On Sunday January 8th the months of practice that me and my friends in the Basis Shenzhen Chinese New Years Band was finally put to the test. We performed in front of 700+ people in a setting with incredibly high production value. With that said the following recordings were made on a cell phone and likely do not sound as good as they could because microphones have high and low frequency noise reduction. I wish I could get the official video but unfortunately I am not at liberty to share that footage in this setting.
The venue was lovely, as was the surrounding area. We performed in the JW Marriot in Bao'an.
These photos were in the park near where I got off the subway.
There was some form of flower and landscaping show going on.
I dropped my guitar off at the venue and took some pictures of the koi pond and statues.
Then I went for a walk and got a beer on the board walk.
Then I returned for rehearsal and make-up and had a tall glass of wine to settle my nerves. It was soon time to perform.
After a short introductory video we opened for the entire show with a Mandarin Chinese song called "Dang" by PowerStation. I learned how to sing this song in Mandarin and can be heard singing part of the pre-chorus. I was singing the entire song along with the lead singer but it is inaudible because the mic was being used to amplify my acoustic guitar. Despite having an acoustic-electric, I did not have a battery for it, so I was unable to plug it into an amp.
After a series of other song and dance performances by other performers from Basis Futian, Basis Bilingual, and Ascend Group (our parent company) we also closed the show with three more songs. I did not record the other performances. I was too busy enjoying them. Even if I had recorded them I would not be at liberty to share them here. I might be stretching the rules by sharing these videos featuring me.
Our next song was a jazzy instrumental called "Case Closed" by Katsuo Ono. For fans of anime you might recognize this song from Case Closed: Detective Conan. For this song I performed on bass guitar. I had never played the bass prior to learning this song. It took a lot of practice for me to get this one down but it ended up sounding pretty good.
We followed that with "Come Together" by The Beatles. I am a bit disappointed by the audio quality of this video. Most people gave nothing but praise for our performance but I am ever the nitpicker and my own biggest critic.
Our last performance, and the last song of the night, was as song by Beyond called "Boundless Sea". This song was in Cantonese, so I had no chance of learning the lyrics, but I offered back-up vocal harmonies while playing the acoustic. Started with some finger-picking before transitioning to strumming. This song took the longest for me to feel comfortable playing. This is not because it was difficult, but because the solo does not seem to match up with the papers I had in front of me. It was not until this performance that I was actually able to play it without any mistakes. All the mistakes in practice led to a perfect performance.
It was a lot of fun performing with these good people. I look forward to playing next year.
Chinese New Year brought with it some fantastic new experiences for both me and Faye. For starters, Faye had her first experience as a tourist in the US. It was both of our first times in each of the destinations on our trip. Here is a brief summary of our trip. We landed in LAX on Feb 7th and stayed in a condo in Long Beach from the 7th-10th. Then we drove to Las Vegas where we stayed in a serviced apartment in the MGM Signature until the 13th. From Vegas we drove to Grand Canyon West where we stayed at the Grand Canyon Western Ranch until the 15th. On the night of the 15th we stayed in the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Lake Havasu City.. We then stayed the night of the 16h in The Ramsey in 29 Palms near Joshua Tree. Then we spent the 17th-18th in a guest house in Santa Clarita. Finally we spent our last night in the Sonesta LAX before flying out on the 20th. After a short layover in San Francisco we took the long flight back to HK. Here is...
I will start this post with some fantastic news. Faye got a tourist visa for the US!. She applied in early September and had her appointment at the US consulate in Guangzhou on September 19th. I took a day off to join her for moral support. She was originally scheduled for an appointment in Hong Kong on Monday the 22nd but thanks to a last minute policy change requiring all applicants to apply in their country of origin, she was forced to cancel her appointment with no refund and reschedule in Guangzhou. Fortunately, through a combination of our efforts and a bit of luck, it was all worth it and she got the visa. Here she is on the way to her appointment. Here she is minutes before getting in line. Here she is after she got approved for the visa. Afterward we celebrated by relaxing in Guangzhou for the rest of the weekend. I worked hard all September, and even had to report to work on a typhoon day to teach remotely because my school won't...
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