Singer-songwriter David Tao showed off his bilingual skills and promoted his latest album Opus 69 during his concert, David Tao In Space—The Talk and Rock Show in Singapore last week.

Despite the futuristic-sounding name, the concert was centered around the year he was born. A video montage containing the momentous events of 1969—ranging from the Woodstock Festival to Man landing on the moon—opened the show. Tao then came onto the stage, a retro 1980s living room that was designed to look like his home when he was younger.

Backed by a four-piece band, the singer-songwriter avoided the usual flashy Chinese concert route and stuck to his tried-and-tested unplugged best. He began with a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ (1969), with the lyrics slightly modified into “Ground control to major Tao.”  He then dove into songs from his new album, segueing it with Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition.’

While the five-thousand strong crowd enjoyed Tao’s English covers, it was clear that they prefered to listen to his self-written music, particularly songs from his older albums. Often times they were on their feet with light sticks waving when Tao played crowd pleasers such as ‘Ordinary Friends,’ ‘Airport at 10.30,’ ‘Rain’ and ‘Small Town Girl.’

His old songs were also given makeovers with new arrangements, demonstrating Tao’s talent at musical composition. For example, ‘Small Town Girl’ underwent a rock transformation, and ‘A Big Mess’ was backed by the Singapore Young Talents’ Children Choir.

Despite his vocal prowess, Tao shied away from high notes, such as the ones in his popular song ‘Ordinary Friends.’ He was amicable and friendly with the audience and, at one point in singing ‘Find Myself,’ even stood atop the barriers that had been erected in front of the stage to get closer to his audience. He also showed his youthful side when he threw kisses and professed his love to the ladies in the audience.

PHOTOS: Poh Yang Zheng

In line with the theme of the concert, he regaled the audience with stories of his childhood in between the songs, such as how he learned to play the guitar when he was about 12, and took the instrument everywhere he went. “I’d even sleep with it and wake up with lines on my face,” he remembers. In another humorous story, he recalls how “painful” it was for his ears to live in a house where “there was Elvis Presley playing in one room, and my mom singing Peking Chinese opera in the other.”

The hardworking singer played a long set of more than two hours. At the end of the concert, Tao thanked Jesus saying “All this would not be possible and I would not be here if not for Jesus Christ my Savior.”

Overall, the concert was an entertaining production put up by a talented singer that was chockful of charm, vocal chops and surprises.

City Harvest Church had a taste of Japanese superstardom during the Saturday church service on 27 June at Singapore Expo Hall 8, as award-winning game music composer, producer and saxophonist Norihiko Hibino delivered a remixed composition of ‘Elevate’ on the saxophone.The Tokyo-born Hibino, whose video game music scores are critically acclaimed for complex arrangements that fuse classical, jazz, rock and electronica, was in town as one of the star performers at the Video Game Live. His career portfolio includes the Metal Gear Solid game franchise as well as titles in the Yu-Gi-Oh, Boktai, Ninja Blade and Zone of the Enders series. Hibino was also awarded a GANG (Gaming Audio Network Guild) award in 2004 for his work on the MGS 3 single ‘Snake Eater’.

PHOTOS: Cristopher Teh, Daniel Poh

With a degree in human science from Osaka University as well as a degree in jazz composition from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, the affable and polite Hibino says he never thought that game music composing was what he would do as a career. In fact, fan boys might even be dismayed to discover that Hibino is not much of a gamer. His favourite? An old Sega game that uses music and dancing to help the player complete missions.

Hibino first landed a job at a video game company in 1999 through his programming and composing skills. “Video game companies were the only ones who could afford the expensive sound production equipment back then, so that was the only choice for me to start my career.”

Hibino also runs his own audio, animation and film production studio, GEM Impact. And he is the Program Director of an engineering sound production course for Life College in Japan.
Fans of Hibino are privy to his softer side with his latest album Gentle Love, in which the saxophonist covers popular hits like ‘龙的传人‘ to Wang Lee Hom’s ‘Forever Love’.

As the interview concludes, Hibino has one last request.

“I had a lot of fun with ‘Elevate’. I would like to come back to CHC to play again, and maybe compose an original remix of one of the church song. What would the church like to hear?” he asks sincerely.

You can send him your requests via www.norihikohibino.com.

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are professionals in San Francisco who have spent three happy years together without ever meeting each other’s (divorced) parents.

But their bliss runs out this Christmas, when all four parents command their presence, and the couple wind up having to visit all the parents they’ve been avoiding for years — on a single Christmas morning.

The couple’s cell phones start jangling the moment a TV crew shows up at the fogged-in airport where their getaway flight’s been grounded, and before you can say “plot contrivance,” they’re off to see Brad’s dyspeptic bumpkin of a dad (Robert Duvall) and two Neanderthal brothers Kate didn’t know Brad had.

Slapstick ensues — from the tragic installation of a rooftop satellite dish to random acts of stupidity including wrestling tackles in the living room and an infant’s projectile vomiting. This convinces Kate she should really become a mother, naturally.

The first visit is followed by a trip to see Brad’s cradle-robbing mom (Sissy Spacek), who’s shacked up with her son’s best friend. After a bit of strangely fierce board-game playing, the couple zips off to see Kate’s stiff-upper-crust mother (Mary Steenburgen), who drags them to church where they get roped into portraying Mary and Joseph in a Christmas pageant.

Finally they head for the home of Kate’s laid-back but earnest dad (Jon Voigt) for… well, for a rest, apparently, as the four screenwriters have by this time reached the bottom of their bag of tricks and are reduced to repeating that uproarious puking-infant gag a second time.

4 Christmases, directed by Seth Gordon (The King of Kong) is marginally better than most infantile holiday comedies, with a few offbeat comic ideas, a reliably droll performance from Vaughn. Credit must be given to the four estranged parents played by watchable old troopers like Duvall, Spacek, Voight and Steenburgen.

Rating:

SINGAPORE, 19 NOVEMBER 2008 — Winsome threesome The JAS performed for a large crowd for the first time Wednesday night of Asia Conference. Singing an acoustic version of the Jackson’s 5 ‘I Want You Back’, the girls (Joyce, Angie and Sandra – hence “The JAS”) won the hearts of the 20,000-strong crowd. City News caught up with them for a quick tete-a-tete.

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If you came to an interview with The JAS expecting a trio of divas, you’d be more than surprised. Petite in frame, the girls Joyce Tan, Angie Tan and Sandra Foo hold “normal” jobs as a sales executive, journalism student, and stylist respectively.

ShowTime was the very first competition for these girls.

Angie Tan reveals: “We did not participate in ShowTime on our own initiative. Someone believed in us and time and again, created platforms for us and encouraged us to seize opportunities to perform. Little did we know when we submitted our names that we would come this far!”

The girls only practiced a week before their ShowTime audition.

Speaking to them however, it’s not hard to understand why they’ve risen to the top as one of eight of more than 100 contestants in ShowTime. All three have an evident passion for music, and complement each other beautifully

PHOTOS: Daniel Poh

Angie Tan says, ”We each contributed in terms of what we do best — Joyce plays the guitar, I plays the drums and Sandra sings beautifully and is well versed with vocal parts. I attribute the fact that we get along so well together to our being in the same cell group and our individual love for music and dreams of singing and performing.”

What plans does The JAS have after Asia Conference? “Three of us have big dreams of using our talents to inspire and impact others. We’re working adults who love God, love life and want to have a ‘work-dream’ balance — where we work hard in our jobs and at the same time, relentlessly pursue our dream. We hope to take our talents as far as we can — to perform, produce albums, and use our songs to touch others.”

SINGAPORE, 19 NOVEMBER 2008 — Over 250 international pastors and church workers packed a small conference room this afternoon to listen to Kong Hee speak on 10 reasons why church growth is hindered.

The room was so full, there were pastors turned away even before the elective started.

Many were excited, despite the uncomfortable conditions of the conference room.

Ted Fabiyanic, Senior Pastor of City Life Church, Melbourne said, “As a senior pastor, I’m excited to hear what Pastor Kong has to say and his perspective on church growth.”

Kong set the premise of the session by highlighting the importance of building a healthy church, instead of focusing on church growth.

PHOTOS: Jess Chua

“Don’t focus on just growing your congregation; focus on identifying the barriers to growth,” he said.
Throughout the session, Kong gave practical advice on how pastors should overcome issues ranging from a dry spiritual atmosphere in church, to legalism and church structure. Using City Harvest Church as his example, he emphasized the message, rather than the method.

“Ultimately, your people are the message. A good church structure can help facilitate growth, but no structure can bring in the growth.”

After his 30-minute presentation, Kong took questions from the floor and shared his personal experiences.

Each pastor City News spoke to were moved by different points of the message.

Japanese pastor Tomo Aki Sakai says, “What Kong said about re-evaluating traditions and not sticking to programs, was very important. My church is very young, so it’s easy to apply everything that was taught, to my people. But there are many traditional churches in Japan, and I’m going to share what I’ve learned with my friends and other churches.”

South American pastor Cecil Pollydore agrees. The pastor of a church in Beijing’s Central Business District is ready to bring the word back to his congregation.

“It’s important that we not just be mere hearers of the word but doers. Kong has identified very practical tools for those of us who are ministers. So the responsibility is on us to go from here and to begin to review what we’ve been doing and to see how some of what he has shared might be applicable to growing our churches in the future.”

There’s hardly need for any introduction to the phenomenon that is High School Musical . But for the uninitiated, it revolves around the students at East High School and the movie is, well, a musical. Zac Efron plays star basketballer Troy Bolton, Vanessa Hudgens his math whiz girlfriend Gabriella and Ashley Tisdale the resident mean girl, Sharpay.

That’s pretty much all you need to know because none of us are watching High School Musical for its plot. In this third instalment, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Troy and gang are graduating and decide to put up a final stage production. Complications arise when Gabriella is accepted into Stanford University early, and leaves East High. Troy faces the dilemma of pleasing his father instead of following his own dreams and desires. Sharpay meanwhile, gets a personal assistant and is still intent on school domination.

The plot is predictable (and bordering on cheesy) but director-choreographer Kenny Ortega gets things going with brightly colored sets, a catchy soundtrack and high-energy dance routines — the very things that millions of children have loved High School Musical for, since the first movie in 2006.

Disney stars Efron, Hudgens and Tisdale do little more than repeat performances of their stilted acting in High School Musical 1 and 2. But there is little doubt this movie will propel them into a slew of teen flicks catered for the kids who adore them.

Like the stars of the show, High School Musical 3 lacks substance, but is pretty to look at and fun to watch. Plus, parents can heave a sigh of relief, knowing that there’s a movie their children can watch that does not follow Hollywood’s usual teen flick formula of sex and drugs. This movie will do the trick if you’re looking for a two hour long escape from reality.