NB: The following review was actually typed on Wednesday, at the Armour E-learning centre, where everyone is learning either to check their mail or to play Flash games [The guy beside me on Friday had this "Hentai Dating Sim" on his screen for a brief moment] and visit an eclectic selection of eccentric websites. Just as I finished it the review, Blogger went down. On Friday, when I tried to repost it, I found, to my chagrin, that Blogger was STILL down. Gah.


"it was decreed that women shall sing (sic)"

Blandly, in lowercase letters, starts the program booklet to "Dazzle", aka Choral Noon 2002. Except that it hasn't been called that for a while already. And the grammar is wrong. Perhaps a better version would be, "it was decreed that women should sing". Or if you don't like reported speech, "it was decreed, 'women shall sing". The wonders some punctuation can do for the veracity of your mottos. There are actually some errors in the program proper too, but I've decided not to pick on them, at least not yet :)

The only reason why I happened to be the place in the first place was that I did someone a favour by buying up a ticket that her friend didn't want. But I got to write a review, so I am sated. If you're expecting one from a musical perspective, you will be sorely disappointed, as my semi-trained ear is not finely honed enough to detect all but the most egregious of mistakes, and anyhow it's more fun to talk about the more interesting aspects. So content yourselves with a review from a Gabriel perspective. And do bear in mind that while I criticise a lot, I also enjoy my experiences a lot, and not just the criticism.

There was only one relatively plain banner, announcing, "Dazzle". And other screwed up influences were not in evidence - a triumph for those detesting extravagance, flamboyance and above all - screwed-up-ness everywhere?

For once, the MCs were not alumni. This breaks the cliche of always having old girls being the hosts for the evening. Strangely enough, however, not just were the alumni not MCs, they were not even performing. And they were forced to pay $2 more for tickets right at the back, probably because those plotting pricing strategies knew that they'd bite despite the price.

The mics were too echoey, and this was obvious all throughout the first half, and a little distracting. During the second half, when Cinderella the Musical was staged, they all had those funky mics which Hongkong performers love to use, so they can gesture with their hands and strip off their outer layers of clothing. Much better than RV's "The Reluctant Dragon", where the performers had no mics and struggled to be heard.

The most distracting habit of moving with the music is still (sadly) alive and well in the Raffles Guys School choir. If I thought that David was literally the most prolific example, I was wrong as the girl on the right edge of the third row was moving with an intensity that would do the aforementioned one proud. And many of the rest were also enamoured of this bad habit. Perhaps it's done to hypnotise the audience, or lull them to sleep.

Performed was an exquisite arrangement of "Arirang", a Korean folksong. At times, the flute was a bit hoarse and scratchy, mirroring the rendition, but overall it was quite sleep. However, the part that raised goosebumps was the translation of most of the song (after a suitable first verse in Korean to show their erudition) into English! Not since the days of Wu Yi has such a sacrilege been committed! [NB: Note from Huihui - "RGS choir tries to sing the words of the song in its original language if both the original language and its translated version is present. So for arirang, it's very likely that the score was in english for the other verses...hence the english words."]

The choir's enunciation was not as up to par as previously. Example quotes: "when he leafs me" (leaves), "I heard air force coming up on TV" (F4's) and "Let's strike a dill (deal)". But they're still much better in this respect than most Singaporean choirs. Their musical standard, on the other hand, was much better than the last time I heard them, and they are approaching the standard which got them Best Secondary School Choir in the long lost days of 1997.

After the student conductor had her fun conducting the choir, she ran off to become a score flipper for a time, before exchanging roles with the pianist. How sad. And she was singing from her post at the piano's side. Erk. Worse, she clapped for the choir when they finished their pieces. But worst of all, she did choreography from her position!

The sight of gowned girls playing guitars is, not unstrangely, most entertaining.

After one particularly lively piece, the choristers started fidgeting a lot, talking loudly and looking in all directions. How unprofessional. Though they did manage to smile most of the time, at least from what I could see all the way at the back of the hall.

Instead of getting the alumni in, they wisely invited the RGS Flesh Parade to perform instead, knowing that it'd entertain and impress more people, and attracting a certain segment of the population, since no one wants to look at old women anyway :)

In a sign of her going out of fashion, Britney Spears was mocked by the (most entertaining) temporary MCs, who in my opinion, were actually better than the real MCs. Aww. And F4 was lauded. Not that I care much for boybands anyway, or most modern music, but the zeitgeist of society is perhaps best gauged through events such as this.

An interestingly new item was the result of nepotic influences. Proclaiming a child's voice to be pure and untouched, the temporary MCs ushered in Caroline, a 4 year old girl, the daughter of the conductor, decked out in a ridiculous green gown. After some horrific singing of the gobbledy-gock song from Disney's Cinderella (Put em together and what have you got? Bibbety boppety boo) by her, their words were proven true - a child's voice is untouched by any musical or even linguistic training at all. Of course, the audience clapped along to the singing, vindicating my theory that people clap along to songs to drown out the bad singing, and to keep time for the performer.

As expected, Carmee Lim made an appearance. Even though I'd anticipated it, the sight and prospect of being regaled by her yet again was sufficient to elicit howls of agony from me, which you will be able to hear on the video of the concert above the cheering, since the video cam was across the aisle from me. Worse, she did a duet with Caroline. And as usual she asked everybody to sing along, though no one did, being jaded to her tricks now :) Though I have to say, she has improved. Maybe she has more time to practise now that she's retired. As predictable as Carmee Lim making an appearance, Huihui also dropped by. When I commented that they don't dress alike anymore, they protested that they haven't for a long time. And they said they were very keen to read my review. Hehe.

The Alto 1s tried to burn down the Singapore Conference Hall during their item, walking in with candles. Maybe the management wanted to claim the insurance money. Some of them sound so old, with their rich and mature voices. And the S2s sang the song we used to sing in Primary School! I haven't sung it, or heard it sung, for so long. Versions vary, but the following is what I think was sung on Monday:

"Fill the school with kerosene, falalalalalalalala
Light a match and watch it gleam, falalalalalalalala
See the school burn down to ashes, falalalalalalalala
See what fun we have with matches, falalalalalalalala"

(OT: I found a song in the same spirit. "Joy, Joy, Joy to the world. The teacher's dead. We barbequed her head. What happened to the body we flushed it down the potty and around...and around...and around...")

A handphone symphony was also performed. How original.

During the intermission I saw the female toilet queue. Woah. Oh well.

Yongxiang and Yunxin came to the concert together. I haven't seen the former for quite some time. His face has changed, but he claims it hasn't. This signal officer at nearby 1SIR gets a night off everyday, and books in at 2359. So he was able to view the concert to its end. Oh, and his pay is $1020 a month. Gah. Yunxin didn't wear Hot Pants! Maybe they've gone out of fashion for her for quite a while.

During the interval, I noticed this girl, who I later found out was from VJ, at Sicheng's right. She looked a great deal like my current Sec 4 junior Yong Ping. In fact, I thought she was he at first, albiet with long hair and a lot more pimples than I remembered - and he was quite pimply in Sec 1 already. The resemblance was striking, and it took me a while to realise that it was not he, when I saw the crossed legs and noticed the, erm, appendages.

Screwed Up Girl unleashed her IPW survey on everyone. I was too slow, but I managed to save Yunxin at least. But then she got angry at me, not least because I was so zealous in my protection that Screwed Up Girl somehow dropped her bag. Oh well.

Cinderella the Musical was written, composed and produced by the choir girls. And it was not bad too, and of a respectable length. Well done. Though sadly I couldn't stay to see it end (I left when Cinderella went to the ball) as I had to proceed to my camp in the middle of nowhere. Of course, they had to add their own touches to the story, but they mostly worked well - the Stepmother was humanised, and some of the reasons for her seeming unthinking cruelty were explored. I sense the influence of Literature!

During some of the songs of the Cinderella musical, I heard two voices singing. Pre-recorded singing? Maybe they should have stuck to lip synching.

I left at 9:50pm, and that was already pushing it a little (though I still booked in on time in the end). The only reason stayed so long was because someone claimed that she was paying $10 just to see Cinderella's gown. Indeed, it was not bad, but definitely not worth $10! It looked like a glorified wedding gown, and it was probably just borrowed from somewhere, in fact. If they'd made it themselves - now then that would be impressive.


Annex:

I used to refer to the conductor of the RGS choir as, "The Woman So Lousy That No One But RGS Wants Her". Of course, this was totally in jest. Of course, this is obvious too, but one always needs to cover all one's bases when posting on weblogs.


My SIM card can only store 85 entries. Most people's can hold 250. Grr. I should get a new one.

I've this evil plot involving using my school smartcard (RJ was selected for the pilot scheme) as a student EZ-link card. But apparently the conductors will now walk around with card readers. Or something to that effect.

Huihui tell me that the AV technician we all know and love from VCH jumped ship in July 2001. He now works at the Singapore Conference Hall.