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Baybeats 2015: The Mixtape report

It’s probably no surprise that in a year of remembrance, particularly one that has shone the spotlight on the folks who have contributed to making our country what it is today, the 2015 edition of The Esplanade’s Baybeats festival should play its part in the SG50 celebrations too.

It’s probably no surprise that in a year of remembrance, particularly one that has shone the spotlight on the folks who have contributed to making our country what it is today, the 2015 edition of The Esplanade’s Baybeats festival should play its part in the SG50 celebrations too.

While this year’s Baybeats had its usual serving of budding artistes, hot bands and new regional favourites, the 13-year-old alternative-rock festival also highlighted — and in some cases, reunited — popular bands from the past through Baybeats Mixtape, in a new performance area designated as The Lawn, situated outside Makansutra food court and next to the Powerhouse stage.

Awakening Productions and Rockstar Collective, led by two veterans of the music scene, John Chiong and Razi Razak, respectively, had collaborated with The Esplanade for the first six editions of this annual free music festival (from 2002 to 2007) and, once again, eight years later, the duo recreated that pioneering era with a mini-exhibition, a video document as well as performances by Baybeats alumni TypeWriter, Surreal and The Fire Fight.

To complete the picture, each band was invited to collaborate with an artiste from the current generation of bands. Typewriter mixed it up with musician Esther Lowless, indie-rock favourite Caracal’s frontman KC Meals jammed with Surreal, while Benjamin Kheng of The Sam Willows took the stage with The Fire Fight.

And they fulfilled their roles with aplomb. It was clear that the audiences on each Baybeats Mixtape night were made up of age-appropriate fans (reliving a special time in their lives, perhaps), but there were younger fans too, getting their first taste of what the Singapore rockers of past and present had to offer.

Friday’s Mixtape session kicked off with TypeWriter, a band that is still very much a going concern, and formed around the core of former Ordinary People frontman Yee Chang Kang on guitars and vocals, Electrico’s Desmond Goh on bass and The Oddfellows’ Patrick Chng on guitars. The band performed new tracks such as Everything Is Classified and Gentle Wind (taken from their coming new EP) as well as songs from their back catalogue. Once again, Typewriter ably demonstrated their relevance with their rhythmic arrangements.

“We all like Esther Lowless’ vibe and musical sensibilities, and thought it’d be interesting to collaborate with her especially on our new material,” Chng said of their duet before the festival. Their performance with Esther, who provided an essential distaff element that worked especially well on Gentle Wind thanks to its retro-pop vibe, certainly was something everyone there appreciated. The question now is: Will the band do more? One can only hope.

Meanwhile, indie rockers Surreal (for whom Chiong plays bass) brought the house down on Saturday night with their familiar melodic power and rhythmic crunch. Nostalgic punters sang along to fan favourites such as The Proposal Song and Hold Me in a show that conjured memories of the first time they performed at the very first edition of Baybeats way back in 2002.

As expected, the performance with Caracal’s singer, KC Meals, was a competent affair. Meals also recounted the time when he had been headlocked by security for body-surfing at A Vacant Affair performance at Baybeats in 2005, then said he was fulfilling a personal dream by singing with Surreal before diving into the crowd.

Reserving perhaps the best for last, The Fire Fight closed Baybeats 2015 on Sunday with an energetic and emotional performance that had many in the tight venue grinding away. The band, which broke up a year after releasing their highly acclaimed debut album Henri, showed they could still kick out the jams, with songs such as Candela and Fires At Night eliciting whoops of joy from fans as the years rolled away.

Current indie music heart-throb Benjamin Kheng took his place alongside his heroes, but the focus remained on the band, which were rapturously received once more into the hearts of those present. And when they delivered the almost-exuberant track The Train Song at the end, the emotional intensity had reached fever pitch, with the band and audience joining as one, shouting lustily in unison. Indeed, The Fire Fight had the power of rock music demonstrated in flesh and blood.

Of course, Baybeats 2015 was not only about nostalgia. There was much to savour at this year’s edition, in particular the festival-defining appearances of Riot !n Magenta (which highlighted what a special talent the band had in singer Eugenia Yip aka Ginny Bloop) and Caracal (which easily blew away the biggest crowd of the night at the Powerhouse stage). The budding bands were just as impressive. The genre-bending musicality of Cadence, defiantly punk Knightingale and highly promising Theodora provided ample evidence that Singapore’s indie scene has potential.

The three-day music festival once more was a great showcase of the nation’s indie scene, one that is fast developing beyond its original ambit. But perhaps, the closing lyric of The Fire Fight’s The Train Song could be used as an apt summation of this year’s Baybeats: “It always should be like this.”

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