James Morrison's sch-weet maiden gig in Singapore on Easter Sunday (three cheers for this lad!)

Somehow, last Thursday, (and only three days before the actual gig date), I found out I had scored for myself not one, not two, but four frickin' tickets for UK singer-songwriter James Morrison's MTV gig on the Sunday of that week! And no, I'm not kidding. One of the contests that I'd won, was by Resorts World Sentosa, the host venue, whereby I had sent in to them the photo you see in my previous blog entry below. :D Two tickets were couriered to me on the day I was notified, they were these really snazzy-looking cards:

Two of the four tickets, had meet and greet passes thrown in.

Of course, it took a moment for me to come to grips with the fact that: I was for reals going to see James Morrison, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, HERE IN SINGAPORE. Or in Southeast Asia for that matter. And, it was also going to be my first gig of the year.

Normally by this time of the year, I'd have caught like, an average of three gigs? I was catching at least one music gig a month last year (check out the bulk of the gigs I attended in 2011 and which I recorded on film as much as I could for the lasting memories, on my Youtube channel).

But, this year I decided to be more diverse in my 'shows budget' (which includes theatre shows) and hence, picky. Therefore, duh, my priority, time and attention have been allocated to music which I like the most, and that which generally falls under the 'singer-songwriter' category, best if the set's stripped down and/or acoustic (I flew out for the first time last year to catch Acoustic Jason Mraz in Bali dammit!).

I'd mulled with the idea of actually flying out to the Dubai Jazz Fest in early Feb this year too, to catch both Mraz, and Morrison, but, the timing wasn't right as I was just starting on my new job. You should now have an idea of how stoked I was to watch James live, of all people.

But wait, I knew for a fact that, there was one other person who was twice more stoked than me to see James. Let's call her Justine. She's this chick who is THE Jason Mraz concert buddy of mine, we go back a long way. She's from the Philippines. And yes, she flew down to Singapore (when I innocently joked to her if she wanted to come see James as I  kinda knew she was into his music) just for James' Mtv gig, and flew back all within a 12-hour timeframe! Crazy much? 'Passionate' as James sees it (more on that later below :)).

Now, let's come to the part when the gig went down! Here's my account:


-  Once inside the venue, we had to queue again to wait for the MTV people to sit us. My position, was like, 2nd row from the back, and dead center, by chance (and, I might add, it turned out to be the best effin' position, in my honest opinion, more on the reasons why, below). I was supposed to be at the first row with my other two friends but because Justine took ages to have her smokes, I let my two friends take my queue spot (which I had staked a good 3 hours before showtime) and go in first while Justine and I were the last few to get into the venue.

[Setlist (by song order):]

In My Dreams

This Boy

I Won’t Let You Go

You Give Me Something

Up

Person I Should Have Been

Slave To The Music

Nothing Ever Hurt Like You

Broken Strings

Wonderful World

-  James started with In My Dreams which is, I cheese you not, a real dream to hear 'live'. On his record, I thought the song sounds dreamy in an understated/lullaby kinda way. When he plays it 'live', it's just...dreamily heavenly, like a welcoming band you'd probably meet in heaven, what with how the live music was arranged, and support of his full backing band (a guy on keyboard, another on electric guitar, one on drums & percussions and two ladies on backup vocals). Honestly, his late dad (song is dedicated to him) must be so proud watching from up there, everytime James performs it.

Morrison sounded SO seasoned in his performance (which surprised me loads, as singer-songwriters are not usually that robustly put together in a full band setting), I couldn't believe from the first song in that I paid nothing for this gig. And that he sounds like what, three times better live.

-  What's more enjoyable at a James Morrison gig than hearing him belt out those blue collar, SNAG ballads? This Boy (whom James said he wrote for his mum but also mentioned she wasn't too impressed and doesn't think much of it, lol!), first single from his latest The Awakening album I Won't Let You Go (in this song, I was like, hit by another round of the 'heavenly aura' and was just letting his music and voice wash over me silly. Funniest thing was, I truly didn't think much of it on the album) and You Give Me Something (a song which you hear on the radio for far too long and it becomes cheesy pop fun to hear live) followed.

-  Up was sang as a duet with one of his leggy glam vocalists, called Sarah or Sashayne or something. I only saw how short her mini-dress was when she came out from her position at the side, to the front (from my position, I couldn't really see any of the musicians except for James, lol). She started off sounding shaky but looked like she was enjoying herself near the end as she hit like, a Mariah-Carey like decibel. James looked like a midget next to her, lol. But they both sounded lovely together. Oh, and James noticeably went a couple of keys down for this song. (I kinda get why he did that, it reminds of the Youtube video I watched before of the first time he sang that song 'live' with Jessie J at one of her concerts in the UK, let's just say it was a hot mess.)

-  The other duet on his records, Broken Strings, this time was only sung by the man himself. And what's funny but commendable is that yes, he DID went an octave higher for Nelly Furtado's parts. It probably would have  sounded more natural if say, he let his other vocalist sing with him?

This song was mostly acoustic, and relied heaving on his acoustic guitar, the keyboards and of course, his consciously emotive voice. It was one of the unexpected, epic moments of that night.

-  Slave To The Music (it's this song I believe, where he got the audience to sing back weird noises to him for quite some time) and Nothing Ever Hurt Like You had a nice blues and rock feel going with them. The electric guitarist had much leeway for freestyling (which I couldn't see much as my view was blocked :(, I always like to look carefully at how musicians do their thing onstage, as I have guitar background)  and Morrison did some cool palm slappings and fingertricks on his acoustic.


Other general comments on the show:

-  In between songs, Morrison was relaxed, and in a very friendly, animated mood. It really was a James Morrison Show, and where every line that came out of his mouth got us laughing away. And it didn't seem like the jokes he was cracking every second was forced or pretentious, like some artistes tend to be when they're with such an audience or on TV. He poked fun at himself (about the failed mullet hairstyle that he's currently 'rocking'), at the audience (can't remember most of what he chatted with us but it felt like we were his mates watching catching up with him at a cosy pub or something), at his musician friends in LA (he imitated a Californian slang and sang a line or two in that slang too, which was too hilarious, omg), and, at Michael Jackson. Boy, his MJ moment was a riot.

Don't get him wrong, he said he has looked up to MJ since he was ten, saying it was the only artiste he knew at that age and how MJ gave him the inspiration for Slave To The Music. He then went on to tell us how MJ actually 'talked' to him in his head, and imitated MJ's voice like nobody's business, saying how MJ told him to 'write songs for children James, or the earth, or something like that' and then started doing the Michael voice (those high-pitched random yowlings & beatboxings) and James then went on to dance like Michael, but totally failed at it, lol. I guess James' more a singer than dancer eh.

-  (I love it that) James totally checks out his audience while he's perfoming. He can look you in the face/eye, and several times at that, and just belt his songs and do his thing onstage without missing a beat. He looks out for the fans (a small group of them fangirls was at first row), and people like us of course. One such instance for myself was, at the end of his set, I swear he held my gaze for several seconds when he was giving his closing remarks to us. Me wonders if the cameras caught any of those surreal moments with his fans.

-  The moving animations and colours on the screens behind the stage seemed to be very distracting, and redundant for such a small stage (I know MTV probably had something to do with those animations, as they did on World Stage in Malaysia last year). The stage is the size of say, a band studio rehearsal stage. But then again, Morrison himself is one very distracting performer, so even if I wanted to, I barely paid any attention to the annoying animations.

Lemme just say, I CAN'T WAIT (!!) TO SEE HOW THE SHOW'S PRESENTED WHEN IT'S AIRED, MUCH LATER THIS MONTH, AND RELIVE MY AMAZING MTV RECORDING SESSION EXPERIENCE.  :D

ALSO, ANYONE KNOWS WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE SYMBOLS ON HIS GUITAR FRETBOARD? Below pic's an example I pulled up on the web:

During the show, I spotted like, a cross and a music note, and the rest aren't that immediately recognisable. Yeah, really curious...you can see a close-up in this video of him singing at another private meet and greet with fans in Singapore!

Brief thoughts on Meet & Greet after the show:

-  He is, ladies, as chatty and relatable in person as on stage. And, the nicest white celebrity I've met so far. Which was awesome. He listened on amusedly as Justine told him how she was a longtime fan of his and flew in just to catch him, and he thanked her and seemed appreciative of such dedication. When I said to him, 'she's crazy, this girl!', he immediately said 'nah, it's not crazy, it's passion'. Funny guy!

-  He told me he digged my glasses (of all things right?), asked if they were real, and told me how he wears them too in the past. And he drew glasses on my album when signing on it. LOL.

When he was signing the picture of my contest entry which I had brought just for that, he said he's not doing something good, as he was signing across my 'chest', and apologised. Cheeky guy.

-  And I had passed to James myself, a hard copy of that contest photo, as a fan gift. I got a kiss on the cheek from him for that. No kidding.

MTV Sessions: James Morrison will premiere on MTV Asia on 28 Apr at 6pm (SG/HK/PH), 7pm (MAL).


James Morrison: The Awakening, CD and digital album are out now.


Much thanks to: 
Zesta who gave a free abundance of their chilled and delicious sporty-like drinks the whole night (and to the lady rep, didn't get your name, you rock! Thanks for helping out my friends and I), Resorts World Sentosa it wouldn't have been possible without you, MTV Asia much thanks for the meet and greets, and Universal Music Singapore for being accommodating to the fans.

All gig photos credit: MTV Asia/Aloysius Lim