miri international jazz festival: day 1

The First Night

Yay! Second year of the Miri International Jazz Festival! It's back again. I enjoyed myself immensely last year so I was looking forward to another one this year. The ticket price has increased to a two day pass costing RM90 and a one day pass costing RM50 but that did not deter people from coming.

Wani and I decided that we wanted to go a bit early so that we can get some good parking spaces. We were worried that if we were right on time, that there would not be anymore parking spaces available. The ticket said that the event would be at 5pm-1am. So we decided to leave home by 4pm.

When we got there, we saw that people were still setting up, doing sound checks, moving tables, getting the booths ready.. then we found out that the performances are only going to start at 7.30pm!! Omigoshwhywouldtheyprintthetimetostartat5pmlahwhywhywhy. =( I'm thinking that 5pm is the time meant for those working behind the festival.

So malu go there so early. But it's not our fault either, is it? So we went to sit by the poolside... while there, I saw some of my friends who also came early for the festival. I only laughed when I saw them cos they were in the same situation that I was in. Save for the fact that I had an assignment that I needed to get done by the next day and they probably did not. It being Friday!

What's different this year is that there was another stage set up on the beach for another band to play during the breaks. The main performers would be performing in the pavilion so in between breaks from the main performers, another band would be entertaining the crowd outside.

Then we started sweating cos it was too hot outside so we decided to move to the lobby, where I tried to finish my assignment. Heh heh. We sat there till it was close to 7pm. At least I had something to do. Wani and Malik were bored to death. You could really tell that they were. :P

Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever seen? That's Dreamweaver 8 that you are seeing open on my laptop. Haha. It was my assignment for my Design and Processes unit. Bwahaha. Terrible. Our group's project was to create an educational software. And we were going to conduct a software testing for our software at Sri Mawar, one of Miri's primary schools, on Saturday morning. Hahaha!

Wani's brother, Malik was wearing his new shirt. Cis. You could say that I introduced the show, Heroes, to Wani and her brother and now her brother is like, crazy for that show. I know, my fault. =(

That was me and Joel, sitting in the Pavillion, waiting for the show to start. I was also waiting for Mark to come back down from Brunei. Joel was the one I was laughing at for coming in so early. See.... misleading tickets!! I really can't figure out why they did that. Probably cos we're Malaysians. Hahahaha. You've heard about how time works in Malaysia, right? :P [Read: Malaysian Time]

It was not that much longer to wait before it was time for the performances to start. (Mark also made it back in time.)

David Gomes Jazz Sextet feat. Junji Delfino were the first band up that night and the first band to perform for the festival. They are from Malaysia. Remembering the local band from last year, I was hoping that this band would not totally fall flat on their faces, disappoint me, and convince me to change nationality. Hurr hurr. I know I sound horrid like this and I know that Malaysians can be talented! Just that last year's band was almost a disaster. Luckily people are polite enough to clap. Anyway! The band comes from KL and Junji Delfino, from the Philippines. If I'm not mistaken. She had some great powerful vocals on her and I enjoyed their performance. They were very good at opening the festival. If I had to have any qualms about them, it would be that they didn't look like the performers of the festival but looked like they worked backstage because they didn't dress up. -_-"

After their performance, it was time for the band, Son2Nos, to perform outside. They are from UK/Venezuela/Philippines. I don't know much about them or how well they performed because throughout the entire festival I didn't even bother with them. My brother said that they seemed full of themselves. Mark said it doesn't matter if we missed them either cos they were only the fillers and that the main players would be in the pavilion. Son2Nos is the band that would be playing during the breaks for both nights of the MIJF. Sorry, Son2Nos.

During the break, I went outside together with Kim to the stalls. What to do.. hungry. I haven't eaten all day. As expected, the food was pricey. I ended up ordering a sloppy joe. And it SUCKED. I've never had a sloppy joe nor have I actually seen a real one before. But in my mind, sloppy joes are burgers and the fillings are supposed to be something like, minced meat with gravy... that kinda thing. But what I got instead was a small sausage, in a hot dog bun, with thousand island sauce, and celery. WTF?

So expensive some more. And you know what?? The bun was soggy. The sausage was too short for the hot dog bun. It just tasted awful. But what to do.. I bought it already and I did not want to spend more money on other food cos the food there was so expensive. Terrible.

When it was almost time for the next act, Mark, Kim, and I went back into the pavilion to get ready for the next act. But I had an important email to send so I left Mark and Kim in the pavilion and went back to the car to grab my laptop. Headed back to the lobby. Spotted Aaron's friend. Sat down with him. Turned on the laptop. Laptop said that I only had 10 minutes left of battery life left. Connected to the hotel's wifi connection as fast as I could help it, loaded up Gmail, while also zipping the files that I needed to attach to my email, tried to upload it to my email, Gmail said that they cannot allow me to attach the file because file contains a file that is not allowed (.exe), took out the .exe file, rezipped the folder, tried again, found out that zipped file size was still too large. So deleted some files that weren't important from the folder, rezipped folder, tried to attach file to email, and then laptop DIED. :'(

Was desperate! Was looking everywhere for a power supply port. Took a few minutes before I remembered that there should probably be one at a corner of the lobby where they usually had the piano. The piano has been moved cos its being used now for the festival. Looked over to the wall next to where the piano usually was and I was right. So there I was, kneeling down in a corner of the lobby for maybe 15 minutes doing whatever I needed to do.

I felt so totally stressed out! Mark got worried and came looking for me. I think its also cos he said that he didn't like the band that was currently performing. By the time he came around, I was already done with what I was doing and was about to walk back to the festival anyway. We decided not to go into the pavilion and went to get drinks.

Kim got tired of being by herself inside and came out to find us. Introducing, Kim. -_-"

I told Kim to act normal for at least 10 seconds and managed to take a normal picture with her.

Ha ha! Mark and I went back to the pavilion as early as we could because of the act that would be coming up next. We needed to get good seats. Met Kenneth (JJ) who was also pacing around inside. Our little conversation with each other went something like this.

JJ: Looking for a place to sit?
Me: Yeah. You too?
JJ: Of course! Lluis Coloma next.

Hehe. Mark was excited. JJ obviously remembers last year.

Lluis Coloma came on stage and everyone cheered. Everyone was glad that they were back for a second year. Again, Lluis Coloma comes from Spain. Actually, before they performed, we were outside looking at the albums they were selling. Cos last year, we went out to the booth after they performed only to find out that all the albums were sold out. So we were sneakier this year. Haha. Urgh. But so expensive! But we bought two. Hahaha.

Hehehe.. the air humping saxist. Don't get me wrong, he's a fantastic saxophone player but I think he just likes making the girls blush and giggle behind their hands when he solos while humping the air. Hahaha. Kim wanted me to also take a picture of his face when he plays cos according to her, his face takes on the expression of when a person concentrates really hard on a toilet to perform some jaw dropping moves. So I tried and tried but kept getting blurry pictures. After I would take a clear picture I would zoom in on the picture to check out whether I managed to capture the expression on this face. This is one of the ones that I zoomed in on:

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to capture the expression that I wanted to catch. But I did get this expression instead. I think he knew. Eepps!

So after that, I stopped trying. Eeeeee..... he knows!!

And then it was over... although they did do an encore after everyone yelled for one. After they performed, Mark went to get their autographs. Haha. It was too cute!

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band performed next. They came all the way from USA to perform. There weren't a dozen of them. Rather, there was only half a dozen, which is puzzling. Why were they called Dirty Dozen then? Haha. They were okay. Very trumpety. I was rather doubtful that they would be able to entertain the crowd more than Lluis Coloma had. But I was wrong. The crowd loved them. However, I didn't. I think it was because by the time they came on, I started feeling sick'ish. I think it was from not eating enough that day. So in the middle of their performance, I told Mark that I had to go outside. Needed to get some air. Find food. Something. But I did stay long enough to give them a chance. As well as to take quite a lot of pictures.

Ah, this guy. He was right in front of me cos I was right up front up against the barrier. One bad thing that he kept doing is that during breaks from playing, he would take the opportunity to empty the spit out of his instrument. And uh... that happened not only once, but several times. It was gross. Yucks.

Oh, and this guy. He reminds me sooooooooo much of the owl that played the saxophone from Sesame Street!! Hahaha.

Halfway through their performance, this white guy came up on stage to play with them. Why only halfway through, huh? I think this guy really IS together with the band. Dunno why he didn't play from the beginning. He looked like a dork. And acted like one too. He smiled like a dork. And thus, I've given him the nickname, Doofus. But I SWEAR that in this case, it's a term of endearment.

They had one guitarist in the band, and he came up front after playing his guitar at the back of the stage to show off his skills - being able to play the guitar with his teeth. Kim went crazy for him cos he looked like her boyfriend. Which I thought so too. Haha. Check out the amount of hands that were raised up to take his picture.

A guest performer also joined the band. This guy is from Havana Sax, who are scheduled to perform only on the second day.

And this is Mark and I, outside the pavilion, getting some air. :P

And me. Harr harr.