No Beatles but Blues

It was kind of a funny evening last Friday. Nothing worked out as planned really. Firstly it was pouring when we were scheduled to leave the house, and all our attempts to call for a taxi had failed. Oddly enough it didn't take us too much time to bump into a cab, after we decided to walk over to the MRT. I really would like to see some day how that reservation system works. Our plan was to go to a, for us, new place to eat. This failed completely because, although upon arrival it appeared to be mostly empty, we were told it was fully booked and they could not seat us. The swift change of plans pointed us to our trusted Piedra Negra, where we were warmly welcomed by a very accommodating staff and a renewed menu.

The entertainment for the night, I thought, was going to be a Beatles night at Artistry. Although it had stopped raining, this too, totally fell into the water because the Beatles night is next Friday June 7. However there was music and I was pleasantly surprised to see several familiar faces on stage, including those of the Sa Trio, 

Andy C

Cheryl Ong

Natalie Alexandra

Complemented by Hutspot Masala to make an interesting 7 piece band by:

Marcel Heijnen: Live mix. 

Pablo Aldunate Violin

Reggie Perera Percussion and Dig

Wil Kolen Guitar

The music turned out to be an amazing jam with some cool visual effects, a feature the musicians were clearly not aware of. 

The evening appeared to be a mix of gallery opening and musical performance. The walls of artistry were again decorated with art prints that were different from the ones displayed on our previous visit. This time it is a series of lovely posters with Asian themes by Billy Ma. Visit Artistry for a better description!

We did not stick around for the DJ. The Sa septet finished early enough for us to skip joints to Sultan for some blues by Smokey and the Ragtag Blues Band.

Anson Fung – guitar

Kelvin Ng – harmonica and vocals

Oliver von Essen - keyboards

 
Ray Aziz – drums

Firstly I am very happy to see that there are more and more musicians and bands coming out of the woodworks playing blues. I personally love that music and the mellow moods that come with it. I guess it is the perverted human being in me that loves to hear other people wail about their misery over a long lost love. With Smokey and the RBB the wailing was done mostly via the harmonica played by Kelvin aka Smokey, 

who, in my opinion, did a cool job squeezing an amazing scale out of it. And where there was Smokey there was fire... 

from Anson's guitar and shirt, steam out of Ray’s drums and blazing heat from Oliver's organ.