26th January 2007, Muse Bar, The Weld, Kuala Lumpur. An upcoming place for live performances.

Ziel!

I tried to capture the flare and ghosting, inspired by Ahmad Saiful‘s Olympus E500 flare-ful shots. Open wide, F1.4!

I don’t usually like to capture performers looking at me as if I was doing street photography, but some people think it works, so I offer this version.

Dragon Red! With a twist…

Slyde was missing, and Adam had to rap…

Manshaan was still on drums for one of the most explosive acts in the scene.

Filler bassist!

No turntablist either. Everybody was busy. But it made for an interesting set, including covers of The Cure – Love Song.

Surprise, Amil raps and sings!

Guest screamer.

Another surprise – Adam plays bass (and looks like a cross between Melina of Tempered Mental and Aru of Koffin Kanser.)

Both Adam and Amil kept time, and didn’t miss notes or words. Awesome. The Dragon Red Trio looks like it could work.

Open mike – Raffique plays more.

Raffique and Aishah.

“Where is she?”

Aishah and hot drunken chick Diana (who has a deejay sister who tells laaame jokes on stage; anyone who has seen her emcee for Jamasia gigs will know.)

Alex Wong of Singletrackmind, owner of the place (left) singing his English version of Peterpan – Mungkin Nanti with Manbai, the soundman.

Yes, the guy who sang Ilhamku. He’s hilarious on stage. He also sang a powerful version of Search – Fantasia Bulan Madu.

I’d show you videos, but there are a few reasons why I don’t:

– my video recordings are not steady, especially since I try to shoot pictures with my other hand
– you can hear my camera clicking away
– okay, so really, when it’s a song I want to record, the uh… enthusiastic crowd sings along, spoiling the video.
– okay, so really, my voice is nearest. Not only do you hear my funky-orange-juice-influenced singing, you get to hear my wrong lyrics.

Click on image for larger view. I managed to snap this at 50mm F2.2 ISO100 and 1/2th of a second. Yes, a half of a second! That’s over 5 stops (and this was standing up without resting on anything, with the funky-orange-juice in effect!) Okay, so pointing up always increases stability.

Click on the image for the original 1.5MB file, uncompressed with EXIF data for all to see. The thumbnail is a 100% crop, this time at 50mm F1.4 ISO400 and 1/2th of a second. I usually don’t get such sharp pictures at F1.4 (though being at infinity there might be some exceptions.) Contrast was lowered in camera because I like it that way and makes for more fun post-processing.