Sweat, Screams and Pixie dust.

28th May 2012

It was a Monday. Spent the whole morning listening to her songs from Turn It Up to Young Foolish Happy. I immediately fell in love with "Everybody Hurts Sometimes" and her dancing. To be honest, I didn't know that much about Pixie Lott, besides the fact that she's British and Mama Do is a hit until Heidi asked me to go with her to the showcase here in KK if we got the tickets. It was during the final exam that Heidi told me that she got VIP passes to the showcase. At first, it didn't hit me that the tickets included mine, but after a few minutes, I clicked, and the screaming and "fan-girling" followed on. I was over the moon when I realised that I don't have to repeat the Greyson Chance ordeal again.

So we reached 1Borneo at around 3pm. Went to get the album for the signing later on and watched Avengers. We were taking our time since there was no need to wait for the gates to open. So we were at Tutti Frutti having our youghurt when Heidi needed to go to the toilet. The nearest one was the RM1 one so we paid to get in. 

 @TuttiFrutti

While waiting, Heidi got an emergency text from her mom that we needed to go to Speedy's. Since the ticket is in Pixie's entourage's hand, we wanted to get it from her ASAP. So without using the Premium toilet, we RAN to the video shop, only to find out that she won't be there in another 10 minutes. Well, there goes my one buck. Ha. But Aunt Claudia (Heidi's mum) gave us another 2 bucks to pee, so we went ahead with our business. 

Our tickets were actually at the Hitz.fm booth outside the showcase. We met Melanie, who has a pretty cool job and got our tickets!

I like the way it glows :) 

Fast forward to 8:30pm, and Pixie came up the stage. I immediately switched to Pixie Crazy Cat mode and tried to sing along to her songs. She was awesome on stage and the acoustic bit was amazing! 

 Seriously, the best photo I managed to take with my phone. 

 Everything seemed to speed up that time. After the showcase, we lined up for the album signing. We were trying to practice what we were going to say to Pixie, since it's a once in a lifetime chance. We also hugged the HitzKK DJs, Rica and Cheryl, it felt good to hug a local celeb. Eventually it was our turn and I went first. She saw my "I <3 London" tee and asked "Oh, you love London too?" I immediately was star-strucked. I think I replied her with a "Yeah, and you are amazing and I love you" and she went "Aww, thanks!" I couldn't move for a second there because she was so beautiful in person, and her accent just added that spark!

Saw Heidi jumping up and down after getting her album signed and we were all squealing and beaming. She told me that Pixie likes her necklace and the fact that Pixie knows her aunt (the person who got us the tickets) and said HI to her. Brandon tried to take pictures of us during the signing but failed. Oh well, at least we have the memories to live up to. 

After eating at Old Town and parted ways with Heidi, I went to the Novotel to wait for Dad. I didn't want to wait at the main entrance because the hotel lobby had air-conditioner and Wi-Fi. After updating things on twitter and Instagram, I went out. Few minutes later, I saw Pixie's mum and dad coming out from the lobby. Then I saw Pixie climbing into the car and said "Goodbye Pixie!" and she said "Bye!" and I swear I stood there, staring at her car until it took off. 5 minutes later, I was in my own car, going back home. 

It was a wonderful experience :) Again, thank you Heidi for bringing me along :)

Next concert, ANTHONY NEELY :D

Before Greyson's showcase (as experienced by the normal ticket holder) Pt.2

Yeah, this is the second part, one long post wouldn't do. (Part one would be below)

So, we sat there, trying very hard to listen to what they are trying to say because there wasn't any speakers or amplifiers near us. Then Anthonia came to us, with her meet and greet pass pinned on her and told Heidi to get hers, and they went. Of course, with meet and greet passes, you get to avoid the crowd and enter through the VIP lane, and stand in front of the stage. Awesome shiz. So the rest of us, Tierney (Heidi's sister), Brit (my cousin), my sis and I waited for our turn to enter. It was around 5:45 and the sky was starting to get dark. Sun sets around 6-6:30pm here in KK.

Then, when they finally opened the gates at around 6pm, what happened few hours before happened again. Everyone was shoving and pushing and suffocating one another, trying to grab the frontal view of the stage. The four of us held on to each other so tightly and prayed that we don't get separated. My phone ran out of battery so I was wishing so hard nobody got lost. As we made our way to the front, Tierney and I were smashed onto the barricade and my sis and Brit got lost in the crowd. People were pushing to get in and the guy from the organizer screamed "IF YOU GUYS DON'T STOP PUSHING! YOU WILL ALL WATCH THE CONCERT FROM HERE!" Major threat to everyone, and the pushing decreased. It didn't stop but it wasn't as bad as before.

Tierney got in first and I got in after that. I brought her to the front and waited for my sis and Brit to enter. After a few minutes, they managed to get in. When for a moment there I thought everything would be alright from then on, I was wrong. As people start filling in, so the pushing started, again. But I'm not blaming on the crowd, I'm blaming it on a couple of guys who thought it was funny to push and deny. Like seriously guys? You thought we were dumb enough to fall for your "It's not me!" excuse? Look behind you? Anyone pushing? NO. It's you. Yeah, they made Brit cry and they should donate their balls to the poor for that. They might've just ruined her day. So we moved to the back, leaving Tierny with Ryan, thinking she would be okay. Brit was crying non-stop and I tried reasoning with her so she won't leave the concert. Gabby and Sam moved to the back too, they can't stand the boys either. Brit decided to stay at the back which was jerk-free. The back was spacious unlike the front, so we sat down and waited. They played various music videos and people just sang-a-long to it. Then I saw Ryan. Alone. Which meant that Tierny was in front. Alone. Was debating whether to announce it to the crew or go in to look for her. It was 6:45pm. There's still time. Brit was still complaining and wanting to leave but I told her that everybody else is suffering too. I offered her a piggyback ride and she reluctantly agreed to stay. That's one problem solved.

Heidi came at around 7pm to our place and asked me to look for Tierney cause she had to go to the meet and greet corner. Instead of having to look inside the crowd, I went for the next best thing-the announcement-. I played "the panicked sister/cousin looking for ____" role and the crew were so helpful. While waiting for the announcement, I took up the courage and continued the role-play and went into the dense crowd up front. I asked people to help me scream out Tierney's name and oh KK people are so nice when they are not pushing. Then, like the sky opening up to the heavens, "Tierney Chua" was announced on the amps, and the crowd made way for her to come to me. Once again, everybody was together. Huge relief.

It was already 7:30pm and T-minus 1 hour! The back stared filling in too and soon the place was packed! The people were so tall that even tip-toeing didn't help. I couldn't even see the projector screen! Tierny got hungry waiting and decided to go out and eat with her mom. So she left. Just like that. She handed me her copy of Hold On Til' The Night to me to get it signed, in case she couldn't come back.

And so we waited. Rica came on stage and hit it off by throwing posters, none of them got thrown into my radius of reach. Sadly. We had to constantly move places to get a better view of the stage and fortunately, nobody was pushing anymore. That was uplifting.

Then at 8:30pm or so, Greyson came on stage and suddenly,  

everything we went through that afternoon was worth it.... An hour of total bliss.

Before Greyson's showcase (as experienced by the normal ticket holder) Pt.1

Greyson Chance just performed here in KK last night, and it wasn't pretty.

Here's roughly how it went : 

Went to One Borneo (the venue of the showcase) at 12pm, around 8 more hours before the show. My aunts all thought we were crazy to go so early, but we had to, in order to avoid the massive crowd. Which we failed to later on. So, my little cousin, my sis and I walked around the mall, took videos of our so-called "journey" just to kill time. Heck, I even went to ToysRUs to get some Play-Doh to play with. Bought Greyson's debut album for Heids and ate lunch. At around 2pm we head on to Gourmet Lane only to find there were already a group of people waiting for the gates to open.

So we sat around, talked and listened to the radio, Hitz.fm, with Anthonia's phone, cause Greyson was on air. Funny how he disliked the durians and bambangan so much. Just as Heidi walked down the lane towards us, we heard the names of the winners of the MeetNGreet on air. All we heard were Anthonia and Heidi's name mentioned by Greyson and everyone just went into hysterics. Then, reality struck and both of them were anxiously waiting for their phones to ring to get their passes.

By 4:30pm (4 hours left!), everybody was excited to get in. Especially when the security guards came towards the gates did everybody started getting their tickets ready in hand and standing as near as possible to the barricades to get in ahead of the crowd. This was when things started getting ugly. With the desire to get front row view (it was a standing showcase), everybody wanted to get in first in order to have front row view of Greyson. There were almost 200 people there at the time and there were a lot of pushing and screaming. The people at the back lost all common sense and started to push from behind, leaving the ones in the middle to suffocate as the people in front tried to push back. Deranged girls started swearing and screaming "Don't push! DON'T F*****G PUSH!!" I even heard someone saying "If this was America, I would sue!" Hmm, doesn't that sound familiar? Thinking to myself, we have 4 hours left and things are already this chaotic, damn, it's going to get uglier.

It just did, when they found out that the normal ticket entrance was on the left side, some people from the middle just thought that they could squeeze into the crowd and move to the left. Isn't that just stupid? Come on, 200 people standing closely like tight packed sardines and you think you can wiggle through the dense crowd? You humour me. Slightly. In the end, the crowd went out of control and I shouted "Don't push! DON'T PUSH!" and the dude in front of me, who happened to step on my feet, thought that I was directing my shouts to him, screamed at my face! I was in shock, and I told him I wasn't screaming at him, and there went my respect for him. Inconsiderate fool, and he didn't even apologise for damaging my lovely toes.

Fortunately, after an HOUR of just standing there, being tossed around by outward forces and sweating ourselves, the people from Hitz.fmKK came to settle things down. They did, thank God. They made us sit and wait till the gates are open. They were obviously surprised so many people came this early. It was only 5:30pm. 3 more hours!

To be continued, (part 2)