Yellowcard Back In Singapore

Saturday, December 13, 2014


Two days ago (10 December 2014), Yellowcard, a pop punk band, held their second concert in Singapore at The Coliseum at Hard Rock Hotel - the first was in 2012 - and Ailica, Ben, Tiffany and myself managed to get free tickets so we decided to go, even though none of us actually know the band/ heard their songs before, apart from Ben who appeared to know all their songs. It was quite funny how the rest of us scrambled to listen to their songs before attending the concert so that we would have a more meaningful experience. I had the impression that I needed to know the songs of singers before I could have a good time at their concerts but Yellowcard proved otherwise - they managed to hype the crowd up and they played songs that while I couldn't mouth lyrics to, made me party along, albeit semi self consciously. It was a great night with company that are more likely to be studying in school or cleaning flats of elderly rather than in the middle of a mosh pit at a rock concert, which made everything really entertaining. 


The three of them were an hour late for our planned dinner and apart from Tiffany who had a legitimate reason, the other two are not forgiven (heh heh). With the spare time, I walked around Vivocity, which was very nice though and I visited Toys 'R' Us which made me immensely happy - it's so different visiting it after having worked there though - so their late arrival can be counted as a blessing in disguise. We also got Tai Parfait which is the Japanese pancake shaped like a fish, which I've been meaning to try for the longest time, so that was pleasant. 

Qt 3.14s with my fish! :-) I got the plain soft serve with caramel sauce, and my fish had matcha filling in it, which was really good - it was a lot better than I expected, although my ice cream fell from the fish's mouth - I caught it with my fingers though, and put it back on the fish, which was undoubtedly a funny sight. 

Not so qt HAHAHAHA well 


On the way to Sentosa on the Boardwalk, we approached a girl to help us take a photograph but it ended up being the most awkward situation because she couldn't really use it properly and the terrible lighting made my camera lens unable to focus on us, and thus the camera refused to take the photo no matter how long she held the shutter release button. It finally worked and the photo actually turned out quite nice but strange - it's the one directly above this paragraph - Tiff's eyes aren't open and I look super small compared to all of them which is not the case at all in real life. Thank you stranger, for trying your best though :-) 

It actually got really exciting when we were there, except that we weren't allowed to bring in a lot of things like cameras and bottled drinks and we had to rent a locker to put all our belongings in. That really freed me and I think not having to carry all my baggage really allowed me to enjoy the concert even more. I would have been too preoccupied with trying to take nice photos of them otherwise, which could ruin the entire concert experience. Now I know, and I am glad. 

We tried to get another stranger to help us take a photo, this time with more success :-) He took a couple from various angles (even squatting down!) which we really appreciated - I love people like that. 

And another! :-) 


It was really funny how before the concert even started, we were already tired and Ben kept complaining how he felt old amongst all the people there, which is really ridiculous considering we were probably one of the youngest there. The opening act featured a local band and I really enjoyed their performances and but the bass was so incredibly loud I couldn't hear anything the lead singer was saying, and thus didn't have any luck even catching the name of the band. It's a real pity though because I would love to go for their gigs if they do have other performances locally. Even Google didn't manage to help me with that, but I'm really hoping for more people to write about the Yellowcard concert and perhaps mention the name of the band that opened for them. 

Throughout the concert, I was laughing and going a little crazy because of how weird the entire situation of the four of us being in the middle of a rock concert was. Ailica asking, "Is this Yellowcard?" when the local band was on stage almost made me roll on the floor in stitches, though I may have been trampled on if I actually did. 

There was a long delay though and we could tell that the opening band was trying to stall for time, performing a lot more songs than was expected of them. Even after they've left the stage, Yellowcard didn't take the stage immediately which left a lot of the people there a little restless. When they finally came on, the energy was just infectious and the excitement from the fans caught onto us. 


This is my first real rock concert - I didn't even go for Rock Out by Raffles Rock as I was busy cycling overnight - but it was an amazing experience. While I don't have anything to compare it to, throughout the night, it was difficult not to dance and scream and sing along (I caught on to some of the repeated lyrics) despite not being a real fan and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

Being in the crowd was already tiring and I cannot imagine being the band - the amount of stamina they must have, rocking out and singing really well and having to hype up the crowd - it was insane. Plus, the amount of jet lag they must be suffering from, travelling from one country to another back to back and giving their all every single night. It was incredible, to witness the amount of sheer passion they had for their work, for their art - it transcended through their music and I'm so grateful to have felt something like that. I think the beautiful thing about lesser known bands (though Yellowcard is actually pretty famous, by the looks of it) would be that what truly keeps them going would solely be passion and wanting to share their work with others, and that's wonderful. In the (not so exact) words of Tiff, "I don't know if I'll be able to find a job in future that I enjoy doing so much". 


The crowd that night was pretty insane, with a lot of people crowdsurfing and moshing with one another, so much so that security personnel had to step in and control the situation. It seemed to me that a lot of people were drunk and I could smell alcohol everywhere. But really, the biggest concern the four of us had on our minds was whether our "hearts were going to pop out from our chest" or going deaf because the music was insane. It would be really hilarious and a tad embarrassing if fellow concert-goers overheard our conversation so it was peppered with "shh, don't say so loud" and it made me laugh a lot.  


It was a really a night I don't think I'll forget for a long while, I had the most likely yet endearing company and the band was quite spectacular and really managed to hype the crowd up extremely effectively and delivered a great show. They have won a new fan over and that's even when I don't particularly like the rock genre. Undoubtedly, all members of the band were really cute especially the lead singer Ryan Key and even if they couldn't play good music, I might have enjoyed the eye candy (heh heh). 


As they were taking a group photo with their Singapore fans, we realized that we wouldn't ever be in the photo so we turned around and took our own selfie instead :-) 

And here's us together with Tessa and Jia Qian who were at the concert as well :-) 

Also, fun fact: the entire time during the concert, I kept thinking of a cup of iced Coca-Cola and I had an image of the ice dropping into the Coke like in advertisements. But when we finally got it after the concert, it fell short of expectations and I was thoroughly disappointed. We discussed Habitat for Humanity for a while before rushing to catch the trains home. Thank you guys, thank you HFH and thank you Yellowcard! 

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