Daily Archives: 16 April, 2008

The whole thing started about a month ago, when Your Highness send me an unexpected SMS, and asked me if I want to watch Celine Dion’s concert in KL, called “Taking Chances”.

To be honest, I am not really a fan of Celine Dion. I fancy some of her songs (those that I can identify as hers, anyway), but not to the extent of being a groupie. But I thought it will be a moment of history of Celine, as this will be her first (and most likely her last) concert at this part of the world. Also, I needed a break from the mundanity that is Singapore. Plus, a weekend with Your Highness can only be interesting. So after some consideration, I said yes and began to make the arrangement.

It was a decision I am very, very grateful to have made.

The concert was off to a bad start, when it got rescheduled as Celine fall ill during her tour in Australia. Nevertheless it was indeed a blessing in disguise, as I managed to be around during the visits of some big bosses, and Your Highness has an extra few days to do his thesis.

The concert was held at Stadium Merdeka – which, in my opinion, was a rundown, ill-maintained venue that will do little good for a world-renowned diva like Celine to have her concert. Nevertheless her fans turn up in drove! As I queued up to collect my tickets and then to the entrance to our seats (a process that took no less than two hours), I gathered that there were fans from Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines etc in attendance that night.

Once we got into the stadium, it was more than another hour of wait before the concert got started. The whole royal family was there too – but I was cringing in embarrassment as the crowd around me boo-ed loudly as the emcee announced the arrival of the king and queen. Obviously the tension from the recent Malaysian election was still very much in the mind of my fellow countrymen.

Not that I really care one way or another, but still…

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So I made it. To be part of the history made in Kuala Lumpur.

When I got to know the event on Facebook, I was very excited as I have come across these improvisation “pranks” before and thought they are wayyyy cool. So much so that I blogged quite a bit about my upcoming participation in the one in KL.

A few days prior to my departure to KL, I posted some comments on the wall on the Facebook page. The organiser of the event, a cool guy named Zain, then private messaged me:

“I am putting together a team of camera man. And from there all the videos will be compiled and we will make an ‘official’ for youtube. Let me know if you’re and your friend are interested to be part of it. We are all meeting at 1pm not far from the Gathering Point which I will reveal tonight.”

At first, I wanted to be a part of the actual freeze, so I asked my travel buddy (henceforth nicked as Your Highness for reasons only known to him and I, hehe) to take the videos instead.

He agreed, but on the actual day things didn’t went as planned. Your Highness had to tend to his own stuff so I went to the event on my own. In retrospect, that was a great decision – I got the bird eye view of the entire freeze (more on that later), and he got to catch up with an old friend.

So I made my way to Lot 10, which was the gathering point where all the “agents” were supposed to gather. I was there slightly early, so I witnessed how hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life gathered in groups throughout Lot 10. We looked at each other and smiled, knowing that we were the “freezers”.

The excitement was palpable, and I couldn’t stop grinning.

The throngs of people spread out on various levels at Lot 10

I met up with some of the organiser team, who later told me where I am supposed to be stationed at. All agents were given a little orange slip of paper, with instruction to freeze at 3.35 p.m. for exactly 4 minutes. Later on I also found out that there were different locations specified, as the turn out was too huge for the one spot at the freezing point to accommodate everyone.

Imagine that!

The freezing point was at Pavilion, which is a new, large shopping mall about five minutes walking distance away from Lot 10. As the 100s of agents made their way to Pavilion, other passerbys looked on in amazement. I guess Lot 10 has never been this crowded before.

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