Rock On!

I'd really like to write more on these, but truth be told, I don't think I have enough material to work with for proper reviews. So all you'll get are pictures and points.

David Tao 就是愛你 Love Can Concert

Good:
A nice, cozy, unplugged jam session in the middle of the concert. These are the musical moments I live for - simple, stripped down, just great songs and people having fun playing them.



Well, just David, his music and his singing. While his vocals aren't drop-dead amazing, they're perfectly suited to his material, and I was glad he could manage to keep up his quality the entire way. Granted, he had help from his backup singers, and very generously incorporated them in a big way into many songs, trading off entire sections with them - something I've never seen a big star do.



Bad:
Over the top stage design, made to look like a jungle. I mean, come on. You don't need stupid shit like that when you have good music - it's not a 5566 concert. (On a little bitchy aside, I read that they lip-synched their entire "concert" recently, except for encores. What a fucking joke.)



The opening "video" (try low-rent, crappy-looking Flash animation instead) was awful, and completely unnecessary. I mean, it's a big budget concert, and here you have something that looks like what a student churned out on his laptop in an hour.

I know he's a Christian, but why do these people have to plug their religion every fucking chance they get? That really gets on my nerves.

Evil Indoor Stadium ushers who went around confiscating cameras. Come on, it's a concert, people paid good money to watch their favorite star perform. The least they could have are some pictures to remember the night by. Besides, most people either don't have the required equipment to get good shots, don't know how to get them, and they're not given the prime photographers' positions anyway, so they're gonna get crap. So what are you so fucking hung up about? As a result of this, I could only get occasional surreptitious shots like this one.



For more, read this.


Mayday Final Home Concert



Good:
They're a rock band. They fucking rock. Working the crowd like putty in their hands, they rushed from edge to edge of the stage, fully utilizing the various areas, keeping everything both visually interesting and high-energy.





The crowd was fucking nuts, rising on their feet as a whole the moment they appeared on stage. And they never sat down. It's awesome when everyone's so into it.



Mayday knows their audience loves them. And they love them back. And they give long-ass concerts to make their fans happy. This one went on longer than the runtime of the new King Kong.





No one gave a shit about the cameras going on all over the place. Bless the organizers and venue operators for that. Yay for non-Indoor Stadium people! So, tons of decent pictures this time.





Bad:
City Harvest Church holding a service next door that ended just before the concert started. So not only were the parking lots full, forcing us to park a long way away and trek from the car, the mindless sheep also packed the walkways and pavements as they streamed out after their orgy of religious brainwashing. Man, I fucking hate them.

And about the actual concert, well... I'm just nitpicking on the points below.

The sound system seemed pretty shitty most of the time, like someone just decided to turn it to "Super Loud" and completely disregarded that people would actually like to be able to make out details like guitar solos and vocals.

It's really tiring to stand for three hours on end. Or maybe I'm just getting too old for this.

Bottom line, it was a fucking awesome concert. That's all that matters.