I drove to Shah Alam early enough that day, on the heels of my arrival back to Kuala Lumpur from Penang. I had a bunch of friends with me and we lined up hours before the gate even opened for us. Fortunately, I had a bigger group of friends there to keep us company and we had a pretty good time sitting there, making our banners.
I need not discuss the other bands performing as I specifically went for 30 Seconds To Mars, an all time favourite. I honestly still can't believe that I saw them live. Eep.
We managed to make our way up to the front of the crowd by opening up Kyren's pack of cigarettes and passing around free cigarettes to the Malay rempits around us. They took one look at the cigarettes and ushered us to the front. Honestly, the Malay rempits there were really fun guys. :D When Beast came on, all of us were jumping around and headbanging, acting like Beast was some metal band until we realized that one of the Malay dudes actually knew all of the lyrics and was singing along. In Korean. Stunned, we stood there until Beast left and the guy subsided.
Kyren and I looking identical.
Most of the guys also noticed the huge board I was carrying and asked to read it. It said, HUG ME, JARED LETO on one side and on the other, JARED, MARRY ME.
Rempit: Takpe ah, I percaya he akan kahwin you.
Me: Betul? In that case, bila I kahwin I jemput you datang.
My sisters and I have attended almost twenty concerts from KL to Singapore and the Philippines, so we had plenty of experience moving between people and surreptitiously forcing our way to the front. We had lots of fun talking to the people around us and just enjoying the music and atmosphere. And then 30 Seconds To Mars came onstage.
As a huge fan of theirs, I was singing along from beginning to end. It was amazing! Everyone knew all of the words and I was surrounded by other 30STM fans so it felt completely electrifying. My guy friends took turns to carry me on their shoulders so that I could get an amazing view and I feel deeply indebted to them.
However, one person who deserves a special mention here is my fabulous sister, Sam. She was the one who got my Worldstage tickets and who wheedled my dad into allowing us to drive back early from Penang (where we had our annual family reunion) so that we could attend this. She wouldn't have minded missing it except that she knew how much it would mean to me to be able to catch 30 Seconds To Mars live. While we were watching them perform and my guy friends were too tired to carry me up (we were in line for more than six hours AND the concert had gone on for another six) so she insisted that I allow her to carry me.
Mind you, the girl may be taller than me, but she's a lot lighter and skinnier. Obviously, I'm not going to allow her to carry me. So I ignored her and continued singing along to 'The Kill'. All of a sudden, I felt myself go up in the air. I looked down to see her grinning at me. "I don't care how I'm doing it, but you're gonna watch Jared Leto live if it kills me or not!" she told me fiercely. "Besides, I can see Shannon Leto from here and you're too short to see shit." I blinked back tears.
I can't really go into detail about the 30STM performance. It was absolutely brilliant. All of us were standing there, hands in the air, fingers forming the Triad, the lyrics flowing from our open mouths. I don't think I'll ever forget this.
Later, Aaron and I made our way to the nearest 7-Eleven, which was so full as to be overflowing with people. It took us almost half an hour to get to the counter. While in the line, I had to deal with a creepy dude staring at my tattoo and talking about the time he got drunk and had a Playboy tattoo done on his forearm. Aaron and I started mouthing at each other to hurry up. The guy in front of us took pity on the two of us and loudly started a conversation with us, drowning out the creepy dude's voice.
And all of this is why I attend concerts whenever I can.
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