F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves Finals

babes

Booth babes.

skater

Skaters.

graffitti

Graffiti artists.

What do they have in common?

outside

I was at e@Curve to catch the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals on Sunday. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch first and was surprised to see the event in full swing way before the finals were slated to kick off.

dj

There were young ladies (the proper and politically correct term for this is actually “booth babes”, but who cares about being PC on sixthseal.com) handing out free F&N drinks to everyone at the Curve and I met someone I recognized!

girl

Okay la, I don’t even know her, I just wanted to take a photo with her. πŸ˜‰

guitar

Anyway, the place was packed with people trying their hand at the various booths around, which includes a Guitar Hero section and a DJ hut. I see no expense was spared in the event management aspects. It was a rocking (pardon the pun) ambience!

There was a media session at Tony Roma’s right before the final B-boy faceoff where we got to:

media

1. Meet the judges

performance

2. Get a first hand demonstration of what the B-Boy scene is all about

food

3. Load up on food

jestina

4. Camwhore with Jestina

I was surprised to see the moves being pulled off by the F&N B-boys…coz I’ve seen it before! Street dancing is big in KK, Sabah and while I was doing my time there, some of the boys inside did the exact same maneuvers when someone managed to sneak a cassette in!

int 1

It was in fact, almost the sole source of entertainment during my time there so I was naturally quite excited when the beats started pumping out, with the bass reverberations guiding me towards the stage like a moth towards a flame.

int 2

I parked my ass (technically I was standing) right in front of the stage to catch the 10 teams in action. I’m not going to feature all of them here, just the ones that really caught my attention. I’ll be honest here – there are some teams which were rather mediocre and some crews who blew my mind away!

judges

I felt a bit self-conscious standing in front of the judges (L-R: Boojae, Fiona Jane Gomez, Danny One) though. It just didn’t feel Proper (TM) so I moved to the side a little to allow them an unobstructed view of the stage.

Okay, let me give you the lowdown of the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals:

Feasible Crew

Feasible Crew (from Sarawak yo, my hometown) came on the scene with buckets and rags for an awesome scene which was part dance and part cleanup crew. I wonder if they were paid for cleaning up the stage. πŸ˜‰

wakaka

I like Wakaka Crew’s performance – they have a lot of slick moves in their repertoire.

Fresh Beat Rockers

Fresh Beat Rockers from Penang on the other hand tried WAY TOO HARD. Not in the good way if you catch my drift.

N Crew

N Crew is one of the two crews that have female dancers. There is one lone XX Chromosome in the group, but IMHO, they didn’t really impress. It looks like a lot of rehashed moves and a whole bag of clichΓ©s and they lack that elusive Stage Presence Factor (TM). I tried to hunt down look for the female dancer but couldn’t find her after the event.

move 1

Move is the other crew that has female dancers.

move 2

Move has two in fact.

move

They got a lot of applause from the crowd and I think their Moves (pardon the pun) were pretty good too.

move me

No, I’m not biased. πŸ˜‰

Elementz 1

Project Elementz impressed me the most with their costumes and their choreography. The crew managed to squeeze in a story with the short amount of time, with impeccably timed moves.

Elementz 2

It’s a story about a vagabond…

Elementz 3

…who met a rich (but stingy) man, and ended up opening up a can of F&N (and also a can of whoopass).

Elementz 4

The choreographed scene has a lot of elaborate and magnificent moves, like this airborne version of Karate Kid meets The Matrix bullet time.

Elementz 5

Mad skillz. I was seriously impressed.

Elementz 6

The Project Elementz crew was highly entertaining but made a whole mess of the entire stage with their elaborate props. Heh!

Elecolxhot

This is Elecoldxhot. I like their pure energy and I love the profanity ridden gangsta rap music playing throughout their routine. This crew embodies PURE ENERGY! I was amazed by the calorie burning performance they put on.

The 10 crews in the F&N Freestylez Show Ur Moves finals strutted their stuff and the judges did their thing, and so, I present to you, the winners:

Best Dressed Crew

Best Dressed Crew – N Crew

Best Choreographed Crew

Best Choreographed Crew – Feasible Crew (from Sarawak – represent!)

Most Entertaining Crew

Most Entertaining Crew – Project Elementz

Most Outstanding B-Boy

Most Outstanding B-Boy – Muhamad Haslam from Wakaka Crew

3

2nd Runner Up – Wakaka Crew

2

1st Runner Up – Move

1

Grand Prize Winner – Elecoldxhot

They snagged the grand prize with their hyper energetic performance!

group

It was a pretty entertaining night and it provides a real insight into the B-Boy and street dancing culture in Malaysia. Cheers to F&N for a great event!

end

There is one thing I noticed about the B-boy crews though – they have an obsession with huge, flashy basketball shoes. I think it’s standard issue for all the crews. πŸ˜‰

The David Archuleta Showcase fiasco

da ginny

I came into possession of two tickets for the David Archuleta Showcase at 3 pm today and picked Ginny up to go to Sunway with me. I planned to arrive at her house at 12:30 pm but missed a turning and ended up being stuck in KL traffic on a Saturday. I only managed to get to her place at 1:30 pm.

da showcase

Anyway, we arrived at Sunway Lagoon Amphitheater at slightly before 2 pm. We were turned away at the parking area for reasons unknown. They had barriers to the David Archuleta Showcase Car Park and despite plenty of empty lots, everyone was asked to park elsewhere so we had no recourse but to park at Sunway Medical Center and walk over.

da crowd

There was a huge crowd waiting at the amphitheatre and we queued up at the entrance. I should have expected a massive turnout since I watched the YouTube video of David Archuleta being mobbed by fangirls at KLIA when he arrived.

da arrive

I thought we managed to get in just in time, since we passed the first security check, but everyone was turned away from the second security check due to the place being filled to capacity. The reason given was that the stadium was already packed with 3,000 people and they could not accommodate any more.

da disgruntled

There were at least a hundred people waiting to get in and most of them have waited there for ages, like us. Just look at the disgruntled faces in the crowd.

da banner

It’s neither DiGi nor Sony Music’s fault – the tickets had Fine Print (TM) at the back that clearly states ticket holders are not guaranteed entry. I still feel it could have been better planned though. The tickets were oversold – there were 3,000 people in there by 2 pm and they stopped letting people in after that.

I got the tickets thanks to Nuffnang, and we wanted to get in to take photos and videos of the showcase. I felt sorry for the fans who came later than us, who either bought the CD or won the tickets from a radio station, and was turned away. We left at 3:15 pm when it was clear that they were not letting anyone in come hell or high water.

We bumped into some latecomers after that who asked us why we were leaving and we told them they couldn’t get in coz the stadium was filled to capacity. They had bought the CD and was pretty bummed about being turned away.

I felt really bad coz I was working and I couldn’t pick up the tickets so I got Ginny to pick up the tickets for me…and we ended up not being able to see David Archuleta. We just lost the window of opportunity by probably 10 minutes – if I had not missed the turning to Ginny’s house or managed to park at the amphitheatre entrance, we would have gotten in.

da us

Thus left behind, we headed to Ajisen Ramen at Sunway Pyramid and had a late lunch before heading back.

I knew we should have arrived earlier considering the popularity of David Archuleta with his…er, enthusiastic target demographic. Oh well, at least I’ll remember the turning to Ginny’s place now. :p

MAN – The Powerstation Concert

both.jpg
Powerstation

The Powerstation concert was good. I arrived there at around 7:10 pm
and there were still heaps of parking spaces left. The center wasn’t
really full either, there were about a hundred people already in there,
but they were spread out so I got within 3 meters of the stage.

withmc.jpg
Powerstation with the MC

Anyway, Powerstation only came on stage at 7:30 pm and they did 6
tracks and 1 encore. I don’t know the track names because I’ve only
heard two of their albums (Legend and UPS). There was an SMS
competition thing at the beginning, the MC gave out a phrase – “psman”
and a cell phone number and the first two people to send an SMS with
that phrase to that particular number got a plane ticket to “I don’t
know where”. I must have zoned out or something coz I really didn’t
catch where the plane ticket was to. I did have a go, but the others
were inhuman, they already sent the SMS before I finished typing. πŸ™‚

first.jpg
One half of Powerstation (I don’t know their names)

second.jpg
Another half of Powerstation (I don’t know their names)

Anyway, the MC introduced Powerstation after that and they did 3
songs followed by an intermission. There was a yellow shirted girl in
front of me who was VERY enthusiastic. Nice, she added much needed
ambience to the dreary crowd. Well, at the intermission, they asked six
people to come onstage to sing any Powerstation song and the best
person will get a ticket to “I don’t know where” too. I don’t remember
much, but there were two who got the most applause (a guy and a girl).
The girl finally got the ticket from a game of rock-paper-scissors to
break the tie because both of them got equally enthusiastic applause.

audience.jpg
The six audience members who rendered Powerstation songs for a plane ticket

After that, there was another 3 songs and Powerstation left the
stage. They actually have a pretty good stage presence, really game and
the MC got them to speak several phrases in Bahasa Malaysia which I
can’t remember. Hmm…my memory is failing me. Moving on, they came out
for an encore and that was the end of the show. There was an autograph
signing session after that, but I didn’t stay on. Overall, it was a
good show and well worth the RM 10 (A$ 5) I spent. Highlights were the
enthusiastic yellow shirted girl and the 6 audience members who
rendered Powerstation songs.

encore.jpg
Last song

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