Monday, August 14, 2006

Post gig blues - II

OH man.. what a week it was again!!

This time it was preparing for the KL Hardbop Band show at the KL Performing Arts Centre recently on Thursday night! But I tell ya, I was so occupied with preparing for that show that I totally had no time to blog about it, nor send an email! My apologies to all, for making you miss an awesome show last night! LOL!

Anyway, I'll just tell you about it, since most of you missed it! All I can say was, the show was a success (thankfully!).

It was a rather stressful couple of weeks after coming back from Hong Kong, the following week was Happy People Quintet at Top Room, the week after that was the inaugural show for my own band under my name, Julian Chan Quintet (featuring Sharizan). It was stressful trying to cramp the preparations for those two gigs. Not forgetting to mention as well the EXTRANEOUS kinds of stress that came along outside the stage... *tsk tsk*

Then, last week was the Sunrise Jazz Festival with Sharizan and John Thomas' Funk Mob (read "Post gig blues"), and that was also a tiring one, five days (or NIGHTS, rather) of rehearsals of tough tunes. But at least I was playing my horn. The former gigs were basically consisting of me trying to arrange rehearsals and preparing charts.

And of course the whole of this week was preparing for The KL Hardbop Band @ KLPac, arranging rehearsals, preparing charts, dealing with difficult people. But thankfully with David Gomes' help with the band, I could concentrate on some other aspects as well. The show itself was da bomb!! The band played like there was no tomorrow, from Thomas Theseira on tenor, Eddie Wen on trumpet, Charles on drums, Vincent on bass, Junji on vocals, David on piano, and myself on alto!! We played a mix of tunes from the hardbop era (Yams, Stolen Moments, Jeannine, Recordame, and Bemsha Swing), vocals with Junji and David (A Lot of Livin' To Do, The Song Is You, Have You Met Ms Jones, Falling In Love With Love, and Save Your Love For Me), David's original tunes (Fire Within Water, Entry, Just Swinging, Just Around The Corner, encore Blues In Brazil and also to debut David's latest composition Home). Although the turnout wasn't as good as one would, but the music that was presented was probably something one would not normally expect in KL.

Well, again... my apologies for letting you miss a good show! LOL! But there'll be more, so do look out for it, yeah?

Anyway, the show's over... I feel like a heavy weight had been lifted off my back! After this weekend, I'm taking two weeks off from gigging!!

Oh one sad thing though: I lost my camera before the KLPac gig. I left it on the floor during rehearsals, and I guess someone took my RM1499 Panasonic Lumix camera... dammit!!! Sigh.. have to buy another one.. my earnings from the KLPac gig hilang, balls... DAMMIT!!! Me and my carelessness! Fark..

I need a vacation.. I can see it: Me, Myself and I, at Port Dickson, with my running shoes and kit, my bike, my swimming trunks and goggles, my horn, my keyboard and my Mac... just doing nothing but working out and practicing, eating and sleeping!

Wow.. soon... soon..

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