Starbucks in Genting

Live blogging! Wow I haven’t had the chance to do this before. The musicians all woke up so late today, and now we are all crowded in this Starbucks outside Hotel Highlands, totally unplanned. Why? The word of mouth marketing of FREE WI-FI. Man, even musicians are addicted to it. And although there’s a few more Macs and a few more iTunes stores, in general we’re just a bunch of msn-chatting, email-checking, internet-surfing droids, hoping to release the tense for tonight’s concert.

Btw, this is about Jonathan Lee live @ Genting Highlands.

Sound check is going to be at 4 today. Maybe we had too long a rehearsal yesterday, from 12 noon’s meet till around 10+ at night, with a dinner break in between. Some shots during the rehearsal:

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From the floor of the empty Arena of Stars

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From where I stand (that’s Chet on Keyboard 3) and many dudes documenting 大哥’s life.

I haven’t been back at Genting Highlands for many many years. Heck, I couldn’t even remember the last time I was here, perhaps it was with some band members going to some unfurnished apartments playing with some supernatural powers, trying to get ourselves killed. So this trip is quite refreshing, another first-hand look at the now famous casino resort.

Just based on the weather, there will be no way the IR in Singapore will be able to win. The feeling of being in the clouds: priceless. It can be bright and sunny in the morning as the clouds rise, but as the cloud return to the hill top level, all the hotel doors will be slammed shut as you will literally walk out into a Cloud. It’s crazy, for example, to Drive in the cloud. Visibility can be down to around, say, 5 meters!

But it is painstakingly clear that although there are plenty of modernization here, this place is designed for the 70s, and will remain, a relic of the past. It epitomizes the liberty that we get in Malaysia (only Muslims can’t gamble, and that’s not even Malaysian law proper, as opposed to the $20/$100 fine that will be imposed on every single citizen of Singapore on their own casino), the income gap we have in Malaysia (this morning, I had $10.70 Ipoh Hor Fun, $3.00 slice of papaya, $14.70 Starbucks Caramel Macchiato – that was just breakfast, while the happy workers get to have their $1 roti canai/prata in a hidden carpark mamak stall), and most importantly, what Malaysia could be if the country was run by a casino tycoon (Malay waiters speaking heavily accented Mandarin to 10 year old tourist girl from China, happy average gamblers eager to show up on the mountain regularly for all the free goodies, as long as they gamble an equivalent or more amount away, clean streets and hotels, well paved roads, old but functional and cosmetically beautiful hotel rooms – deal with the drainage / leaking problem yourself, and so on and so forth). Wait, hold on, am I describing a country or a resort?

As this concert is largely a repeat of my last concert in Hong Kong, I’m not as worried as I used to. Although I’ve been familiar with the mainstream Chinese music culture (hey, we did grow up with 大哥’s music for the most part), still, most of my gigs and groups that I play with are classical / symphonic band, where I spent a disproportionate amount of time. So, in theory, I know exactly how they want the music to be like, but on the other hand it will take a lot of focus to imagine that kind of sound required and play it, on time… hehe 🙂 stress is good.

Ticket sales is great. The hotels are FULL, but it’s always possible to load in more chairs for the Arena I think, and it’s only an hour’s drive from KL – so if you have nothing to do, just drive up and say Hi.

And take away this bit (hopefully it would change as time pass by) – the only free Internet access in Genting Highlands is at the Starbucks in front of Hotel Highlands! I think they deserve the publicity for doing good to mankind.

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4 Responses

  1. YO, Jiin Joo… looks like we’re playing side by side this time around!! Good to have you back! I think we’re gonna have a good show today!!

    Have fun!

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