from A-Live Entertainment. He talked about the investors and he also said that they spared no expense on the sound equipment and other equipment for the hall.
When he was done speaking, it was now up to NOISEMAKER to prove to us if this hall's sound equipment was really as good as he said it was. :)
I'm happy to say that all six of us were happy with the place and the band. NOISEMAKER is an alternative nu-metal band (according to this website) which means lots of guitars, drums, heavy bass, some metal screeching from the lead vocalist etc. And through all that, the sound system held up. The band definitely lives up to its name, they make NOISE and they did crank that volume UP. It was LOUD in the hall but the sound system had no issues with the volume or the range of frequencies the band and vocalist were producing. The lighting system was also quite complex for a small hall. Well, at least in Singapore, there is no real comparison when it comes to live halls since we don't actually have any to compare with.
The band was actually quite a fun band to watch live and we all enjoyed ourselves. It took us a while to warm up to them. We took maybe a song or two to decide if we liked them enough to raise our arms, dance and headbang with the band. After we independently decided that we liked them, we were all bouncing to the music. We didn't stand with the main crowd on the floor though. We stood at the back of the hall, just in front of the seating areas and you could still get a good look at the band and make out their faces. This is a nice live hall and I'm really happy that we have something that's WAYYYYYYYY better than Scape Warehouse now. :)
The band consist of four members who have hip-hop artist styled names. The vocalist is AG, guitarist is HIDE, bass is YU-KI and the drummer is UTA. The vocalist is pretty good in my opinion. He had no problems with the heavy metal styled screaming and growling parts of the songs and no problems when he sang the more melodic rock portions of their songs. His English is actually pretty good for a non-native speaking although his enunciation probably needs a little more work. But then again, in the metal styled portions, it may not really matter.
The band itself is pretty good too. Really rocking music and one of my friends thought the drummer was cute. So when he came up to the mic to thank the audience we cheered especially loudly for him. :P It was just silly fun.
It's the band's first live outside of Japan so we tried hard to show our support and appreciation from way back were we were too. AG is also pretty good at getting the generally more reticent and slow-warming Singapore crowd to become more responsive. He had this one line that got us all fired up. He yelled out several times during the live, "大家好！我们一起HIGH!" (da jia hao! wo men yi qi HIGH! = Hello everyone! Let's get HIGH together!) which instantly got us HIGH. LOL!! I have no idea why but it did make us excited. That's really an awesome line. I wonder where he learnt it from? His Mandarin pronunciation is actually pretty good too.
At one point, AG got off the stage and started dancing with the main crowd that was gathered at the front of the stage. That was brilliant. They all looked like they really enjoyed that. :)
They didn't sing a full live. I'm not sure how many songs they sang but I think they were probably only on stage for an hour. But for a free live it was pretty good already.
I'm really not familiar with any of their songs at all so I really don't know the titles of any of the songs they sang. AG did say the names but I don't remember them at all. Our unfamiliarity with songs also made it a little hard for us to really get into jump-jump dance mode. :P They are an alternative band after all, so there are certain unexpected changes in rhythm and beat which confused us slightly at times. It's NOT a bad thing. I like alternative music hence my DEEP love for Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina who are even more difficult to dance to if you are not familiar with their songs. So yeah, NOISEMAKER was cool.
After NOISEMAKER finished with the set. The MC for the night came back on to say that they were going to switch the hall to club mode and that we would get three free drinks coupons. We didn't stay for club mode so I can't comment. I wouldn't have minded but the others were tired. It was after all the end of a working / school week. We did pick up our free drinks and complimentary entry coupons at the entrance before we made our way back in the rain to Vivocity.
Actually, I didn't know till that very point that night that the Millian wasn't just a live hall. It's probably a good thing that the hall is flexible that way. I would like Millian to continue to be successful for the sake of music fans in Singapore.
According to the Barks news article I linked to earlier, Millian is not just intended to fill the void of a quality live house of this size, it's also to provide a cheaper location for overseas music acts to hold lives in Singapore. Unlike Scape Warehouse and other similar locations, the music, video and lighting equipment is a permanent feature at Millian which would reduce the cost of holding lives in Singapore significantly. They hope to use Millian to introduce more Japanese music artists to the Singapore and also use the hall to gain a more ground in the Asian market. It seems too that they are open to holding DJ events and hosting local music artists too.
This all sounds pretty good for the local live scene in Singapore and sounds pretty good too for local Japanese music fans. It's only in recent years that we've started to see more Japanese music artists come down to Singapore to hold gigs. Previously, even at the height of J-Wave in Singapore, we don't even see many of the big names coming down.
Five years ago, I would never have thought that we would ever see names like Perfume, AAA, A-Nation, L'arc en Ciel etc in Singapore. Previously for several years we only ever really got anisong bands and artists to come down during AFA for festival styled events and not one-man lives. And for the longest time Singapore has been in the grip of Korean Wave so we get quite a few Korean music bands and artists who can afford to throw expensive lives which sell out in Singapore. So I didn't think we Japanese music fans had much hope at all. But in the last couple of years, things have looked a lot brighter for us J-music fans and this new development looks good too.
Millian's investors are heavy hitters in the industry. Amuse Singapore is the biggest investor at 75%. Amuse Singapore is a subsidiary of the Amuse Group and Amuse manages a very large number of actors and music artists. They manage Perfume, ONE OK ROCK and BabyMetal to name a few and all three have performed live in Singapore more than once.
The second-largest investor is Zeppライブ (Zepp Live) at 17.5%. Those of us who love Japanese music lives will probably have heard of Zepp. They run several live houses in Japan. Kalafina's performed at one of the Zepp halls at least once before. The one in Sapporo as part of the Mezamashi Live Island Tour in 2013. And Ieiri Leo just completed a three location Zepp tour and I attended the first one at Zepp DiverCity. According to wikipedia, they are a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. So they're big hitters too.
The third investor is KIDS HOLDINGS at 7.5%. They seem like a pretty big hitter too. They run restaurants, pubs and other eating establishments. Apparently, according to the MC they have some restaurants in Singapore too but I couldn't quite catch the name.
I really believe that a Kalafina live in the Esplanade Concert Hall would be worth dying for. :P But if Millian does make it cost-effective enough for them to come to Singapore for a one-man, that would be awesome too. After the 8th Anniversary Live experience in Tsutaya O-East, I would kill for another live house experience with Kalafina any day. :D
Of course, I would love to see Kajiura Yuki, the main four FictionJunction vocalists and the FBM come down to Singapore too but the main reason why I seldom mention it is because I genuinely believe that we are very unlikely to ever see that happen in Singapore. Kajiura Yuki seldom holds lives outside of Japan and, if I remember correctly, they've only done the full Kajiura + FJ vocalists + FBM one-man lives in the US and that was some time ago. The chances of that happening in Singapore......... pretty low I think.
[Amend 8am 21st Feb: oh wait....after waking up this morning, I vaguely recollect that Kajiura + FJ vocalists + FBM have done a live in Hong Kong too....still...I think the chances of that happening in SG is low. A Kalafina one-man is probably still higher. Hopefully with the FBM too because a live to a minus one tape would suck. Ah well....still we'll probably see another HK one before we see that happen in SG I think. ]
Yup, so I am pretty happy about this. My friends were too. We're not sure if we'll go down when Millian is in nightclub mode because we aren't really the clubbing types. We're mostly otakus who happen to also like Japanese music lives and Japanese music that isn't always linked to anime. If they hold more of those promised lives at Millian, I'm up for it for sure! :)
And as usual, my intended short post had exploded into something really long and it took me ages to write it too. I actually crossed over into the early hours of the next day again! Which means, a hasty good night from me and very little proofreading. :P Oyasumi!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment