bidan terjun. that’s what we were. we were invited to take part in a gig organised by the manchester malaysian students’ society only like last weekend. a set of three songs. the best way was then to play what we knew best so that we’d have less fcuk-ups.Menon waiting for the soundcheck. even whilst driving up the snake pass, we didn’t have a name for the band.

the academy 2 at the students’ union was the smaller sister to the manchester academy just down the road. it wasn’t a large crowd but it didn’t matter, as everyone was there to chill. no pressure. we were suppose to play like 2nd, but was then slotted to open the gig. i wasn’t a big fan of getting on stage first (remember newcastle, guys?) but what the hey, life’s too bleedin’ short to get too worked up. besides we were doing the soundcheck just before getting onstage and it felt alright.

menon’s first notes accompanied by wong’s drumming during the intro to megalomaniac were greeted by a rousing cheer which actually made us feel more at ease. and i knew we were gonna be ok. i just love it when my bass playing is amplified on a proper bass amp. the fact that touching the strings with the tips of my fingers would give a mildly earth-shattering boom is making it my raison d’etre at the mo’ to get myself an ashdown (ampeg mahal… and berat). as usual there were some ultra-minor fcukups but i really enjoy it when i could play with a tight drummer (kalau tak puji, siapa lagi nak puji kan?). wong’s chops were really ace. menon on the other hand, being a mike einziger freak that he is, was twiddling out the phaser/delay-tinged notes from his PRS mc carty archtop artist (paraparapeewit). kere was pretty selamba, and he was great for a first-timer in front of an audience. the warmth was our chill-out song. i’ve never played anything with a quasi-reggae vibe, let alone on the bass. i was well-chuffed with myself ‘cos i never knew i could pull it off. we ended on a high note with melompat lebih tinggi from the 30 hari mencari cinta soundtrack.

Dancing pretty much in the dark.

it was just much later that we were told that people would like to see us play again. i had to play drive off the cuff (thank you incubus for having just four bass notes to play on that!) and we pulled budin, who’s the frontman for bandthing (he fronts his own band, witi, with his ex-KTJ schoolmates), to do a linkin park-ish duet for circles. whilst doing the encore performance we had a handful of guys from cheetham hill (thanks for the support, helmi and friends of magicbus!) joget-ing a la xpdc fans at a FELDA funfair. we ended (again) on another high note and felt happy all the way home to sheffield. the post-gig curry at london road saw us talking about the night non-stop. it was a first for them to play here in the UK and from what we talked about last night, it looks like that it won’t be their last.

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many thanks to the manchester malaysian students’ soc for inviting us, and also to all the bands who were there, we’ll see y’all in the autumn.