Tuesday, April 29, 2008

BIRTHDAY WITH THE STARS

Enough of Madge basking for now. Her "4 Minutes" single is still being shadowed by Mariah’s "Touch My Body". And she did not even go to number one on Billboard Top 100 Charts! Oh well, it fared better in other charts around the world (e.g. UK). She’s a Brit-ish now. Y’all should listen to some of her interviews. She injects some Brit-ish slang here and there and its absolutely hilarious! And then Madge would just continue conversing in Detroit slang. ROTFLOL!

New blog update. Well, not that new. Its just that I had to find time to write it.

19th March 2008 was a big day for me. It’s a big day for me every year. IT’S MY FRIGGIN’ BIRTHDAY! Some years, I would just sit home quietly moping the fact I am getting older by the years and not getting any wiser and whilst some years would be a blast. This year was certainly a blast! I got to celebrate it with a whole bunch of artistes including All-4-One! Some of you might say, All-4-One? What a passé group. The question is, how many of you get to celebrate your birthday with even the most passé artistes? Besides All-4-One, I got to sing with the lovely Camelia and grooved to Reshmonu. I even rubbed shoulders with Joey G (Channel V celeb VJ). Yes, self gratification here (insert jeer!).

I happened to enter an email contest in the SUN newspaper (at the 11th hour, I still remember it was 11:40pm on the night of closing date for entries) whereby the participants had to answer a couple of questions pertaining to ING and the weekend of F1 and create a slogan with their “I’m on track for success” tagline.

I did not expect to win as they only had 3 pair of grand prizes of VIP tickets for an ING sponsored VIP party with the chance to mingle with All-4-One. The party was just a sneak peek of the real street party on the weekend of the F1 Grand Prix race in Sepang.

I got a call from the event management company couple of days before the party and I was just elated! Wow! A close friend PT who entered the contest also won. Double WOW! All we need to do is to pick some one to go along to the party. It was like winning a Survivor challenge and you had to pick someone to go with you for treats. PT picked his boss, Dimmy whilst I chose a lady friend of the same age, Jennie to accompany me. Dimmy and Jennie were not into the “chase the stars for pictures and autographs”. They just wanted to chill with the crowd and have some drinks to wind down. And the very next day was a public holiday for the country (Prophet Mohd’s birthday).

I had no time to re-memorise the lyrics of those All-4-One songs but managed to dug out a CD single of “I Swear” and a their 1st album for autographing purposes.

The day came, I was still excited and delighted. Told almost everyone I know where I was going and it had to pour big time in KL. What? My hair (like I had a lot), and makeup will be ruined! (insert canned laughter).

Met up with my friends and had dinner at a middle eastern restaurant just round the strip of Pulse Ultra Club (Grand Millennium Hotel) where the event was held.

The restaurant’s called Tarbush. It was a different kind of a dining experience. Very middle eastern. It has lovely walls to ceiling glass fittings. Now, some comments on the food, well, let’s put it this way, it is either you love it or you hate it kind of thing. And I ain’t telling my rating. One’s got to try it to savor the sweet smelling cheese (hmmmmm), mutton and weird looking vegetables, and then only judge for themselves.

Right after dinner, close to 9pm, we headed to our place of destination. At the entrance of Grand Millennium Hotel two very leggy ladies were ushering in guests for the party. More leggy ladies dressed in ING corporate colour were seen at the entrance to Pulse Ultra Club. LOVELY…just LOVELY! Did I mention that it was my birthday too?



We entered the club, greeted like VIPs. Given a huge goodie bag that includes a leather wallet, an ING F1 miniature race car key chain, a 2GB miniature F1 race car flash drive, a cap and a screw. You’d be wondering what the screw is for. It was just a marketing gimmick whereby photographers unleashes their shutters on us while we pretended to insert the screw to a board that represented the Sepang circuit.











Then it was champagne time. I drank loads of champagne and had some hors d'oeuvres. We just hung around took more pictures. Drank more. Booked a good seat in front of the stage to watch the performance. Met up with Joey G of Channel V. He was the emcee for the show. He’s a cool fella.





Some bigshots showed up and sat a reserved table right in front of us. Among them were ING Insurance Bhd chairman Tengku Abdullah Sultan Abu Bakar and his wife Cik Puan Bendahara Datuk Habibah Datuk Yusoff (I think it is the same Hibabah Yusoff who used to be on TV3!) , ING Insurance Bhd president/CEO Dr Nirmala Menon and Dutch ambassador Lody Embrechts.

The performances began with Camelia. She sang mostly English songs with a pulsating and continuous twists to all, including her hit single, “Seiring Sejalan” (the Club Mix). It was excellent. She invited the audience to sing along with her. She descended from the stage and pushed the mike to a lot of people including yours truly who obliged (and even hogged it for a while) and got a good firm hug from her. LOVELY!!!

As yours truly was still high from the hug, there was an intermission whereby I had some Vodka Limon, before Grammy Award R&B group All-4-One ascended. Imagine the deafening cheers! They sang some of their lesser known hit songs (including a take on some Stevie Wonder classics and 2 new songs from their upcoming album) and left the ever, ever popular song you hear in all weddings “I Swear” till the end! It was excellent. They still have it. We all just sang along to it like one huge extended family!


We were a tad disappointed that we did not meet the main drivers of the ING F1 team (Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr), only Brazillian Lucas Di Grassi, ING Renault F1 Team’s third driver was present.

After All-4-One’s performance. They stayed a while to aknowledge their fans and the bigshots. Some took the opportunity to get their CDs autographed.

PT and I managed to meet them personally at a dining hall behind the staging area where they were resting. They were warm and obliged to all our requests (autograph signing and picture taking sessions). In addition we even managed to mingle and chit-chatted with them about their upcoming projects. Awesome!






In the midst of all that, Reshmonu was performing on stage singing his hit songs including “Hey Waley” and “Superfine”.

We had this kind of ALL access tag that enabled us to go anywhere. That was amazing!

After Reshmonu ended his performance, he dancefloor was opened. As we carpooled, we left early and savoured the night that we had.

Oh! What a night…..A big thanks to ING!

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