Something was definitely wrong with this trip.
I can't put my finger on it, but there was too much bad vibes and craziness happening to a number of us for it to be just coincidence. Perhaps there was hoodoo-voodoo madness abound. Definite bad mojo vibes. You could sense it. It was no fault of the organizer or the gig or Singapore. We put on a decent show, all was good. But there was just something... wrong.
Here is a run-down of the bad hoodoo:
1. Jelly Legs & Freaky Fingers
Soundcheck seemed alright with Triple 6 Poser, even though I could sense the bad mojo subconsciously. On stage, it happened. The second I started playing my legs went weak, turning into strange gelatinous forms. And whilst my legs decided to be all loosey-goosey, my fingers decided to take a cue from AC/DC and turn themselves hard as a rock. The digits that extended from my palms froze up, cramped, refused to cooperate. It felt like I was playing guitar on stage for the first time and it was an odd and disturbing sensation.
2. Un-Kickability & Vocal Lethargy
It turns out, I wasn't the only one with strange happenings on stage to ruin our mojo - the kick pedal seemed to constantly un-screw itself from the drum kit, screwing up Ian's drumming during Triple 6 Poser and Paul's during Y2k. And both Saiful and Eddy experienced the same problem on stage - the inability to catch their breath on the first song. Remember, in both bands both vocalists have sung these songs a hundred times, yet here they both are, unable to perform to their full potential. Neither could explain why, but both experienced the exact same thing.
3. Physical Pain
If performance playing problems weren't enough, a member from each of my bands went through some form of physical pain - Saiful twisted his ankle in front of the venue as he walked towards it by tripping and Henry experienced very severe gastric pains.
4. Hostel Humiliation - a review of BugisBackpackers
We stayed at this place called BugisBackers (link in the title above). The website already seemed a bit odd due to the fact that there were no pictures of the dorms, no full list of facilities and no way to book via phone - you had to book by e-mail. But it had one saving grace - it was very close to the venue so we wouldn't have to get a taxi to bring our guitars to the venue. But after what happened, it seems that whilst location, location, location are the most important things when picking a piece of property to purchase, it is nowhere near as important ashospitality when it comes to choosing a place to stay on a trip to another country.
When we got there I already felt a bit bad for choosing the place - whilst other hostels in Singapore offer a host of services, this one was stripped to its basics. Forget free internet and towels, you don't even get a padlock for your locker (which kind of defeats the purpose of having a locker in the first place). By the reception was a list of rules that wouldn't look amiss in a concentration camp. But things seemed friendly enough (at first) so we didn't complain.
After the gig we came back at around 10ish to drop off our guitars before going out for dinner. As Eddy walked up to his bunk he was surprised to find that his bunk had been stripped of its linen. The way this hostel works is, if there's no linen, the bed is available and when you check in you get your linen. We searched around the hostel for the receptionist/manager but she was nowhere to be found (for some reason, the person that runs the place only comes in at certain hours, whereupon she reviews the CCTV security camera tapes to see if anyone has broken the rules. We saw her telling off one of the patrons for using the breakfast facilities before he had checked in as well as entering when he shouldn't have entered, or something. Personally, I don't blame the guy. He arrived in the country late and there was a coffee machine). Eddy decided 'fuck it' and we made our way out to eat and view transvestites.
When we came back, it was straight up Goldilocks - someone was sleeping in Eddy's bed.
Technically, it's not the guy's fault - there was no linen on the bed, how was he supposed to know? Still unable to find the receptionist and badly in need of sleep since his bus was leaving at 8 in the morning, Eddy slept on the sofa and asked me to sort it out in the morning and get a refund.
The next morning I approached the receptionist. She asked, politely and concerned in a motherly manner, what happened last night since she saw the tapes and saw that Eddy slept on the sofa in the living room. I told her what happened, how Eddy was not happy with what had happened, whereupon she at first tried to make it seem like it was Eddy's fault for not shooing the person away, then tried to skew it into someone else who wasn't a staff member of the hostel. Both of these 'excuses' were deflected with logic, but she was adamant that it couldn't have been the staff.
She was then adamant that no refund could be made because 'technically' Eddy had used the facilities of the hostel to sleep when he slept on the sofa. I told her he paid for a bed, not a sofa. She wouldn't budge. We argued some more. She still wouldn't budge. Logic, eithics, the basics of the hospitality industry, she was having none of it and said that if Eddy would like to discuss it further he can come down to discuss it with her personally.
There are a hundred and one derogatory terms for the female of the species in my mental vocabulary, but it may cause my blog to appear on google searches by perverts, pimps, dog lovers and butchers.
5. And That's Not All
On top of that, there were a number of weird negative things happening: Ian got intensely stressed out and wanted to jump onto the first bus back and Paul was feeling the same, a bunch of the guys missed their train to Singapore and had to plead their way through and a whole bunch of other things happened that I am not at liberty to type out for the public to view. Believe me when I say this: there was nothing wrong with the gig or with Singapore. We love coming down to play in Singapore and the organizer always puts in a 110%. But there was just something wrong with the trip, like a bad vibe hanging over us and screwing up our mojo.
I just hope it's not what I think it is.
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