cat power and patrick watson and juno and all these thoughts that have been swirling about in my head.

i was blown away by patrick watson's gig tonight. awesome. i don't possess enough superlatives. i can, however, try to describe it.

first time i've heard a gig at the recital studio, it was sublime. delicate, intimate, beautiful, hushed, haunting, heavenly, utterly mesmerising story telling at times... then descending into chaos, crashing, devastating.

sweet ballads interspersed with wacky sounds (e-bowing a cymbal, a musical saw, a vocoder, a megaphone, loops, cowbells... the banjo seemed perfectly ordinary in comparison). 

outstanding musicianship all round, on piano, percussion, bass and lead guitar. the guitarist didn't have me convinced at first but then he started using the whammy bar and jamming and i was awestruck. 

and then they performed an impromptu song using lyrics thrown in by the audience, 'who's line is it anyway' style, sang an extended 'man under the sea', signed my shirt and left me a happy fanboy sad that kwong ming didn't make it yet glad to have shufen to share my joy with instead.

cat power put on an impressive performance in their own right, and i still can't believe they managed to sell out the esplanade concert hall so easily. chan marshall has a voice unlike any other i've heard, enchanting in its own way. she has her own eccentric, idiosyncratic style of delivery, her meandering vocals matching her feline postures as she limbered across the stage. 

her blues band was solid as well. restrained and minimal when called for, letting chan take centrestage, full of oomph when their turn came to bring the house down. thoroughly enjoyable.

next week we are gonna do something stupid and sail juno 20+km down to nongsa point in batam and race the singapore straits regatta with a hastily pieced together crew ill-prepared for 20 knots of monsoon breeze. sounds like good fun already.

last week i did something stupid and stayed behind to try my luck. awkward is a wonderful word to describe how it went. if the reward i get for my efforts is a lovely smile and a twinkle of the eye, well... it could have been better, but i think i can live with that.

it was amazingly easy to organise a surprise 21st birthday for my best bud over the weekend. a few messages exchanged, an event page put up on facebook, and several invites later everything is more or less settled. disconcertingly simple.