Music as the mean to the end!!!

21st Oct was almost a crazy day of gigs for Void. We had a gig in the morning at Pioneer Secondary and a gig in the evening at Lakeside Family centre. It turned out just as Sharon has warned us, a tiring day of gigs.

Pioneer Secondary School Gig
The gig at Pioneer was just like the gig at Juying secondary that we did on 19th October except that we have to reach pioneer at 6.45am. Crazy!!! I stayed at GCTC with Dan, Dotz and Grace the previous nite, so that we could share cab to travel to the concert venue. We woke up at 5.30am that morning.

Everything went smoothly from setup to soundcheck. The Acoustic of the place was much better than Juying secondary. Before we knew it, the concert was over and we were travelling back to GCTC to rest for the evening gig.

Resting at GC plus meeting Bangs and Sara....
We reached back at GCTC at 12.30pm. We were tired and sweaty. I immediately ran up to take a shower and Gosh!!! it was so refreshing. I met up with Sara, Manson and Daniel to discuss about the new Forerunner band. Sara as the Forerunner artist developer was so encouraging. We had a great time discussing and brainstorming about what this new band will be and how it can be developed. I will post in a separate blog about this new band that i will be playing in.

Lakeside Family Centre Gig
When i reached the place, i was kind of shocked that there wasn't any stage around, all we had was a corner of the cafe which act as our "stage". Check out the photos above. I was telling sharon that the cafe reminded me of our gig we did in the church in Thailand with Override.

We set-uped very fast and we were served a very delicious dinner. I was very tired and was praying for Strength from God. God was speaking to me in my heart and reminded me of what i went throught back in TURT: My love for God's work/people must be greater than music. Wow!!! The next thing i knew was that i was energised again. I wanted so much to go out to connect with the boyz who came down to the cafe. That was when i met two boyz who were introduced to me by Chee Wee( the volunteer at Lakeside family centre). He told me that the boyz(Fa shun and Jun shan) were aspired to be guitarist too. So i spent time connecting with them. They were very nice....at 1st they were quite shy and not willing to tok too much, but when the common ground was established, they became more responsive.

The concert started smoothly, like any other gig but the stage was very close to the audience and i felt abit uncomfortable. The audience wasn't as much as the assembly crowd of few hundreds. The turnout was about 20plus, mostly boyz age from as young as Pri 1 to poly. Standing behind them was all of our FR staffs. Like usual, they were absolutely encouraging especially Pat and Sharon. They were the energy food that i fed on....

I could see that the boyz was quite blown away by my guitar solo which i played in the gameshow. This part require me to shred my guitar. What i did was just simply my finger exercises.

Bloppers
Alot of bloopers happened that nite...haha!!! 1stly for the Father and son skit that we did, I went up to act without my mike....Thank God that i reacted fast to quickly glab the mike just in time. 2ndly, after the last song, i knocked Dotz on her head with my epiphone by accident becos the place was too clamp liao.

After the show
The boyz came up to me after the last song and wanted to talk to me. Then came another boy Aaron who was also very interested in guitar. So i sat down with them to share with them abit of my guitar knowledge. I let them play my epiphone and i could see that they were really appreciative and they could feel my sincerity in making friends with them. We chatted for quite sometime until we have to tear down.

When i was doing tearing down and packing up, they were still hanging around and Aaron came up with the flyer and want my autograph, so the other two followed. Hmmm... I saw this as and opportunity to invite them personnally to the 30th Full Evangelical concert. I wrote a personal message on their individual flyer, plus i gave them my guitar picks and told them that these would be our promise to see them in the concert. They were happy and excited as they helped us with the load up of equipments.

My personal feelings
Playing good music has been always my dream. Joining Forerunner ministry playing for Void and override has already made my dream come true. However, i find connecting with people and making an impact in their lives through music is much much more satisfying. I am someone who dunno how to express myself...i have no gift of the gap either and further more, i am not those people that can simply go up to stranger to tok. However, using music to build the credibility has allow me to break all the ices....I dun have to tok in circle but just simply straight to the point telling them that Jesus loves them, is enough!!! Wow!!!

There is nothing as satisfying as loving God's people and doing God's work. Like what Pat told me, " music can be a very mean master, but it could be a very good slave". Music is a mean to the end but not the end.