i love jielun THIS much.
written: 5:37 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 28, 2004

Yeah.

Jielun was great. Yep. As expected.

Wait, what am I saying?

JIELUN WAS STUPENDOUSLY AMAZING, INCREDIBLY BRILLIANT AND THE CONCERT WAS THE MOST EXHILARATING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.

Yes, that's more accurate.

I love him so much now. He's so amazing. He's so mind-blowing. I had so much more fun yesterday, by myself, than I did at his "The One" concert last year, which I went with friends. It was great. It also helped that there weren't anyone in the seats in front of me, and the seat to my right was empty, so I could move around a lot and take photos without people's heads blocking the view. And I brought the camera with an awesome zoom, so it was almost like he was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

But he wasn't. Still, my seat was amazing. I was pretty close to the stage.

Wait, let me just start from the very beginning or this entry would have even less semblance to 'order' and 'organisation'. Okay? Good.

I decided to convert into a Jielun teenybopper, so I left the house at 4 p.m. and took the MRT down to Lavender. Okay, it was probably stupid to insist on going down myself when I could've enjoyed the comfort of my folks' car all the way down to the Indoor Stadium, which is in the East and I live in the West, because the train was VERY FUCKING CROWDED. I stood beside the window and leaned against the glass panel thing and this woman and her two kids decided to squeeze with me, and her daughter's hair kept brushing against my elbow and it was annoying as hell. Luckily I had Julian Barnes' "Flaubert's Parrot" to entertain me, but needless to say, hardly anything that I read registered in my mind. Oh well.

So I reached Lavender at around 4.35 or so. Took a bus, number 16, down to the stadium. But before that, I almost took Bus 61 because I thought, for a split second, that '61' was '16'. This is precisely why I'm gonna get a C for my Maths A Level.

ANYWAY. I wanted to get something eat, in case I faint in the stadium due to excitement AND hunger, but stupid Leisure Park was closed. AT 5 BLOODY P.M. Oh god.

Still, it was a nice, short trip down memory lane. I used to live at Lorong 3 Geylang so I went there quite a lot in the past. When I peered into the pseudo-mall though, it was pitch black. Kinda scary.

So I was like, shit, no food, how ah?, and decided to walk to the restaurants located along the stretch of water, whatever that stretch of water is. But there was only one restaurant opened and it sold strange mushroom food, so I was like, ah, forget it.

On the way there I spotted a group of people waiting outside the entrance to what I presumed was the backstage. Obviously, they were waiting for Jielun to come out. There was a small parking area, and a huge container was parked in front of the entrance. That container contained his grand piano, which he used for the concert (obviously), which is PINK IN COLOUR. WAH!

Anyway, there was also an altar set up next to the container, which led me to conclude that he'd come out after his rehearsal to pray to the gods or whatever, like he always does. So what did I decide to do? I decided to join those people and waited.

Well, guess what? It wasn't fun at all. In fact, it was incredibly fucking boring. On the bright side, I HEARD HIS REHEARSAL. He sang a number of songs but I couldn't make them out, except when he did Hei Se You Mo (Black Humour). The funny thing was, he went a little out of tune at a high note. Haha!

So I did absolutely nothing at all outside that place, save for my occasional raised left eyebrow at the things that some people were doing. Seriously, Jielun has weird fans. They're the Chinese-speaking, neighbourhood school types. Nothing wrong with that, of course; it's just that...nevermind, it's not important.

ANYWAY. A while later I heard shouts from somewhere at the carpark. So a few people started to get excited, and they thought that Sylvester Sim from Singapore Idol was there, but it was actually Lin Junjie or JJ Lin or whatever he calls himself. So a few people ran to him, and mentally I was like, "Okay, move everyone, so that I can be at the front of the barricade 'cause I wanna see him dammit!"

But did anyone do as I ordered? Noooo. Oh well, too bad.

Another while later people began to come out. That got everyone excited again. First it was Landy Wen, whom I didn't recognise and wouldn't have recognised if it weren't for the people around who went, "Wen Lan!" Then Nan Quan Ma Ma came out but I didn't care about them either. They had this serious attitude shit going on. Some fan asked them for an autograph but they just walked away and hardly looked at her. How nice, eh? Yeah, I think so too.

A few minutes after that, nothing happened AGAIN, and everyone was waiting in deep anticipation for Jielun to show his beautiful face, and I was getting very very very very very bloody impatient. I mean, it was like, hello, can you come out already? I'm dying in this bloody sweater and I need air-con!

Thankfully, the wait wasn't completely futile. He came out a few minutes after that few minutes. But unlike the others, he went by the other door which meant that he didn't walk past the fans. BLOODY HELL! All I caught was a tiny glimpse of him and already that image is beginning to fade in my mind. He wore a blue t-shirt, a cap and one of those ah gong sunglasses that he seems to dig a lot (I personally think they look pretty hideous but whatever floats your boat, Jielun). So he went to the altar, and after that I couldn't see him anymore. Some tall guy was in front of me and he was completely blocking my view. And it didn't help that the stupid container was blocking the altar too! Bloody hell! I really wanted to get his autograph and pass him a letter! (It was only that Chinese poem I wrote for school this year that got me first prize and a letter that I wrote, in CHINESE, about what his music means to me, stuff like that.)

So yeah, that was my only Jielun sighting. It was pathetic. I should've gone to the stadium the day before to stalk him! Or the Grand Hyatt Hotel! But I didn't even know that he was staying there. Blah!

So yeah, after my futile attempt at getting a piece of him, I decided to just go into the bloody place and enjoy the air-con. At the entrance, the security people checked my bag but the guy allowed me to bring in my camera. Just then, I had a stroke of genius. (Well, not really, but read on.) I asked the security dude to help me pass my letter to Jielun. And he said, "I can get it to him for you but I don't know if he'd read it."

Whatever, I just wanted it off my hands and into his! So I left my letter with the guy after thanking him over and over, 'cause I'm such a nice person and all, and then I went off to buy some Jielun merchandises.

Argh I love my basketball jersey! It looks so damn good on me too! I bought the white one with gold-yellow letterings. It says Jay at the back with the number '18', and it has the concert logo in front. IT LOOKS DAMN GOOD AND I LOVE IT. That cost me 18 bucks. I also bought his new book, which was 2 dollars cheaper than the Kinokuniya price, so IT WAS ALL FUCKING GOOD. I blew 41 dollars on the jersery and the book and I wanted to get more stuff but I managed to control myself. How amazing was that! Almost as amazing as the gig, but not quite.

So yeah, I went in, sat down, enjoyed the air-con and my head started to hurt. What an opportune moment! Not.

Something relatively interesting happened while I waited for the show to start. Lin Junjie appeared with two guys whom I didn't recognise and started walking around my block. I recognised his face, of course, although I still have to say that he has an ugly mug, and so I was looking at him, and he turned around and he looked right back, and I just continued staring and then he looked away. Haha. But anyway, he and the two guys went away a while later.

Another while later, they returned. They walked up the steps to my block, they walked in my direction, walked behind me, and Lin Junjie sat down right behind me. As in, RIGHT BEHIND ME. I was sitting in Row 3 Seat 2 and he was seated at Row 4 Seat 2. Get the picture? People around me started to recognise him and it caused a mini commotion.

It was so fucking irritating. People started crowding around me, taking photos without even asking him/them, which was really bloody rude. A few polite ones asked him if they could take their pictures, and they obliged for a few, until more people started crowding and they had to be all, "Can we just watch the concert and support Jielun and do this after the concert?" Blah blah blah, but they were really nice about it. A group of girls came up and they were like, "We're from Nanyang Girls' High..."

Uh. So? What's that got to do with anything?! Stupid morons. And sure enough, one of them pointed to another girl, this really fat person, and went, "She really likes you!" to Lin Junjie. And the fat girl just ran away! Hahahahahahaha! It was so amusing!

Save for that though, the whole time I just sat there and scowled. I couldn't care less who was behind me as long as it wasn't Jielun. And the show started 35 minutes late! That was really annoying.

Thankfully for me, someone came over a while later and told LJJ and his crony of two that they were in the wrong seats, and that their seats were at the other end of the row. Wow, I was relieved. I didn't think I could tolerate those people coming up and crowding around me any longer.

But when the show finally began, it didn't matter anymore.

He opened with Yi Fu Zhi Ming. He descended from a cross, wearing this glittery thing, but since I was at the North side I could only see the side view. But god, it was amazing. My left ear was invaded by this drone after a few minutes, but did I care? Hell no!

It took me a few minutes to warm up, but when I got into it, I never got out. The group of girls to my left jumped up and started screaming the very second the first few notes of Yi Fu Zhi Ming started to play, and after a while, I stood up too. Unlike last year, I had nice people behind me, people who understand that nobody except boring old gits goes to a concert and sit throughout the whole thing, so when I turned around and asked if they could see, they were like, "It's okay", and they stood up too!

I love my block. First of it, it was only half-full. Second of all, most of the people were standing and jumping around and going mad. It was FUN! The block to my right? Everyone was seated and even during the fast numbers like Jiang Jun and Track 7 of Qi Li Xiang whose title I still can't remember, they sat through the whole thing and barely moved. GOD. People are so... I don't even know what!

So after Yi Fu Zhi Ming he did my second favourite Jielun song of all time, Zhi Zhan Zhi Shang. OH MY GOD. It was absolutely fantastic. I just went bonkers when I heard the opening piano. He didn't play the piano live for that song as I'd hoped, but it's okay, because he did it really, really, really, really awesomely well anyway. It was like... wow.

Actually, the whole thing was not like wow, it was completely wow. Like I said, the most exhilarating experience of my life. Absolutely amazing.

One of my favourite moments was when he did an acoustic version of Zui Hou De Zhan Yi. It was so breath-takingly beautiful. I recorded like 30 seconds of it in my stupid phone which is currently not working but I stopped it after a while when I thought of how I might have to delete it to free up my puny memory space and how much that would hurt. Haha. Right. It wasn't very clear but I could hear his singing. Seriously, I'd never listen to Zui Hou De Zhan Yi the same way again. It was just amazing, absolutely, stupendously amazing.

And I loved it when he played Chopin's Fantasy or whatever it was live, with some guy from Nan Quan Ma Ma. That guy was surprisingly good. They did a duet on Turkish March too. Couldn't make out what they were playing 'cause it was both hands for them both, and yeah, the one he played with Li Yundi was better... duh. They also played Flight of the Bumblebee.

I bet only 1% of the audience could recognise the pieces during that segment. It was really nice though, needless to say.

He played a few songs on the pink piano (really cool) but his back was to me! What the hell! So I took a photo of his back. Bleah. Still, I was completely mesmerised by the screens that had close-ups of his hands. He's really brilliant on the piano, and I would know, considering how smart I am, but yeah, he really is. He had this additional piano section for one of the songs... it was either Jie Kou or Ge Qian/Jian (I don't know how to pronounce the word lah!) but it was really fantastic. And I loved his rendition of Ni Ting De Dao. He changed the melody a little and wow, it was amazing.

Okay, I know I keep saying It Was Amazing like I have no other vocab for it but it's true, I have no other words for it. It really was amazing. Amazingly mind-blowingly amazing.

And I loved all the fast numbers! I just went completely nuts and started jumping around! Jiang Jun (which ROCKED THE FUCKING HOUSE!), Luan Wu Chun Qiu (that's QLX's track 7!), Shuang Dao which blew my fucking mind and made me go even crazier!, Long Quan which had me in a strange form of ecstacy-ed frenzy + a bit of Shuang Jie Gun which got the high even higher!, and others which I presently don't remember because it was all so surreal. I could hardly let it sink in that he was just there, in front of me, almost close enough touch but of course, it was an optical illusion of sorts aided by the zoom on my camera. Haha, I know, how lame.

And the most amazing thing? He did Ti Tian. I didn't expect that at all. I love Ti Tian. He did all the songs that I really liked!

The few old-school numbers he did were the predictable ones like An Jing, Hei Se You Mo (he shared it with some dude from Nan Quan Ma Ma who didn't really do it very well), Kai Bu Liao Kou which has to be my least favourite Jielun song as it's pretty bland but whatever, and Jian Dan Ai, which was really nice! He started waving his arm and everyone followed suit. It was brilliant!

And guess what? He was hardly out of tune, if ever at all. The last live performanec of his that I saw on TV was some MTV thing, where he sang Qi Li Xiang and Jie Kou, and oh my god, he was excruciatingly out of tune. It was funny but it's not very nice for a singer to be THAT out of tune. Well, he was sick, so yeah, he had an excuse (no pun intended) but still.

When he spoke last night though, I thought he didn't really sound like his usual self. As in, his speaking voice sounded funny, like he was ill or something. Poor Jielun! When he SANG though, you could hardly tell. It was amazing.

And he did this little rap thingy during the telephone bit of Luan Wu Chun Qiu, something about Singapore. It was funny and everyone just started screaming. I screamed a lot too. When he played Chopin, I was the only one screaming in my block.

HE PLAYED CHOPIN. I still can't get over it.

The only few downsides were:

1. I only had 36 shots, and I used up five of them before the start of the show. When it started, I wasted one shot on testing the thing because I freaked out when I pressed the shutter but nothing happened. Thankfully there was nothing wrong with my camera or it would've been less fun for me. But anyway, half an hour into the thing and I only had like sixteen shots left. Bloody hell! I had to restrain myself from taking pictures. I hope I got the encore photo though.

And speaking of encore, he sang Qi Li Xiang which was GREAT. Absolutely fantastic. Oh, and I just remembered that he did Qing Tian on the piano. I think. Anyway, I didn't recognise it when it started. Haha. I don't know why either.

2. I wore the short black skirt I got from Esprit which seriously restrictred my movement, 'cause it jumped with me when I jumped. I think I must've involuntarily flashed a few people behind me. I really wanted to jump rock-concert style during Shuang Dao as it's such a rock song but I couldn't! Bloody shit! I should've worn pants or something.

3. There was too much of Nan Quan Ma Ma. I'm sorry Jielun but I really didn't care for them! I paid $150 to see YOU, not them! I have to say though, that I really liked the two songs that they did, although one of the singers sounded like slaughtered chickens when he sang. The big-sized guy sang really well. I also didn't like the fast number from Landy Wen. Took that moment to sit down and rest. Haha!

4. Some fuck was smoking and it really stank. Enough said.

Uh, okay, I can't think of anything else to write about the concert. Suffice to say that it was absolutely smashing. Incredibly mind-blowing. On a couple of occasions, I almost cried, because I was so happy and exhilarated. Seriously, it was the perfect reward for putting myself through the A Level hell. I couldn't ask for more.

Well, actually, I could. Like, another hour's worth of songs, maybe. The last encore piece was... well, I would've liked it better if it was Jielun centre stage all by himself but he played the drums while NQMM and Landy W. sang. It was okay lah, you know?

OH!!! I can't believe I forgot to mention this but HE PLAYED THE DIZI! It was during Ti Tian and man, it was good, like, really good. Sounded a bit shrill due to the mic and all but still.

Oh my god I so love Jielun! The girls beside me were nice enough to give me a blue light stick so I was waving it frantically too. Haha! It was so awesome. And needless to say, after it all ended, I had a humongous headache and my feet were aching and blisters popped up all over and I couldn't walk like a human being today when I went out but you know what? It was well worth it. It was just...

I wish I could do it all over again, exactly the way things unfolded last night. I wish I could tell him exactly how much last night meant to me, especially after the exams and everything and all the shit about my abject lack of finances and stuff, and how much his music means to me, without any of it lost in translation from English to Chinese, but since my Chinese sucks, I don't think it's entirely possible. I wish I could tell him, too, what a great musician, performer, singer and artist he is, and what an amazing show he put up last night, and how much I loved it and how much I'd savour every single bit of the show I took away with me. I wish he knew how much I really appreciate him, but...

Oh well.

It's 7.01 p.m. and I started this entry at 5.31. Right.

Okay, so after the show I went to join the crowd at the parking area again to wait for him to come out but he didn't, and a while later the security people chased us away. Nevermind lah, I was so fucking tired that I really wanted to go home. I saw his dancers and all but yeah, didn't really care as I really wanted to see him.

Seriously though, if I'd known that Lin Junjie was going to sit directly behind me before the show started, I would've asked him to pass Jielun the letter for me. That, at least, has a higher chance of the thing actually reaching him. But anyway, I asked another security guy to help me check if the guy checking the bags did manage to do the job and I even left my number with and asked him to message me the verdict, and while I went off in English about how my Chinese sucks and it's important that the letter is delivered 'cause I wrote in Chinese (that was after I gave him my number 'cause he was like, "Wah, you really serious about this ah?") and stuff like that, a few people were staring at me. Hahahahaha! Hilarious.

Still, I doubt that it would be delivered. But it's okay. You know why? I'm gonna try again, this time in Taiwan, or more specifically, Taipei.

So guess what I found out after I bought his book?

He's having an autograph session in Taipei on the 11th of December.

That's the day before I fly home.

WHICH MEANS I'M SEEING HIM AGAIN.

If only you could see the excitement on my face and feel it bubbling inside of me as I typed that sentence above.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010