Baybeats 2009!

Published by: Yuda on 2nd Sep 2009 | View all blogs by Yuda

One of THE music events in the region to look out for every year! Featuring excellent homegrown musicians in Singapore and around the region!

This year's Baybeats consists of a larger group of foreign artistes I believe. While some might think this suppresses local talents, I believe this would actually raise the standard of our musicians. I'm all for it! =)

Best thing about the event? (Other than the fact that it's FREE) Complete allowance of photography and videography! You guys are in for a treat! In these era of online sharing, I really think musicians should embrace the viral prowess of the Internet fully rather than restricting it. Everyone should do it the Nine Inch Nails way! (Sorry for the abuse of NIN analogies recently)

With 3 main performance stages namely: The Chillout Stage for yea....chillout music, The Arena...an outdoor stage for medium sized crowd, and the Powerhouse....the main stage.

Day 1

Great bands filled the schedule from Day 1 to Day 3 with the first band of Baybeats, West Grand Boulevard, taking the stage at the Arena. And with West Grand, the energy level is nv far from optimal. I was also particularly impressed with the electronic music performances at the chillout stage from bands like Cyndi Seui x Stargazer and RNRM. Having been exposed to very few of these genre live, it was really an eye-opener how much talent these guys have with effects, mixing, and multi-tasking.

Besides that, the act that was most impressive was Calerway from Australia! Great Spy Experiment also stood up to expectations performing to a crowd that was body surfing from start to finish. Totally insane!

Band of Day 1 I'd have to say goes to Calerway!

Day 2

This was the day of the festival I was most excited about with many heavy bands lined up. I was really looking forward to checking out Suicide Solution, which recently released their highly anticipated album. But being the first band of Day 2, the crowd was exceptionally tame, and that didn't help their performance at all. Pretty disappointed to be honest.

Flawed Element's vocalist really amazed me too with his Chester-like singing capabilities. Wouldn't be surprised if he was heavily influenced by Chester (even his hair had a Chester vibe =)) But he really was awesome and the whole band's performance was crazy! The band really did a great job pumping up the small early crowd and performing at 300 mph!

Meza Virs was the other band i was eagerly anticipating and their performance was really stunning. From the stage antics to the deliverance of their music. Everything shouted METAL! They had an enormous following as well with plenty of moshes and a crazy WALL OF DEATH! Omg that was just out of this world!

Post-hardcore band Love Me Butch and Thrash Metal band opposition party stood out too! If you like Thrash Metal Slayer style, you have to check them out! However, the sound balance on Day 2 was really below par and this really didn't serve to justify their capabilities well. Nevertheless, Opposition Party closed day 2 with a bang!

The band of Day 2 goes to Meza Virs. =)

Day 3

Day 3 is just another name for Day Anberlin really. You could tell everyone was there for Anberlin! The sound at Powerhouse seemed to see a marked improvement from day 2. Loved Jon Chan's performance. Very humble, very down-to-earth when he speaks. But he sure knows how to go into explosive mood in his music!

Velvette Vendetta also stood out with a very unique sound to them. They sound like Muse and Beetlejuice combined, for those of you who actually remember the cartoon lol. A lot of character to their music I must say.

Progressive Rock/Metal Band, Zero Sequence, with their new vocalist Mang, had the most incredile sound thus far. Everything was perfect! And this laid the foundation for the band everyone was looking forward to, Anberlin! Oh and did I mention that Utt makes a guest appearance for the last performance every night? *Shrieks from girls* Trying to pump up the crowd with the use of some aggressive language, "Are you ready to f*cking rock????" Didn't really suit his image very well lol.

But hell did Anberlin rock the stage alright! Taking careful measures to make sure all the sound was right, they came out 15min late but the mic still failed =) Thankfully it was fixed after a while and Anberlin shooked us all night long!!!!!