yesterday was the 1st of october.it wasn't really a special date or anything but on 1st october 2004,a certain alicia keys came to malaysia and i was there for the performance.maybe for someone from manhattan attending an alicia keys concert is not that big a deal but from my personal point of view,considering all the difficulties that i had to endure,it was something to cherish.
promotion for the concert was made about a month ago and although the desire was there but uncertainty played a bigger role.as of the morning of september 30th,i had no tickets,no car and only a vague plan on how to get to kl.but as many times before, I’ve always managed to achieve my objective.
to start off,i didn't have any mates to go with.seriously,u can't ask ur male frens to go with u to an alicia keys concert.that is so not right.for band concerts yes but solo r&b female artiste?na'ah.big no no.concerts like these,u gotta have a female companion.n the only female companion that i can think of n as excited as I am about the concert was zalina.but she said she had plans to go with her fren from seremban.alright fine.nothing much i can do about that.then 1 day she had a change of heart and told me that she would prefer to go with a UTP mate.guess who jumped on the bandwagon?
so,we started to make plans.this was earlier in the week.around monday or tuesday.nway,the first prob was the tickets.we didn't have any.and they are only sold at kl and penang.bummer ain't it?as sasa was also eager to join the club,we decided to ask for her help in purchasing those tickets.but she was only starting a new job that week so time was tight.weird isn't it?she had loads of time before but i had no favors to ask her whatsoever then suddenly one pops up and she was becoming a career woman. a tease of fate?u tell me.however,i asked for her help anyway.unfortunately though,time was truly scarce and she reached the ticket counter at the actor's studio in bangsar at 7pm.the counter closed at 6.30.from the tone of her voice when she called me to tell me the bad news i can tell that she was even more frustrated than I was.things didn't look good and i had to find someone else to help me out.i couldn't bother my parents as they were busy preparing for zurich.my sister had no car.haih..then suddenly a name came to mind.my paisan who i could always rely on whenever I’m in trouble...carlo gambino.but i had to transfer the money 1st to his bank account and that required a bit of effort as i had to ask another favor from tomok to hitch me a ride to maybank batu gajah.good news finally came at thursday 11.30pm when the purchase of the tickets was confirmed.only then could i plan properly with zalina.
we set off from UTP the next day at 1pm.throughout the journey to kl i could think of was the time the trip would take and the obscene kl traffic at dusk that awaits us.we reached at my home around 4.rest,mandi and makan semua till about 6.i thought that was about enough time to get us there.how wrong I was.apparently my plan of collecting the tickets from gambino on the way to sasa's house proved to be a huge mistake.the journey from gombak to ampang then to pantai dlm had enabled me to experience nearly all the crawl of death of kl. ampang itself was already a hassle.then frm jln ampang to the outskirts of klcc to the haunting bulatan pahang..it was truly a driver's nightmare.add in myself,an auto-transmission kind of person driving zalina's manual satria,it gets worse.i think i pulled a muscle on my left leg.zalina even fell asleep.couldn't really blame her.i would've done the same too. The traffic was that hideous. the plan was to get to sasa's house by 7.singgah at her place for a while,make acquaintance with the parents n then leave.it turned out we arrived at sasa's at 8.40 and i made contact with the parents only on the way to the loo.2 1/2 hours of traffic could do that to u.but somehow,lady luck finally smiled upon us and the journey to stadium negara only took about 15 minutes.as people had already gone inside, there weren't much traffic outside of the venue. so parking was quick..but expensive (no surprises there).as we were in a hurry there was no time to argue so i just paid the man 5 bucks.when we finally entered the stadium,miss keys just came out performing her 1st song.we just got there in time.and for the next 2 hours we were presented with a musical spectacle.for the cheapest seating i'd say we had a pretty good view of her.it was probably the fact that the stadium was not really that big so everyone had a good view.and i had ample space at my seatings.which was good.
the show was upbeat all the way except for butterfly(one of my high points) and if i ain't got u.she was always improvising her songs (as many r&b artistes tend to do esp in alicia's case where she writes her own songs)so the crowd weren't really able to sing along.so they scream.which is kind of annoying.but to me the best part was when she climbed on to her piano in a very sexy and seductive kind of way.but i couldn't make out the song.becoz the crowd was once again screaming.i guess i was too.but then again,who wouldn't?she came back for an encore.3 times i think.that was really nice.but when the show really ended i couldn't help myself from feeling very proud n satisfied.after all the trouble,we finally made it to the concert.alll in the nick of time.zalina drove me back home before heading off back to sasa's.
eventhough i was left all alone in my house last nite, that didn't stop me from falling soundly asleep.smiling...
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