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When I received the facebook invite for this show, I almost burst with excitement upon seeing the list of bands that were included. Zero Sequence, In Each Hand A Cutlass and Lunarin. 3 giants of the alternative rock scene in Singapore, 1 location at the price of $15 and with the inclusion of a pre-release of Duae for whoever that attends the gig, I just had to go even if I was pretty tired that night.

Note: I wasn’t able to capture photos that would be decent enough for posting up during this gig and only partial videos were recorded due to depletion of my cam’s battery. Apologies.

Simon Yong

Arriving late to the show, I just managed to catch the last song being played by part of Zero Sequence. Apparently, there was no Zero Sequence set that night, but instead was pleasantly surprised by what seems to be Simon Yong’s (guitarist, Zero Sequence) solo project. With 3 other members from Zero Sequence backing him for this new project on stage, Simon skillfully showcased his guitar prowess. It’s a shame that I had only managed to catch the final song of their set, because I was really enjoying that last piece and I bet that it was quite a good set to begin with, though this depends entirely to the individual.

Roland Lim, Daniel Sassoon

Crowd started to build up when In Each Hand A Cutlass began setting up their equipment on stage. I have only caught In Each Hand A Cutlass twice (one being the Waterfront gig) and both times I was pretty impressed with their brand of Post-Rock. Making her live debut with IEHAC, Amanda Ling was included in the line up as the new keyboardist/programmer. Another thing I’ve noticed is the missing guitarist, Farid.  As I’m not really that well-informed on the tracks that were played by IEHAC, I could just notice the difference from what have been played by them in the past as compared to present through the energy and amount of ambience.

Honestly, I preferred the last two shows I’ve seen them performed as compared to this set. Not trying to be a Post-Rock purist or whatever but, IEHAC used to incorporate much more ambience and lesser “raw rock” energy than they had now. Wonder if it has anything with the inclusion of Amanda, but overall, the set boasted loads of riffage and good guitar co-ordination between Roland Lim and leader of the pack, Dan Sassoon that impressed me and made me envious of their prowess.

Next up, the main performer of the night.

Linda, Eng Teck, Kah Wye (Credits to: Tim Tan)

Lunarin, supporting their sophomore release Duae, made sure that their setlist consists mostly of tracks from the new album. It is definitely not the first time that I’ve been to a 2010 Lunarin gig, so the tracks have pretty much been polished out for live performance this time as compared to the previous time (most notably, the Substation gig). Crowd was good, though I would have preferred if the screaming was toned down abit. Yes, support is support, buuuuuut…incessant screaming to draw attention to self and away from the band is a little questionable. Don’t you agree?

So back to the performance, Lunarin was tight. Impressive performance by all members and especially Eng Teck (drummer). Multitasking as a backing vocalist and playing drums and inclusion of Mandala Pads and double pedals this time around, he has definitely outdone himself for Duae. All the videos for this performance have been uploaded on The Oracle’s Youtube Channel. Check it out here.

This was definitely an awesome gig to be at and I would have regretted missing it. A full review of Lunarin’s Duae will be made available here at puresinner closer to the official release date of the album (20th August 2010). Looking forward to catching them again at Baybeats 2010.

Do pardon the excessive Lunarin news on puresinner recently, we will return back to various music news again soon. Thanks for reading.

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