THE WANTED – LIVE IN SINGAPORE [REVIEW]

Photo by Amos Wong

Singapore, it does feel like The Wanted are best pals with all of us out here on this tiny little red dot island that we call home, or as some expressive ones will say, once we called home. So much so that it feels like the lads are our nation’s residents already – boy, won’t that make the majority girl fans burst out in heaps of screams and tear-jerking moments, I don’t know what else will. (Or maybe the rumour that the lads of One Direction may be in town sometime next year will probably do the same amount of trick and damage.)

5-4-3-no-2-1: The reason I express so in the first paragraph is substantial – these 5 lads, in their short span of a 4-year strong music career and counting since formation, and 3 years since their debut self-titled release, had visited our nation four times, with the latest as their 1^st time concert in Singapore.

Universal Records also grabbed the opportunity to announce that it was the record label’s debut role playing as concert promoters for a music artiste/group, before presenting each member of the band with a special award. It was noted that Siva Kaneswaran, the tall, modelled and perhaps the most well-liked member of the group (for obvious feature reasons), has relatives here, and spent the preceding day paying respects to some of his loved ones, before partying Saturday night away with the boys in Clarke Quay.

The weekend, 1PM: During the press conference, the boys did appear less engaging and energetic than previous media sessions they had when they were in town, probably from spillage of hangover effects. Besides the awards, they were also handled the platinum status certification plaque for the sales of their album Battleground.

2:30PM: An hour long autograph signing session was next in line, held at revamped shopping mall Bugis+. Some amount of ground-shaking, earth-shattering screams disturbed the normal weekend shopping atmosphere, and the boys were kept busy greeting fans made up mostly of young youths and pubertal girls.

7:30PM: Concertgoers, made up of excited teenagers and their concerned parents, flocked their way eastside, island-wise to the Max Pavilion. Anticipation built up in the air as the fans waited for their idols to invade the stage in the warehouse, industrial-like concert setting.

8:30PM: The show officially kick-started to the most screams for the day, with sing-along tunes “Warzone”, “Chasing The Sun”, “Gold Forever”, and their international smash “Glad You Came” to name a few in the slightly more-than-an-hour long concert. The Wanted generally sounded listenable live, hopefully not through lip-syncing and pre-recorded tapings. That was, with the exception of their Coldplay medley consisting “Viva La Vida”, “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall”, “Fix You” and “Paradise” – let’s just say, some things are better left untouched.

There are things I learnt and reconfirmed about The Wanted this round: I had further noticed how the band often mentioned how short-lived pop music careers are, and the fact that they would not be around forever, in an indirect, unspoken and matter-of-factly kind of way. It seems like we are dealing with a new age, sensitive group of young lads that are factually realistic too. Also, with them and One Direction being the new wave of British pop bands to invade the international music scene and market, it is rather amusing to see that the pop groups of today have no plans to dance for your money – or no choreography plans, and honestly speaking, have pretty awkward or even awful dance moves. This is as compared to the yesteryear bands of *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, S Club 7, 5ive and a whole lot of pop music history. Have pop standards drop, become less demanding or looks are all that matters now? You and I may probably know best the answer.

I think they are coming back again to Singapore in 2013. Why do I have such a sneaking suspicion?

[CJ ANG]

Thanks to Universal Singapore for making this feature possible.