August 2
Never had my life been more akin to a whirlwind than when I landed at Changi Airport with nothing but a backpack that held two days’ worth of clothes and the barest essentials.
Two weeks before, I had flown to Kuala Lumpur to see The Strokes at a music festival, and we had decided to make it a weeklong family trip. On July 22, it was announced that the rest of the music festival would be canceled after its first day.
The Strokes were headlining the third and final day.
I don’t want to get into it, but let’s just say I’ve prayed for the main loser from The 1975 to trip and fall flat on his face every day since then. I burst into tears in the middle of a mall, trying to come to terms with the fact that my one chance to see this band that has meant the world to me in over 10 years of loving them has just popped like a bubble. The KL trip had been fun, but this was why we were even there in the first place. These were their first Southeast Asia tour dates in their twenty-plus-year-long career, and now one of them had just been taken away by utter stupidity.
I’d come home, gone back to work, and successfully held my tongue from any expletives in front of my coworker who’s a 1975 fan when The Strokes announced a few days later that they were adding a second show in Singapore to make it up to people who were supposed to see them in Malaysia.
It would be insane, right, to spend an exorbitant amount on another concert ticket, another round-trip flight, another hotel (wait, no, not “another,” we literally stayed with my aunt) just for five men in their forties who changed not only rock music in the 2000s but also my life?
Anyway, my flight was in five days.
It was late when I arrived at my hotel in the chic neighborhood of Lavender. I still had a bit of a cold—the whiplash of making all of this happen in less than a week included overcoming a horrible fever that I had to deal with all weekend (with the help of my doting dad <3).
The room was small and windowless, but cozy. I especially loved the black and white Brooklyn-style bathroom of my dreams, with brick-like tiling around the walls and gorgeous floors. I got settled and rested up for the night.
August 3
I didn’t include this day when I filed my leave, so I spent until the afternoon working on my phone—I hadn’t brought my laptop, and I’d made sure to finish the major tasks before I left anyway. I walked around the neighborhood to look for breakfast, and I decided to stock up on food and snacks at 7-Eleven: chicken bolognese, an unagi onigiri, a rainbow chip brownie, and some really good instant mac and cheese in a cup.
It was also the time when “Planet of the Bass” was mega-viral, so I can’t think of this trip without being reminded of it.
I met with Alissa at a coffee shop in Marina Bay Sands before the show and had a lot of fun just talking at length about all kinds of things and getting to know each other better. It was the first time we were hanging out and meeting in person, and I had a great time and I’m always hoping to get to do it again.
Eventually it was finally time for me to go down to the expo hall for the show. I was near the back since I’d waited until the last possible second to go in, and that was just fine by me. As far as venues went, it was pretty cool: huge space, super high ceilings, but the stage was set against the center of it and it somehow felt like an intimate basement show. (Which, well, it kind of was.)
I couldn’t think of a better song to start my Strokes show with than “What Ever Happened?” The title track of Is This It is a classic slow burn, but this was the track you wanted if it was about coming out swinging. The pulse of the beat, the anthem-like declarations of the chorus that made it perfect for shouting along to (I wanna be forgotten/And I don’t wanna be reminded), that rousing solo that signaled this was just the beginning—for the song, and for The Strokes themselves at the time it came out.
I don’t really have a lot of specific memories attached to most of the set list, other than absolutely losing my mind every time they started up and I realized I was hearing them live, but I want to remember every song they played, so I’m listing them here:
- “Bad Decisions”
- “Soma”
- “Juicebox” (of course it was the most cathartic thing ever to scream along with the chorus)
- “Automatic Stop” (I loved swaying to this one)
- “The Adults Are Talking”
- “Take It or Leave It”
- “Under Control” (this is where I finally cried)
- “Reptilia”
- “Call It Fate, Call It Karma” (literally the fourth time they’d ever played it!)
- “Red Light”
- “Someday” (this is where I finally cried pt. 2)
- “Ize of the World”
- “Hard to Explain”
- “You Only Live Once” (truly one of the most flawless songs ever, what can I fucking say)
It’s well-established that The Strokes are absolute monsters live and their performances (the guitars!) are always phenomenal, and it feels so good to finally be able to state it myself firsthand.
I heard the guy in front of me, who’s dancing in all of the footage I took of the night by the way, tell his companion, “They used to just be on TV, and now they’re in front of us,” and as I said in my tweet later when I was reliving the concert in my hotel room: SOBRANG FELT PO, KUYA.
Julian asked Nikolai to say something, and he was so soft-spoken that Julian said he sounded “like the parents on Charlie Brown.” I couldn’t help but think back to 2014, when I was really falling in love with The Strokes for the first time after years of being a casual fan, and they were starting to play shows again and figure out what it means to be in a band together at their current stages in life after all the animosity of Angles and the uncertainties of Comedown Machine and everything else that came before. I would zoom in on a GIF of Julian patting Nick’s back after their Capitol Theater show and get so irrationally emotional like, “See?! They’re friends!” So to witness something as casual and sweet as this, especially between the oldest members who had known each other longest, was doing my head in a little. I’m so glad they’ve made it to a point where all of it doesn’t have to be such a big deal.
Nick grinned so wide at the Charlie Brown comment, and I wished this could be my life every night.
One final anecdote: During “Last Nite,” just before the guitar solo, Julian went, “Introducing! Albert... Hammond... Jr!” (Fab, of course, was being his silly, ever unflappable self the whole time, and I loved seeing them all exchange smiles every now and then.)
I booked a Grab to the hotel. I admired the view as it passed the Helix Bridge, and I couldn’t be happier.
August 4
I still can’t believe I flew to Singapore on basically a whim and took my lightest backpack and flew back home in two days. I would never recover financially. My eye still twitches when I think about what I had to spend because some man was so full of himself that he caused an entire music festival that people planned for months and was the source of multiple livelihoods to be canceled. (Where’s that class action lawsuit? He needs to pay me back.)
But the truth is, it was all worth it. Even if my relationship with this band (particularly its frontman) has grown complicated over the years. I was impressed and touched that the band even chose to do an additional concert at all when they could’ve just shrugged it off, and that they managed to put it all together so quickly. It was nice to know they cared, when their entire brand has been foolhardy indifference. They even mentioned Manila when they said they would be back.
It was a night I’ll never forget, I’d do it again and again if I could, and I got a good story to tell out of it. Even if they didn’t play “The Modern Age” on my show date.
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