the fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly

four ways in which my life is currently, unashamedly, awesome:

1. so, lunch yesterday with miss ng and another junior. we brought cake and tea, and 'lunch' turned into a nine and a half hour conversation. I watched the sky go dark. we drank copious amounts of tea and went to the bathroom millions of times. NINE HOURS. WHAT UP. there are no words for how much I love this teacher.

2. I saw a fox run across the street yesterday on my way home. A fox. I mistook it for a stray dog at first, until I looked closer and realised it was actually a fox. A fox! Then it leapt into the hospital basement and I couldn't see it anymore. ):

3. This month, I'm going to see Andrew Bird, Great Lake Swimmers, The Decemberists, The Antlers and possibly Lisa Hannigan live in concerts/smaller gigs. I am such a spoilt person. But oh man oh man when these bands come you can't not go because you don't know if you'll ever get the chance to see them live ever again in your life!

I love London. Everything comes to London. which brings me to #4:

4. My father's coming to London this week YEAH!!!

AAAAAAHHHHH FLEET FOXES PLAYED IN LONDON WHEN I WAS THERE. ON JUNE 11. AT ULU WHICH WAS RIGHT OPPOSITE MY HALL LIKE FIVE SECONDS AWAY AAAAAAHHH WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME?!?!?!?!?!?!

I hardly do these, but from thefridayfive:

1. If you can only hear one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I don't want to hear only one song for the rest of my life! But if it had to be only one then Death Cab for Cutie's Marching Bands of Manhattan, I guess.

2. What is the one song you would like played at your funeral?
Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
Yeah, well, it is my favourite song of all time.

3. What is the one song that best describes your feelings right now?
it's a cross between The Weepies - Gotta Have You and Keane - Love is the End, which is the song currently in my head.

no amount of coffee, no amount of crying
no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
no no no no no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you

&

I took off my clothes and I ran to the ocean
looking for somewhere to start anew
but when I was drowning in that lonely water
all I could think of was you

4. What is the one song you like to hear when you're sad and depressed?
Death Cab for Cutie - Someday You Will Be Loved
Never fails to make me feel that someone out there empathises.

you may feel alone when you’re falling asleep
and everytime tears roll down your cheeks
but I know your heart belongs to someone you’ve yet to meet
someday you will be loved.

5. What is the one song you wish you had written?
Vienna Teng - Eric's Song
the entire song is about the ups and downs of one particular relationship and how it isn't perfect but is beautiful all the same, and it reads like poetry, haha. I love it!

listening to it now, I think the transformers soundtrack just might be my most favourite movie soundtrack ever. it's fantastic and epic and unique and actually conjures up images of robots fighting each other! sure the POTC I soundtrack is awesome too, but the transformers one is more underappreciated and cosmic and feel-good. ie, I'm a whole lot fonder of it. :D

Immediate Music LIVE, seriously?!?!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!! that would be so awesome!! too bad it's in california ): ): assuming this is accurate/true

I just finally properly listened to we sing we dance we steal things. the dynamo of volition is really really nice (and I will have to properly listen to it tomorrow or something, the lyrics at first listen already sound really good), but the song that strikes me first is A Beautiful Mess. oh my god it's gorgeous. the lyrics are so beautiful!!!! and realistic haha

it really reminds me of Vienna Teng's Eric's Song, equally beautiful and poetic and realistic heh.

ooh wiki says that Mraz performed "A Beautiful Mess" with a full orchestra at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 2008. *___*

eeeee so beautiful so real, the whole contradictions contradictions love love relationship not-a-bed-of-roses love love love anyway theme going on

You've got the best of both worlds
You're the kind of girl who can take down a man,
And lift him back up again
You are strong but you're needy,
Humble but you're greedy
And based on your body language,
And shoddy cursive I've been reading
Your style is quite selective,
Though your mind is rather reckless
Well I guess it just suggests
That this is just what happiness is

Well it kind of hurts when the kind of words you write
Kind of turn themselves into knives
And don't mind my nerve you could call it fiction
But I like being submerged in your contradictions dear
'Cause here we are, here we are

Although you were biased I love your advice
Your comebacks they're quick
And probably have to do with your insecurities
There's no shame in being crazy

And what a beautiful mess this is
It's like picking up trash in dresses

What a beautiful mess this is
It's like taking a guess when the only answer is yes

oh man I REALLY REALLY like Boyce Avenue's covers. they take the radio hits and do covers of them, mostly acoustic and on the guitar or on the keyboard, whatever. but what I really like is that they take catchy pop/R&B songs that I already like, and then somehow turn them into slower emo versions...which makes them appeal EVEN MORE to me haha.

for example, I really really like their cover of Ne-Yo's Because Of You. and their cover of Rihanna's Disturbia. I'm just waiting for them to do, I dunno, Womanizer or something hahaha.

ehh there're so many gorgeous & beautiful loveangsty songs out there that are so wondrously poetic and achey (music and lyrics, both) that I wish I could write such gorgeous lyrics when I'm being loveangsty. might as well be productive, right? since I pour so much (emotional energy) of myself out everytime I go through this, surely it can be translated into poetry or lyrics :/ I wish I were that good!

also srsly why are all the heroes on Justice League Unlimited pairing up? batman and wonder woman, green arrow and black canary, hawkgirl/green lantern/vixen, now flash and fire! damn I want to be in the league and with another superhero. ): it more or less resembles that ideal life essay of mine!

omg FINALLY a song like Natasha Bedingfield's Angel!! FINALLY!! how many men-bashing songs out there are they? I've been waiting for one like this forever, this is the kind of girl I'd like to be! finallyyy.

I should be doing my laundry, writing the last of my London Christmas cards and packing, BUT instead I am here tired but buzzing with energy and blogging before I forget about

COLDPLAY COLDPLAY COLDPLAY

the concert was on this evening at the O2 arena in North Greenwich, and I just got back, and man it was an incredible experience. there were a few things in my favour haha- this was the first night of their three London gigs and Coldplay was formed in London, so they were really glad to be home. secondly the venue itself was awesomely huge, huge huge HUGE- it has a capacity of 20,000 and ALL THE SEATS WERE SOLD. my seat was actually pretty bad and almost all the way at the back, but the screens were big enough and the music loud enough and the crowd enthusiastic enough that the distance actually felt insignificant which is a pretty mean feat. the crowd was immense- the tickets sold out within the hour if I recall correctly. thirdly the already-immense crowd was also immensely spontaneous and enthusiastic, so the band and the venue and the crowd were all awesome. :D

Chris Martin was really...jumpy and boyish, for lack of better words. But he was really entertaining and energetic, running everywhere on the long double-pronged stage and keeling over to lie down once haha. Plus he kept engaging the crowd (although we were already all too eager to sing along), all PARTS of the really huge crowd even, and replacing a line in a song every now and then that made it really obvious being back in London was special to him.

the set list itself was wondrous! from what I recall, this is how the night went, sans a few songs here and there-

( songs: )

MOGWAI IS SCOTTISH. ZOMG YAY

how did I take so long to find this out? ): I love their music!

(also hahaha I just found out, after reading the wiki page on them, that Mogwai is the cantonese word for devil. which er makes sense I'm just used to hearing it spoken so when I saw it I totally didn't recognise it at all -_-)

ps: sigh they had a gig here in london last month I just didn't know about it ): oh well! also I have decided it was a good choice not to go for the keane concert because I don't really like their new album, unfortunately. snow patrol's a hundred million suns on the other hand...

death caaaaab!

aditi was very fun to go with, and we got great seats for our price category- practically a front row view but two or three stories up cos we were all the way in front at the side. SO we got a great view without any pressure to look cool which is good cos we're live concert n00bs haha, and besides we're not cool people.

( a low-quality phone photo )

it was very fun to sing along and have my voice drowned out by the music anyway because that meant I didn't need to blight anyone with my crappy singing and could still join in and enjoy the songs anyway. I didn't know about a third of the set list (mostly their older songs) which was quite saddening, but I did thoroughly enjoy the songs that I did know. and I remember more lyrics than I thought I did :D

they didn't play my bestest favourite song (marching bands!) but they did play a couple of my favourites haha. I would have died if they had played marching bands because I bet it would be freaking cool live, and really is my favouritest song ever, but I wasn't hoping for it cos I didn't see it on the set lists of all their other concerts fans have posted up haha. other songs I would've liked to see played are brothers on a hotel bed, we looked like giants, and I think someday you will be loved would've been great live, but no complaints, really.

one of the great parts of the view that we got was that we could see exactly what each band member was doing- and I found out stuff like Chris Walla does backup vocals for some of the songs! and there ARE vocals (er something like...la la la la la la la) in the instrumental build-up of I Will Possess Your Heart, because we saw Nick Harmer sing into a microphone haha. I was really pleased with that (and to see him sing it), because I really really liked that touch- it's so happy and headboppy it gets me everytime and I just want to get up and dance lol. and I was afraid it was just my imagination haha. also we could see if they were going to do more songs, because their crew would lurk around backstage and emerge from the shadows to hand them guitars for the next song, and so if we saw a crew member prepping a guitar it meant there was another song. (because believe me, we really didn't want it to end.) and we could see them coming out for the encore :D

I thought tiny vessels and transatlanticism were a kickass way to end off! transatlanticism was imho, the best song of the night. I think the mark of a good death cab concert (not that I have been for more than one) the ability to both get me hyped up AND sad, because their songs are really emo and for it to come across in a live concert there must be a certain amount of gravitas as well. when transatlanticism started (the part where it's mostly just Ben Gibbard crooning and the piano) I was like yayyyy nice song! ... :(. although in my case it's not really the atlantic ocean but the giant land mass of europe/asia/africa/the indian ocean that separates me from home that I will be angsting over haha.

strike one off my bucket list! call me a n00b but this was really the first live music concert I've been for. but what a band to go for :D

NOTE TO SELF

KEANE PERFORMANCE ON 29TH SEPTEMBER IN LONDON

AT THE FORUM, KENTISH TOWN, FREAKING CLOSE TO LSE & HALLS

TICKET SALES ON 1 SEPTEMBER

aeterna. says:
YAY the new keane album will be released on 3 november 2008. while I am in london. and they are a UK band :D:D:D

aeterna. says:
I hope they have promotional tours

aeterna. says:
then maybe just maybe I will have done all three of my bands to watch live in one year :D

aeterna. says:
(and killed my bank account)

something to offset my generally gloomy & desperately depressing outlook about going overseas! :)

however. I do not like their new single Spiralling. (just released today! available for free download for a week I think.) where are their depressing piano-driven ballads that I love! the soul-sucking black holes of emotion that are their tracks! I hope there are still a few of those on this new album ):

- seriously I love the Break The Ice music video. mmmph!

- I'm quite slow, but James Blunt on Sesame Street lol. makes me giggle :D

- am finally listening to the All The Lost Souls CD after I got it free from TNP (and am going to pass on to Cher tomorrow). and...I like it! no surprise there haha.

I am such a...paradox? of interests. I like comics and political science. I like death cab for cutie, coldplay and britney spears. I like jeanette winterson and dean koontz. I like the daily show, the colbert report and Hannah Montana. I seriously do not understand it!! But I do know that I like all of the above mentioned, and I adore both ends of my respective spectrums to bits. (just that, if I had to choose, I'd choose the more intellectual ends- except for the literary aspect- but only if I was forced to.)

The point of that preamble- other than to bring the stark contrasts I have noticed in my tastes into even sharper relief- was to say that over the past week/end, I have been REALLY hooked on a couple of songs. Which can be divided into Coldplay/melancholy, and...Britney Spears.

namely,
Coldplay - Amsterdam
Coldplay - Violet Hill
Keane - Walnut Tree

and
Britney Spears - Break the Ice
Britney Spears - Piece of Me

Yeah I finally got my grubby hands on Blackout. and those two songs are REALLY, REALLY CATCHY. and I am a sucker for the catchy. I automatically start moving! I confess. anyway, I also really like the music video for Break the Ice- it's the kind of thing I would want to become a famous celebrity for. it's this anime-style version of Britney, as a superheroine action agent woman on this kinda cool mission, with many henchmen and a clone or two and an actual storyline. an anime cartoon of yourself being a superhero on a cool mission! WHAT MORE COULD ANYONE WANT? (don't answer that)

oh and I really like these two sets of lyrics from Coldplay's two songs-

stood on the edge, tied to the noose
but you came along and you cut me loose

AND

I took my love down to violet hill
there we sat in snow
all that time she was silent still
so if you love me
won't you let me know?
if you love me,
won't you let me know?

I like Chris Martin's tone of voice in both. aah! when don't I? but these in particular, vis-a-vis the rest of the songs.

aahh The Postal Service is good stuff. I don't know why I didn't like their songs the first time I heard it, just that I didn't and shelved it into my gargantuan music folder, but I just dug out the three songs I had from them again and I really like it. eeee! the three songs being Such Great Heights, Clark Gable (especial love) and Be Still My Heart. sorry sorry random fangirling.

and I want life in every word
to the extent that it's absurd :D

aaaaaah I am a VERY HAPPY BUNNY because I just got hold of the Transformers OST- all the instrumental background tracks that were used in the movie? and it is SO MUCH LOVE. YAY. especially the scorponok track- and I've only started listening to the rest of the OST, and I'm already grinning like an idiot. :D :D :D

one of the cool things about going to UK, if I do, is the concerts I might get to go for :D I know, I won't go to that many cos I will be a poor student, but hey I'll go for a few! AND. there are a couple of UK-and-nearby bands I REALLY like so maybe maybe I'll get to listen to them in person! the possibility is making me grin in glee.

namely, KEANE
maybe COLDPLAY
SNOW PATROL is northern Irish
CLANNAD is Irish (and are staging their first UK tour in TWELVE YEARS in March 2008- too early, though)
and a whole bunch of CELTIC MUSIC (ie Irish and Scottish)

squeeee?

Hanqing recommended A Fine Frenzy to me sometime last week, and I just listened to some of her songs on youtube.

I love the emotion in the songs that come through in the slightly raspy voice of Alison Sudol- she sounds a bit like Rachael Yamagata. The way she sings is so sad and wounded that it seems she's staggering around with an arrow still sticking out of her. Really! But I'm not very sure if I like the songs of A Fine Frenzy as a whole. I bet the songs will grow on me. Anyway she seems to be pretty popular, or at least her star is rising- her songs have been on House, One Tree Hill, CSI: NY and the like. Pretty accomplished for a 23-year-old!

Oh and Jenny, I bet you love them. :P sounds a bit like Vienna Teng, but with a less clear voice. piano ballads about love and failed loves.

Here are two songs!

Almost Lover
Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

Near To You
Near to you, I am healing
But it's taking so long
'Cause though he's gone
And you are wonderful
It's hard to move on
Yet, I'm better near to you

You see what I mean :P