A Bright Sunshiny Day

For the past two years I've been going to Urbanscapes, and this year was no different. I was very glad that they decided to hold it at Padang Astaka instead of KLpac, because even though we couldn't duck into the KLpac for a few minutes of merciful air-conditioning whenever the sun got too hot, I now didn't have to endure the horrible traffic on Jalan Ipoh (which normally meant being stuck in the car for about an hour or two), plus the festival had the room to grow to ginormous proportions due to the expanse of space that Padang Astaka had to offer. Urbanscapes was so big this year, I didn't even get to see everything - I barely managed to even make one round throughout the grounds the entire time I was there, & I stayed for nine hours, no joke! This year I went with my girls Shevie & Nicole who I've been wanting to go to this with for the longest time (: We got to Astaka a little after one in the afternoon, and it was already streaming with people, ranging from the stylish fashionista, to the budding pro photographer, to the inspired artist, to the normal average Joe just wanting to know what all the hulla-baloo was about.







Photos by Nicole Tan (:

One of the many reasons I went was to support my dear friend Ariff AB who was playing at the Moonshine stage, so while waiting for his set we visited the many quirky stalls at the Marketplace (most of which had loads of adorable kitschy stuff that I wish I'd brought enough money to buy!) before grabbing a quick bite at The Bee for lunch. The amount of stalls were quite overwhelming for me, which is why I ended up not buying as much as I thought I would. You know that feeling: when you're presented with a ridiculous amount of choices and you get so confused trying to figure out what to get, why to get it & when you're going to use it, that you just give up trying to think because it's too much work & end up not getting anything at all. Yeah, it happens to me all the time, especially in massive shopping malls. It never used to be that way - I used to be able to drop RM100 on a single t-shirt and still want to get the RM300 pair of heels *shudder* - but ever since I got into university I guess I started to become much more frugal. I'm sure my mum doesn't mind... Um, I digress. After lunch, we met up with Fro before heading to Moonshine where we met Jon & his brother Tim, who we ended up spending the rest of the day with. I joked to Jon saying that out of the three years we've known each other, this was the most we had ever hung out together :P Who would've thought? After Ariff performed, we stayed at the Moonshine tent a little longer (mostly because of the shade) where we enjoyed the musical creations of Narmi, Darren Ashley & Aiqa Halim during the singer-songwriter session, and acoustic sets from Khottal & Busco. I think we spent a good three hours at that tent alone, but they were hardly noticeable - it was one of those rare times in life where you could just sit back and drink in all the amazing, feel-good music.





Half of Khottal. The whole band consists of 15 people!

In between sets. Jon makes his first appearance on my blog! :D



Busco! Formerly Bus Company.

After Busco's set, we made a move towards the main stage just to check out what was happening. It was so cool to see people laying on the grass in front of the stage, chilling to Reza Salleh & Liyana Fizi who were up singing their duet. It was then we realised that Busco was going to perform again in an hour, and since we hadn't eaten since lunch and a lot of the food & drinks at Urbanscapes were a little overpriced, we decided to take a walk to Amcorp Mall to have our dinner. Nothing like McDonalds for a quick, cheap & filling meal :P Nicole & I took that opportunity to make use of their running water and started scrubbing down our legs which were caked in mud. Thank goodness we didn't get any dirtier when we got back to the field, or not that would've been for nothing. Once our tummies were happily stuffed we made our way back to Astaka and made ourselves comfortable on the (thankfully) dry grass in front of the main stage. We got there just as Stonebay was finishing their set, so we had a couplve minutes to chill before Busco went on. They were, as always, kick-ass, and I was so happy (like, squealing-like-a-little-girl kind of happy) when they sang Wurlitzer Whitewash & Hold Your Horses. They are, in my honest opinion, one of the best live Malaysian bands & deserve much more recognition! After Busco, Kyoto Protocol hit the stage. For those who don't know, or haven't heard of Kyoto Protocol - shame on you! They are, for the lack of a better word, electrifying live, and their fans are no exception!


















Fuad: We are, Kyoto -?
Audience: *screams*
Fuad: No, our name isn't Kyoto warghawheewoo! It's Kyoto Protocol. Get it right. For those of you who don't know, there's a sign up there. *points up*



All in all, it was a crazy day of great music, good vibes, and unexpected company (: Urbanscapes 2012, I'm so ready!




Next up: Turning Twenty!