The Piano Guys: The Concert -- Before, During and After

Part One:

One, two, three......fourteen!

Yup, there I was calling SISTIC up at 10am the second ticket sales opened for The Piano Guys' concert....and wonder of wonders....I got through with absolutely no problems!
The nice lady on the line was able to get me two rows of seven at BE and BF, seats 1 to 7.

After that, it was countdown time to 2 September and closer to the date, I came up with the idea that we ought to do something for the Guys to show our love and appreciation more concretely....and suggested making big cards to hold up from where we would be seated so that they could see us more clearly. After some brainstorming via WhatsApp (yes, everyone's on WhatsApp nowadays!), we finally came up with WE*heart*TPG!

Now...I am absolutely clueless about art and craft so it was left to ST and K to do the necessary. Eventually, ST redid the cards and we had these, complete with ST's lovely quilling patterns!

Note that the cards are SIGNED!!!!

Yup, a little bird told me that the Guys would be at Raffles Hotel and I instigated ST to stalk them down on the morning of the concert, as the rest of us were all at work. She somehow decided to take a cab down to the hotel straightaway, managed to charm her way into the lobby and....spotted the Guys!!!
Without further ado, she proceeded to approach them and found them to be the nicest and sweetest fellas EVER. And they obligingly autographed our cards individually!
Omg...when ST WhatsApped us the images, we could not believe our eyes!
But truly, it was mission accomplished in two hours and which also set us up for an even more epic experience in the evening. :)

Part Two

It was with much excitement that we gathered for dinner at Star Vista and headed to the Star Theatre on time to settle down in our seats. I met many friends there and it was a lot of "Hey! You like The Piano Guys too?? They're awesome, right??" and one "You will LOVE these Guys!" to a friend who was accompanying her daughter but apparently had no idea what TPG were about. ;)

We saw Jon looking at the audience from the darkness of the stage and waved madly to him...and he waved back! :)

Pretty soon, it was time for the concert to start and ....voila!

Jon and Steven walked onto the stage, sat down at their respective instruments and it was all systems go!

The strains of Adele's Rolling In The Deep came on....and the Guys rolled on into all the familiar and beautiful tunes which most of us already knew from their MVs but it was absolutely awesome watching them LIVE and sharing in their witty banter and crazy antics.
Steven's facial expressions and actions with his cello were a blast (many have likened him to Mr Bean) but Jon was not to be upstaged.
His upside-down piano-playing was mindboggling and as for THAT dance during Rochelbel's Canon....well, it was hilarious and no, the audience did not walk out on him. :)


Upside-down piano-playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf9FLDZiK0Y&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ&index=7


Pachelbel/Rochelbel's Canon, where Steven demonstrates the wonders of Bruce Lee, his cool-to-the-max electric cello: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNZpvlJ-UTg&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ&index=6


There was also a nice collaboration with young violinists from UWC for the performance of One Republic/Beethoven mashup and one song which brought on the screams and cheers was A Thousand Years (from the Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn). Yes, my friends and I are also mad Twi-Hearts and this was THE song which we were dying to hear.

A Thousand Years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqE5HqaKBag&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ&index=1

U2 Meets Pachelbel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtY1b3c8u2I&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ

Dvorak meets Phillip Phillip's Home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbm5BuSKh0A&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ

Michael Meets Mozart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppN5RubWhM&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ

Charlie Brown medley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWAwzxCPzyY&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ



When Al and Paul came on for the 'last' song, What Makes You Beautiful, the entire theatre were on such a high that it was inevitable that there would be an encore or two....and we were not disappointed!

What Makes You Beautiful...bloody awesome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBACBeEoKa8&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ


First encore...Bring Him Home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVMgI_Wow24&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ

Second encore...Can't Help Falling In Love, complete with audience singalong brought the concert to a rousing end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YIQE2LY5cs&list=PLbHLPahX3mJ4G2TcQjOz7GE3wH7PqxcAZ



And the appreciative audience gave them a standing ovation!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebtSzzm-iM


And there we were!
I just love these audience-behind-the-artistes shots! They always look freaking impressive! 

More pics:

Part Three:

Thanks to our intrepid ST, our group got to meet the Guys after the concert before they headed to the rest of their adoring fans for an autograph session! It was another mindblowing experience as the Guys were really friendly! There was lots of photo-taking and chit chat but all good things come to an end and we had to bid them goodbye and all the best....but we skipped the madding crowd who were lining up patiently in the foyer....omg, there must have been more than a thousand people waiting!

Wow! Just. WOW!!!!

I think most of us (the girls, at least) were walking on air after that fantastic evening for the next few days. :)

Please come back soon, Guys!
Many of my friends were keen to attend but either found out too late or could not make it on a Monday evening.
A Saturday night would be perfect and a bigger venue or two nights would also be great.
Yes, I would go for both!

NB:

Two reviews from the local papers:

http://news.asiaone.com/news/showbiz/concert-review-piano-guys-live-singapore


http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/show/2013/09/04/piano-guys-musical-prowess-and-witty-banter
 

The Piano Guys: Pre-concert

Youtube sensations The Piano Guys were in Singapore on 2 September for their first-ever concert in our city and well, that is an epic story for my next post....and what a heck of a tale I will have to tell!

But first up, let me start by introducing this fabulous gang of guys whose music has taken youtube and by extension, the WORLD, by storm!

How did I get to know about them?

I cannot remember exactly but I do believe it was some time in 2012. It started with a vid on Facebook which one of my friends posted and I happened to see whilst scrolling down my News Feed. I think it was the Love Story/Viva La Vida clip and what enraptured me was how these fellas so smoothly blended these two great songs into one even greater mashup.

That got me into checking out their youtube channel and before long, I was hooked on their brand of music, which combined classical, pop, rock and what-have-you.

Their genuine passion and enjoyment whilst performing their songs are truly infectious and their sense of humour came across very well in many vids, especially in the Cello Wars...lol!

Here's a picture of them....just five fellows from Utah, sitting on the couch, looking oh-so-cute (especially Steven!) until you hear their music...omg!

From left to right, they are:

Al Van Der Beek, Steven Sharp Nelson, Jon Schmidt, Paul Anderson, Tel Stewart.

And here are the two performing guys, Jon on piano and Steven on cello:

Here is the link to their Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/PianoGuys?fref=ts

And the official website:

http://thepianoguys.com/

Check out all their MVs....too many for me to post here. 

I also signed up as a Founding Member, without hesitation as I could see that these guys had something very special and it was so cool to be able to help them and get an autographed CD amongst other stuff:

They were also going full steam ahead then with their music videos and mashups and soon, they had signed up with Sony Records and out came their two albums:

These CDs are a constant in my car and have helped sooth my frayed nerves many times.

So thanks a bunch, fellas!

And you know what else was cool?

My sons (especially my first and second, now aged 20 and 17 respectively) also enjoyed their music tremendously. :)

The next thing after all this was, naturally, that we hoped to see them perform live in concert and yes, I did always try to comment on their Facebook Page: Please come to Singapore!

I guess they heard me (and many others) 'cos one fine day in recent times, one of my friends tagged me to a post on Facebook with a "Hey! Aren't these your guys?"

Lo and behold, it was the LAMC announcement on their website!

That was it!

Time to call all my pals who were also avid Piano Guys fans to make plans!

I shall go into further detail in my next post. :)