Culturally Preconditioned

OMFG Stereophonics in Singapore!

From : MTV ASIA

Stereophonics Live In Singapore!

March 12, 2008
Singapore - LAMC Productions is pleased to announce that the highly acclaimed U.K. alt rockers Stereophonics will perform at Fort Canning Park on April 28, 2008

Stereophonics have had six consecutive albums debut at No. 1 on the U.K. charts including their latest release Pull the Pin!

$85 Early bird tickets will go on sale at Sistic starting March 17. Standard priced tickets will be $95 from April 1 – 27 and $105 on the day of show (excluding Sistic fee). All tickets are standing general admission.

Holy shit on ice! The Stereophonics are finally coming to this part of the world!!! YES YES YES!!!!!! But I can’t help but wonder if it’s a little too late for the Phonics to spread their wings in Asia. I have to admit that as much as I’m one of their biggest fan in this region, they’ve somewhat lost momentum for their past two albums.

I was hooked on them when I first listened to their Local Boy in the Photograph single from one of those freebies CD samplers from Q magazine. And I was a loyal supporter ever since! Their first album, Word Gets Around, is definitely on my all-time Top 5 favorite music albums ever. It’s simple, it’s raw.. but most importantly, there are ZERO love songs on that album. I remember actually voting for them to win the Brit Awards for Best Newcomer, which they did. It was an amazing victory, cause I didn’t think that many people liked them back then.

Local Boy in The Photograph is a fucking classic song. Of course our own local TV3 had to fucking butcher the song by playing the shitty video over and over again till most every one got sick. I blame TV3 for their failure to gain fans here.

Remember that video? Yeah, even I can’t fathom seeing it for more than two times in a row. The song still kicks fucking ass though. I remember buying tickets to their first ever home coming concert in Cardiff (Cwmaman Feel The Noize), only having to forsake it because I had an exam that day. Grrrr..

And Traffic will FOREVER be Stereophonics’ best anthemic song ever.

Their follow up album, Performance and Cocktails, were highly anticipated - following their recent win in the Brit Awards.

Isn’t that cover awesome? So fucking awesome that I actually went down to London to the exact photo location at a football pitch and took a picture there. LOL… how stupid was that? The songs on this album are absolutely orgasmic. Seriously. Personally, I think this was their absolute peak in the music biz.

Personally, I loved Hurry Up and Wait

But Just Looking.. this anthemic song is right there behind Traffic.

And of course, there’s Pick A Part (That’s New).. in which I actually won a competition and received a studio released video recording of this track. Awesome, awesome, awesome. The vid’s a take on The Italian Job, by the way.

I was lucky enough to catch them in Manchester (got into the mosh pit, no less.. it was fantastic!) during their Performance and Cocktails tour just before graduation.

Just Enough Education to Performed followed shortly. By this time I was back in Malaysia, where possibly only 5 people cared enough to knows who the Stereophonics was. So much so that I had to order the CD from amazon.co.uk. The first single pissed off a lot of music reviewers (yeah listen to Mr Writer and you’d know why).. the video is pretty awesome though.

But the only really good song that I liked from this album (and probably one of their best releases so far), was the Rod Stewart cover of Handbags and Gladrags - most of you would recognize this song as the background track to The Office. I fucking loved this song, and this video… well it’s basically just the band singing.

By the time their fourth album, You Gotta Go There To Come Back, was released.. I kinda lost interest. The only songs that’s worth mentioning from this album are Since I Told You It’s Over, Getaway and Maybe Tomorrow (which was featured in the rolling credits of the award winning movie - Crash).

Their fifth album - Language, Sex, Violence, Other - was a return to form - indicated by their first #1 UK single - Dakota. Love it. This was a pretty good album, but I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t know what the Phonics have done in the past.

And finally, their sixth album, released last year - Pull The Pin. Well I have to admit that I didn’t really give a shit as to what’s on this album.

HOWEVER, the Phonics always sound excellent live on stage. THE STEREOPHONICS ARE THE BEST LIVE ACT EVER. So.. shitty releases aside, I am soooo planning on catching them live in Singapore next month. Let’s just hope they’ll focus 90% on their earlier works. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.. *orgasm*