Paramore(d)/ Paramo(bbed)
The start of feeling 'Paramored' happened early last week. I was thinking how I could make my idea of a personalized card for the band come into fruition. I wanted to pass them something which would make my request of a personal project (hint: something music-realated, what else?) of mine known to them, and hopefully it would be the start of something :) A person can dream right? I know meeting celebs at the airport itself is already hard, imagine trying to pass something to them. Looking back, I really think I was being a bit too ambitious. Anyway, back to the card:
Firstly, the idea of a pop-up card was one of the first few things that came to my mind. Why? Because the last time I was hanging out at the airport with fans was to receive Avril Lavigne and there was this huge fan of hers who is insanely good with art and made a really beautiful pop-up card for us fans all who were present to sign, among many other cool cards she made for the other band members. So yeah, my inspiration this time came from her :D Thanks Marilyn!
Secondly, I wanted to inject a Singapore flavour into the card. Something for the band to remember our country by. And that means being unique (from all the other fan cards out there which they receive by the hundreds. I mean, did you catch their recent music video The Only Exception??). And how else other than to personalize it according to our local culture right?
Lastly, I wanted to recreate something similar to what I drew ages ago for Avril, that is, a huge-ass picture on cardboard and coloured in with old-school crayons. It might turn out looking a little crude but visually, it's very colourful and eye-catching and tons of fun to make.
So on Monday or Tuesday, I started making a rough sketch of the pic below:
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Then the next couple of days were spent drawing THIS picture taken at their recent Australian stop which I thought was really cool, on solid cardboard (the band and the tiger separately) to pop-out from inside.
^Told you it'd be huge-ass and eyecatching.
And finally, Friday late night and Saturday was spent making the card's layout, look presentable and overall perfect. I spent quite some time figuring out how to make my pictures pop-out and pop-out just right. Whew. I'm thrilled it turned out the way it did btw!
Overall, I can't believe that my card ended up looking very close to what I originally envisioned in my head! And that it didn't turn out to be a disaster or half-hearted shoddy piece of work at all. So proud of myself. Since I knew it would take days to make, I kept questioning myself everyday if it was really worth it. So I kept counter-questioning myself, is your dream more important or the release from the pains of hard work? In my mind, this quote stuck with me for that past week(which I came across on a FB application I use called Status Shuffle): "Pain is temporary, quitting is permanent." And I had added my own little comment beside the quote to make it my next facebook status update last wednesday: "(quote)...Damn straight! Making progress through sheer work and commitment." hahah! SO TRUE. Friday night I was still slogging away on that epic card until the wee morning hours. At the back of the card, I had even rewritten the Brand New Eyes discography, adding Singlish words to wordplay and make it funny. I forgot to take a pic of it.
Then Saturday came. I kept trying to visualize me meeting them in a relatively quiet airport with little drama and fanfare. During the past week, I had also consciously avoided looking around (maybe I looked just a little) for fans who were thinking of receiving Paramore at the airport. I didn't want to give myself false worries and jinx my chances of passing the band my card when I haven't even started.
So I got all my things together. Card, check. Markers, check. Paramore t-shirt to change into at the airport and for the band to sign, check. Camera, check. Singapore book (seen above) which I had decided at the last minute to gift them too, check. Good to go. I made it to the airport in good time (considering the fact that I was coming all the way from the other side of Singapore), with about half an hour to spare before what I had assumed was the band's arrival time which would be around 5pm. After changing, I made my way to the arrival belt. To my amusement and not horror, I already saw like, 30 fans? mostly dressed in black sitting on the floor lining up in front of the glass doors. I'm thinking, 'wtf, like that also have to line up ah?' I played it cool and just sat on one of the airport seats provided. Thank god. Because I needed ample rest to what was to come ahead.Around 40 minutes into waiting, they stood up and we all started properly waiting for Paramore to come out. Like, us fans really started like, a mini-moshpit right there because suddenly the crowd swelled in size. I heard later on that the estimate was there were about 300 (or more) fans present. And one really cool thing was, I realized I was the only person wearing this Paramore shirt and which others kept admiring the whole time. haha!
Ten minutes of waiting passed...20 minutes...30 minutes...one hour, OMG! After numerous abashed passangers came out onto the teenage crowd, after lots of asking around by us if anyone saw a redhead, after enduring a few rowdy boys near me who were talking in shouting voices and using the F-bombs a lot but were pretty hilarious (cuz they kept harassing the Singapore airlines crew who came up and most of whom had no idea who PARAMORE is), after hearing a few songs being strummed by someone who had brought her guitar, after lots of phototaking by what i assume to be professional photographers working for newspapers or something, after a short-lived ruckus when someone THOUGHT they saw a redhead somewhere inside and everyone became rrreally excited, PARAMORE WAS STILL A NO-SHOW. I think we were the most disappointed bunch of people that day in Singapore. I think I speak for the rest when I say, most of us truly, madly, deeply thought the band Paramore were on the flight we thought they were.
^Where were u guys on the first flight out of Christchurch, New Zealand to Singapore that fateful day? :(
So a little past one hour, one of the security person who had been hanging with us the whole time made a teeny suggestion- that maybe the band would be coming out from one of the other belts further ahead. AND YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? We all started to make a mad dash for that belt. We were literally causing a stampede, not caring about anything and just running like mad there because we so did not want to miss the band's arrival. Think I haven't made such a quick 50 meteres dash like that in a long time. Alas, we were let down again after just 10 minutes of waiting. We were wising up and made our way back to the first belt in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, something was holding Paramore back to have made us fans wait outside for so long. Me? I sat down at one of the airport seats again and started going on twitter to check if anyone in Singapore had met the band Paramore at all (think all the pages I loaded must have cost a bomb on my handphone bill! forgot about that.). I really did a thorough search for several minutes but there was no hard evidence to prove the band was already in Singapore and resting in their hotels or something. When I was finished, the fan crowd had mostly dispersed, with a few more hardcore ones back to sitting on the floor and looking really cheated but determined to stick it out for a while more. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the day indeed ended up looking like a wild goose chase (waiting and being let down yet again and again from this belt to that belt, to the same belt again. The game of the day was, 'Who can guess which arrival belt Paramore is hiding at?') for those of us who stayed around to be involved in all that drama of false hopes and conspiracies.
In the midst of it all, I experienced a blessing in disguise. I came across 3 nice fans who accosted me and with whom I exchanged speculations and theories with and with whom I came up with strategy tactics. They were the reason I stayed on to the end because I really couldn't have guessed by myself where Paramore would end up hiding :P And yet, I was crucial for our little group's success at the last minute. This is how it goes: at night at around 9 plus, after still ending up back at the original belt where the whole 300 of us had waited at that afternoon, I was feeling bold and restless and said to my fellow comrades, "hey guys, I REALLY am not having a good feeling about this because ...(I proceed to give them a whole list of reasons why paramore is STILL not showing up). So, why don't we give it a shot and head for another terminal instead because really, what have we got to lose?" Going to that terminal meant taking a skytrain all the way to another part of the airport and making yet another mad dash because the arrival timings were close to the one we had expected here, and who knows if Paramore will in fact turn up here or there instead huh?? So with all these worries to consider, my comrades actually didn't take long to agree with me! And then from there on out, it was a mad dash to THAT PARTICULAR TERMINAL. It was a long way there i tell you. Singapore airport is so fucking huge, particularly the newest terminal.
This last flight timing we were going to try to wait out was my one last shot because I was counting on reaching home before midnight (it takes more than an hour to get back home) as my parents had threatened me to over the phone. As we were walking our last stretch to the arrival belts in this particular terminal, I suddenly thought of my visualization (that I mentioned earlier) of my ideal scenario when meeting Paramore-that it would be low-key and easy. I thought to myself, 'omg, what if it effin came true after all that shit that had went down today??' True enough, when we got there, we only saw a group of like, oh, 10 lonely-looking but tight group of fans already there (who gave us looks that we didn't belong there, thank you very much). So there was roughly about only 15 of us in total (there was also this lone tall Caucasian girl from Holland called Tanya I think who was wearing a Paramore shirt and chatted up our group) . Just a few minutes of waiting and there were signs which pointed to Paramore VERY CERTAINLY going to be showing up there. Imagine how bloody truimphant we felt while trying to keep our cool.
After just less than half an hour of waiting, indeed, we simply saw this ordinary yet extraordinary spectacle of: Hayley Williams walking out pushing her trolley behind the glass doors like nobody's business. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE BLOODY HELL GROUP OF TEN FANS STARTED DOING? Ladies and gentlemen, this is where it started going way downhill from there. I tell you, this group consisting of the ten crazy fans, consisting of a good mix of both guys and girls mind you, started making bloody loud whooping noises nonstop like an injured dog would. They went on non-stop for a solid 3 minutes after Hayley's appearance. They were, to put it simply, hyperventilating as a group, in public. Now 3 minutes may not sound like much, but with ten teenagers making a ridiculous ruckus together like that, what follows? EVERY OTHER SINGLE PERSON WAITING OUTSIDE THE ARRIVAL HALLS WENT SILENT AND JUST STARED AT THEM. I felt so embarrassed to be standing next to them you know? AND DID THEY CARE TO STOP OR NOTICE THE UNHEALTHY ATTENTION THEY WERE DRAWING TO THEMSELVES? NO WAY.
What did they go on to do? Of course Hayley herself looked over our way from the noise these people were making, so they effin dashed foward to the glass doors and pawed over them like monkeys behind cages would, and plastered their individual papers spelling out 'PARAMORE', all the while still making those godforsaken noises. As for me, I just fucking stared at them in disbelief and at one point, automatically turned to give the person beside me (turned out to be Tanya) a very annoyed look.
Like, I was more distracted by them than by Hayley, would you believe it? So I just smiled and waved at Hayley (and felt a tad embarrassed to let her see that I associated myself with those fans) and all the while, I wanted to tell the group to just get a grip on themselves and shut the fuck up. Like, wasn't Hayley going to belong all to ourselves already? Are you idiots simply going to screw this up just like that and scare her off? They were truly the most whacked-out fans I've come across (later on, it made me think whether I was going to meet similar wacko fans again at the moshpit the next day). Hayley started walking past her arrival belt and further ahead, so not wanting to lose sight of her, these fans started running in her direction and cutting through the growing crowd (duh!) to get right to the other side where there was a better view. Again, those fools created the same spectacle of themselves in trying to get Hayley's attention again, whopping noises and monkey behaviours and all. And then when Hayley disappeared somewhere behind for a while, they all dashed back again to see the other band members arriving, and this time, they started screaming and calling out their names. They were outta control and all over the place whenever and wherever the band members moved around inside, running back and forth trying to catch all their attention. It didn't help that the band took a very very long time in coming out. By this time, obviously everyone outside knew something was up and a couple of them had the nerve to walk up and ask me who was all chilled Who the heck were we waiting for and going 'Paramore Who'?
^Me acting all Paparazzo to Paramore and the band's photographer. haha!
By the time the band came out, they were literally mobbed. And naturally, security was a bitch. And naturally, they cowed behing security. And oh, naturally, there was no way I could scream Hayley's name loud enough when she walked in front of me and no way I could successfully pass my bag of gifts towards her without security firmly stopping me. I did try really really hard, following each of the band members, but the ninja security was doing too good a darn job. AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUNNIEST THING WAS? ALL THE PARAMORE GUYS LOOKED SHIT SCARED. NONE OF THEM WERE SMILING. EXCEPT FOR HAYLEY BUT SHE COWERED HER HEAD AT ONE POINT EVEN. I was like thinking to myself all furious, 'Are you for real? How the fuck did the situation blow up like this?'
^Hey, Hayls and Jeremy actually had time to look at me! I think they were more into checking out my shirt though :P
In the blink of an eye, the band was whisked away into the waiting vans outside and Justin, the substitute lead guitarist was the last straggler member of the entourage with no fanfare or security about him whatsoever, he was the very last one to make it out of the crowd but I noticed it way too late, at the very last few seconds because my back was turned as I commented to my comrade fan that 'the situation was shit crazy man, what just happened?', and could not try to pass him my gifts too. After that, I learned from Tanya that she had indeed spotted Justin and managed to swiftly pass him her handmade book which she has given to Hayley about 4 or 5 times in the past whenever she meets the band in her own country. She too told me her own fellow Hollanders have never been mad insane as us Singaporeans and totally did not expect to see the band make as quick a getaway as they did. One of my fellow comrade-fan, has spoken out loud what was our dashed expectations, that 'Paramore would be super-awesome to their fans la (and without a doubt stay to sign autographs for all of us since it's their first times here and all).' Look how that turned out:
The only thing us Singapore fans got out of it were tweets by Hayley and the others on Twitter very shortly later on that night where they commented on the 'welcome' they got from us at the airport.
Siggghh, once again, my luck in informally meeting celebrities is next to zero. My luck never fails me. Thank you for nothing, lady fortune.
Just great, Paramore had left behind a Riot which they had unwittingly started at the airport:
And I too was facing one when I got home at around 1.30am. Very nice way to end the day. Day 2 will be details about da concert itself. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of the next (Paramore) song I'm gonna cover and include in the next blog entry too:
PS: I feel like I should cover Brick by Boring Brick for this blog entry instead. *sings* "She lives in a fairytale, somewhere too far for us to find. Forgotten the taste and smell of the world that she's left behind. It's all about the exposure, the lens I told her...... So go get your shovel, and we'll dig a deep hole, to bury the castle, bury the castle......"
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