The Advertising wars of BMW, Audi, Subaru and Bentley

Enough about Zouk Out for now. Here's a little something from the funny guys at americatopten... Advertisement Wars:

Zouk Out 2006 (part 4)

Rating:
This is the last of a four part review. Read about the pre-party in part one,the high guy who ripped his shirt in part two and the sausage fest in part three.
***
From the main arena, I switched over to the live stage-- Plain Sunset (also on myspace), a home grown Singaporean band was playing some singable music. Vocalist Jon Chan had a lot of rockstar banter and I think they would be Singapore's answer to Parokya Ni Edgar. They had playful, risqué lyrics such as: We're not made in the USA/we're red and white without the blue.
Cute.

I dunno what the bassist and guitarist were thinking but midway through their set, they stripped down to their boxers.

Ummm. okaaay. Rock on!

I thought I was finally going to get to see an honest to goodness brawl but a couple of seconds after some elbows went a-flying and the mosh-pit went a-moshing, the over-excited auxiliary police stepped in to put some order into the chaos. Boo. It's a freaking rock concert! You don't really expect people to sit and clap politely! (or do you? Sometimes I forget that order is of paramount importance in this part of the world.)

2manydjs
I didn't want to wait for sunrise so I decided to go home after Plain Sunset. On the way out, I passed by Belgian DJs Stephan and David Dewaele spinning on the velvet underground stage. Compared to Steve Lawler, they had more variety and had funky remixes of familiar rock songs. People here were a bit more social with each other as opposed to just bobbing up and down with a hand in the air like mindless drones. So I had to stop and groove a little because the music was finally danceable!

I had to tear myself from this happy place because for sure leaving this island together with thousands others would be a challenge. I had my last look around the beach and got an eyeful: this girl on a chair doubled over throwing up, a threesome asleep on the sand, slippers who lost their feet and in the distance, the subtle dull throb of bass.

The long road home
Going home is a pain. Booking a taxi was impossible so I figured I had to get onto a main road and flag one down. Although there was a free shuttle service from the beach to the harbourfront MRT terminal every 10 minutes, don't count on people keeping their manners when it's 4:30 in the morning, they're tired and just want to go home.

It doesn't matter that some of these folks were fashionable and educated and could afford the $40 entrance fee, $30 slippers and $10 beers-- in the absence of authority figures (and there were none to be seen at the time I was there), it's every man for himself Lord Of The Flies style. Queue to the bus? What queue? As soon as it arrived, semi-pandemonium with pushing and shoving. I was trying to be gracious and let the ladies first but some of the gentlemen used their bulk to bulldoze through.

Paksyet! This hot shuffle definitely was cramping my style. Disgusted at the mob, I calmly stepped back, reached into my bag....

and unwrapped my chocolate bar.

I munched happily along, sighed at this degeneration into chaos (where were the auxiliary police when they're needed?!), lamented about the tragedy of the commons and with a spring in my step, took the leisurely 30 minute walk to a car park where another bus was waiting.

The shuttle ride was eerily quiet. I guess if Zouk Out were sex, this would be the part where you'd take out your cigarette and have a smoke. An ambulance was wangwanging away. Some were barefoot (they lost their slippers) and with it went their sense of humour.

In Conclusion
Three and a half pawikan points. Bonus points for the variety and live jamming but minus points for the hassle on the way home. It's a great party best enjoyed with friends but don't expect to strike conversations with complete strangers here (not unless you're uber friendly or verrry good looking). No pretentious too-cool-for-you attitudes here, just some people looking to enjoy the music and have a good time.

It felt just a wee bit cold though. It doesn't have that warm, fuzzy, peace-love atmosphere of a reggae bar. It felt a little too slick, too engineered, too surgically precise... too perfect. (Heh! What am I complaining about?)

If you like music, you like dancing and have $60 to spare, go to next year's party. If the bouncer doesn't let your chocolate bar in, tell him reviewsbyp sent you wah.

Zouk Out 2006 (part 3)

Rating:
(This is part three. Read about the pre-party in part one and the high guy who ripped his shirt in part two)
***
Four time DJ Awards winner in Ibiza, Steve Lawler was definitely The DJ god tonight. And I make apt references to religion because he wove an almost spiritual musical experience-- people were hardly talking with each other and most were immersed in their own little worlds having private conversations with drum and bass only stopping to raise their hands and whoop whenever Steve Lawler would slip a catchy hook.

(On second thought, this can't be religion because I've never seen this much people in church!)

Steve Lawler's set had repetitive, hypnotic beats; definitely deep, definitely dark but not sexy enough for me. I would have preferred more vocals, more tribal and less progressive but i'm old school. (Music is relative anyway). But if there's one thing I can say without a doubt is that he had the best visuals.

Spinning in front of a giant light wall (check out the video) which was pulsating in perfect time to the music combined with artificial fog and and lasers made for a verrry trippy effect. He put Sentosa's 6pm laser-lights exhibition to shame and made the Merlion's eyes look like puny laser pointers! It seems unfair that the other arenas did not have as much firepower as this one.

Sausage fest!
Oh yeah and back to the ledge-- sad to say, they were all dominated by guys! All shirtless some with chiselled bodies, some rolling with fat, some in tight skimpy swimming trunks but all oily, all sweaty, all beastly. Ugh. Where I come from, only beautiful creatures are supposed to be up on ledges. We want to see soft, flawless beauty-- not hairy, grunting beasts. (I should've asked that bouncer from Cookie to come over and enforce the male:female ratio on the ledge.)

So I started to look around and out of the corner of my eye, I saw some men in boxers on stage and what looked like the beginning of a brawl!

Continue to the last part and read about the bus mob...

Zouk Out 2006 (part 2)

Rating:
(This is part two. Read the first part of Zouk Out 2006 here.)
***
Apparently I had stumbled upon the Mambo Jambo arena which explains why they were playing err-- the best of the 80's (yeah baby!). The theme from ghostbusters was a nice touch and I had to resist the urge to do the dance step from the movie (lest I betray that I am a child of the 80's...) So I quickly moved on to the next stage before they decide to play some New Kids On The Block.

The Atmosphere
The Zouk team did a great job of setting up a carnival atmosphere. Tents lined either side of the beach offering the usual suspects: food, drink, henna tattoo, massage, palm reading and trampoline jumping (!). Corporate sponsors Intel, CK, Singnet and Subraru (to name a few) also had booths showcasing their wares. Of course there was also the velvet-roped VIP lounge to remind us that there are people and then there are Very Important People.

I specially liked the fun roving stilt-walkers dressed in funky space-age, superhero and alien costumes. There was also a pair of African-tribe-ish ati-atihanish looking men pounding on drums who would invite you to drum along with them. There was even this Indian gentleman who got so high that he tore his shirt into pieces while grooving to the drumsong. (Plus points for authentic hairy chest).

On to the Live Stage...
Electrico was on stage and finally after so many months here in Singapore, I've heard some serious Singaporean rock! From their name, I figured that they'd be playing electronica but it was old fashioned guitars, drums and keyboards coupled with solid vocals from David Tan.

You know how rock is supposed to provide the soundtrack of your youth? Well my first impression of Electrico is that their songs are hard to become anthems-- you know like Eraserheads' Pare Ko or Rivermaya's Kisapmata? It's definitely rockable but the meaning is hard to understand and don't tell stories that you could relate to. But then again I only heard a 40 minute set and I didn't grow up here so I could be wrong...

After the set, I spied some ledges packed with people so I went over to the main arena where lo and behold-- The DJ Steve Lawler was spinning.

Continue to part three and read about the almost-brawl...

Zouk Out 2006: A Dance Music Festival, Sentosa Singapore

Rating:
Bring Fête de la Musique to Boracay's station one, fence out the shore so nobody can swim, have a small army of sweepers continuously pick up litter, sprinkle in some uniformed police for good luck and you pretty much have an idea of what Zouk Out is like.

For my readers who have neither been to the fête nor Boracay (you should go to both!), Zouk Out is essentially four stages of music set up on a beach spanning an area slightly bigger than a football field. It's Singapore's biggest party and according to the organizers, they had 18,000 revelers turnout during last year's event. So I donned beach clothes, brought a chocolate bar (for energy) and hopped on the MRT to harbourfront to see what all this fuss was about.

Getting there
What does an MRT look like packed with "18,000 revelers"? This was the question I asked myself as I got on the train. But as I got off the Harbourfront terminal 11ish pm, the question was replaced with "Am I too early?" I only saw a handful of people in beach wear so I thought I must've gotten the date wrong. But when I got to the Harbourfront bus terminal to hop on the $2 shuttle to Sentosa, I saw the signs pointing to Zouk Out. The queue to board the bus was moving very quickly (plus points for efficiency!) and we were on the road within 10 minutes. There was a traffic jam on the narrow bridge and the lane going away from Sentosa was an exodus of taxis.

Pre-party preparations
As I got off the bus and walked toward the hallowed party grounds, I noticed people were having mini-parties drinking beer, gin and generally getting sloshed. It kinda makes sense because the alcohol is sure to be more expensive inside the venue but I dunno... the whole "let's get wasted first" thing sorta has an "errrr... okaaayyy..." feel to it.

Anyway back to queues-- I'm glad I bought my $38 ticket ahead of time because it's more expensive to buy it at the gate. As an added bonus, you'll have to queue up some more! So I jumped directly to the two security and bag checks (which instantly reminded me of home)-- Absolutely no food or drink is allowed inside. Thankfully, my chocolate bar attracted a frown but survived the trash bin.

As I stepped on the hallowed party grounds, I was salivating about the different kinds of music i'd hear tonight-- maybe some funky tribal house or some inventive mash-ups of progressive trance and 60's music samples, etc.. etc... But the very first few strains of music that greeted were...

*gasp*

the theme from Ghostbusters!

Continue to part two and read about the shirt-ripping man...