Music Matter Live 2013 – Fountain Stage [23May2013]

[J-rock Matters presented by BARKS]
23 May @ 9pm
Performers : SID, flumpool
Venue : Music Matters 2013 Fountain Stage, Clarke Quay
NON-TICKETED FREE EVENT

Flumpool, a four-man Japanese rock band, livened up the music matters live stage on 23rd May 2013 before SID came to the stage.

The audience spot was full with flumpool’s fans and they have waited since afternoon if not waiting since morning to get the first row. Kazuki Sakai, the guitarist, surprised everyone because he appeared in public and performed, despite his diet program. Followed by his fellow band members, Genki Amakawa, the bassist, Ryuta Yamamura, the guitarist and vocalist, and lastly Seiji Ogura, in drum.

The song intro already made the fans cheered up and clapped hands. And after a while, Ryuta the vocalist and guitarist greeted the audience, “Hello, we’re flumpool from Japan”, and the fans screamed their hearts out.

With white shirt and black vest, Ryuta Yamamura looked so charming and actively communicated with the audience. The first song they sang was Kakusei Identitiy. The strong drum beat from Seiji Ogura, wasn’t missed by the audience as everyone was jumping when he started hitting the drum. The performance was flawless since the light and the sound system worked so well.

Then during the second song, Touch, Ryuta asked the audience to raise the hands. The heat and humidity in Singapore’s Clarke Quay were even getting hotter when Ryuta and Genki kept moving forward the stage,  greeted the audience, and asked them to sing a long. Kazuki was also showing off his solo guitar performance in this song.

After Touch, Ryuta greeted the audience again in English. “Halo, we’re flumpool!! We are so excited to be in such a wonderful place. Are you excited? Good! Have fun”, of course his greeting was replied with screams.

They started playing Hana ni Nare which was pretty soothing. The strong sound of Genki’s bass spoiled the audience in this song. Seiji Ogura who kept smiling behind his drum gave a different drum beat feeling throughout the entire song.

Before going to the next song, Ryuta played with the audience, asking them to scream here and there. He divided the audience to lef team and right team, gentlemen team, ladies team. A very good stage communication skill if we must say. Everyone was hyped up because of this.

Next song they played was OAOA. This song is a very cheerful song with happy feeling in it. A song that invites everyone to believe their dream and run to achieve it due to freedom lies ahead in everyone’s future. This song was previously sung by Mayday, a Taiwanese band, before re-written by Ryuta Yamamura and sung in Japanese.

After OAOA, Seiji Ogura showed off his drum skill for around two minutes. They closed their performance with Answer. Ryuta show off his  skill in singing falsetto and high pitch nicely in this song. Before they’re leaving the stage, they were thanking Music Matters Live, BARKS, and everyone who attended the show.

flumpool setlist :
1. Kakusei Identity
2. Touch
3. Hana ni Nare
4. OAOA
5. Answer

You can watch the performance here:

After several minutes passed for sound check, SID who was the highlight of the show that day, performed in perfect stamina despite sound problem in guitar and mic. SID, a Japanese visual kei rock band, flew to Singapore in their 10th anniversary to say hi to their fans in Music Matters Live 2013. After flumpool’s fans got out from the crowd to go to Beer Market for the next show, SID fans were fulfilling the crowd.

Yuuya entered the stage followed by Shinji and Aki, then Mao came the last. Aki livened up the crowd really well with his guitar.

Wearing sleeveless shirts, Aki showed his tattoos all over his arm. And Mao came to the stage like a model, very feminine style. He stood up highly  on the speaker and started to sing Monochro no Kiss right away. Then USO was played and Mao stopped in intro because of a mistake. Then he asked fans to sing along too during the intro. Aki and Shinji were so active running on the stage, right to left, asking the fans to be hyped up during the live. After USO ended, Mao greeted the fans in English.

“Hello, we’re SID, thank you very much. You’re so lively! This is our first time in Singapore. We’re so happy to be here. Thank you Music Matters. We love Singapore! Do you like Jrock? DO YOU LIKE SID? THANK YOU. Next song is a theme song for Japanese anime, V.I.P.”

As V.I.P was played, Shinji was caught up dancing along the melody and Aki invited the fans to wave hands many times. Just after V.I.P ended, Mao threw water to the audience, and sang One Way. The upbeat song, passionate fans, what more you can ask!?

The highlight of this song was when Shinji showed off his guitar part. The performance was closed by Natsu Koi.  This time Aki threw the water to the audience. Another song that made the fans jumped all over and Aki kept playing bass kneeling. Such a fanservice!

We really enjoyed their performance. Such energetic band even on their 10th anniversary. They even spared several minutes after the performance to greet the fans, throwing picks, drum sticks, saying thanks per person and Mao even asked fans to calm down before  shouting “I love you” without the mic. They really gave a friendly aura during the performance. Hoping to catch their concert in Japan next time.

SID setlist :

1. Monochrome no Kiss
2. Uso
3. V.I.P
4. One Way
5. Natsu Koi

You can watch the performance here:

Special thanks to BARKS and Music Matters Live 2013.