17th March 2016: Open Mic at Timbre at The Row. It’s been many years since I’ve seen underground music (if we can call open mikes that) on Jalan Doraisamy, known to the yuppies as Asian Heritage Row. The Row is the latest redevelopment. To be exact, just about 11.5 years ago, I was there for the KLue 4th Anniversary. For scale, the KLue 1st Anniversary was also the very first Urbanscapes. I’ve been for every single Urbanscapes there is and have yet to break that combo!

First up, the rhythmically blue Reening Lau!

Kim Lim does her usual fingerstyle…

…and then surprised us (or at least me) with a song she’d sing!

Wong Aaron lifts, bro.

The F.O.I. fills up the stage.

Mystery Tapes, with Shaneil Devaser on bass (who is also the host and emcee for the event.)

Glowing drumsticks! I ordered non-glowing drumsticks through Timbre’s menu, which you’d access through an iPad. Cool stuff!

Later that night, Nick Yungkit would play, separate from the open mike.

They were all dressed in black.

Nick has this solid 80s R&B voice that hits the spot in so many of the inflections used in the genre. (Some other R&B singers would hit one or two inflections more, but he hits a lot more.) He also did a lot of Michael Jackson covers, with particular attention to all his vocal style, yet not being an exact carbon copy.