Robin Hood

This campaign to tax banks seems to be one of the best and potentially most successful schemes devised to attack poverty for centuries. The best thing is that it's also more achievable than you'd believe if you just read my first sentence.

Welcome everyone to take a look at this and do join in if you believe in the idea!
Small people change the world!!

www.robinhoodtax.org.uk

請大家看這個網站。我覺得用這個方法來幫助我們國家，我們世界上需要幫助的人真的很棒！

小巨蛋

上次我寫了一個英文blog post, 所以這次我要用多一點中文。
上次我也提到我們在幫助另外一個歌手可是我沒說她是誰因為表演以前沒有辦法。

還好，現在可以跟大家說我們上禮拜六在台北小巨蛋做楊丞琳的演唱會。其實那次是我第一次在一個那麼大的場地表演所以一開始有點緊張但是打完幾首歌就沒問題了。

做完這兩個音樂projects, 我覺得我學到很多東西。唱自己的歌與唱別人的歌就有一個很不一樣的感覺，因為幫助別人我會覺得我要成人之美所以責認比較多，壓力比較大。可是做一個Transition的演唱會還是會讓我最開心因為我們的歌就是我們的創做，唱我們的歌好像與觀眾分享我自己的一部分。如果可以賺人熱淚（不一定真的要苦，換句說，真的鼓力觀眾的朋友）這樣最有成就感！！

Well, that's all true. In all of these experiences I have to say that meeting other artists and musicians has been the highlight. Meeting companies that are trying to make money out of the creativity is quite sad (not that there's anything wrong with making money from music, but there is when the money becomes the first priority, which then has a bad influence on all the people involved and takes the fun out of the creative process, but that's another story... Sony...haha).

Well, I thought I'd post a different kind of picture this time. Here's one from the stage of 巨蛋 when Jerry was singing a song that we weren't playing for!

More and More Concerts!

Having been the drummer for Transition for almost 13 years now you can imagine that I've had the chance to drum in all kinds of unusual settings and all kinds of interesting places. If we were to write our band story I think it would read a bit like a comic or something and probably wouldn't be very easy to believe half of it!

However, drumming that long with the same people in the same band, I've realised it's become easy to take for granted the relationships that we all share in the band (both on friendship terms and in musical terms when we perform together).

Going back a few weeks now, one of the reasons that I haven't written a blog post for so long (here comes another excuse) is because I was invited to drum for two concerts for a Singaporean artist called JJ Lin. I'd heard of him before and actually had been in Taiwan three years ago when he was performing in Taipei arena, so I'd seen his show that time and been quite impressed. As a result I was glad to accept the invitation and start to learn the new songs from his latest album. It was then that I began to realise that drumming in a different band isn't half as 'easy' as drumming in Transition!! The years we've spent working, touring, practicing, performing, praying, eating and sharing life together have formed a kind of unity that isn't easy to come by in a situation where a band is just put together and has just a few weeks to prepare for a show!!

Well, having said that, we still practiced hard, learnt the songs that JJ wanted to perform at the concert and by the time he came to join the practices to check how it was all going (and sing with us) then I think we had things sounding good. Actually, he was a really nice guy and it was easy to tell that he really understood music, had written songs from his own life experience and sang them with real passion.

When it was time for the gigs, I think the whole band was a bit nervous, but we did a good job in the end.
The show in 'Legacy' was celebrating JJ's birthday, as well as being '100 days' since the launch of his album, also called '100 days' and the audience was made up of around 1000 fans who had found a ticket in their album when they bought it!

The second show at Spring Wave in Kenting was more challenging due to a howling gale that was trying to blow us all off the back of the stage. During the first song, the pyromaniacs at the sound desk decided to let of the Roman Candles at the front of the stage, which meant we had sparks being blown into all our faces (and JJ was lucky not to have his hair set on fire). Despite that it made for a great spectacle and the only other wind problem was when a really strong gust blew a cymbal into my face (fortunately I wasn't playing at the time and was able to catch it). Apart from the wind, or perhaps because of the wind, we rocked out even better than at Legacy and I think the JJ show was one of the highlights of the festival there, so it felt great to have been able to do his songs the justice they deserved!!

For now, I and my Transition comrades are working together for a different (more commercial) artist but I think May should see the old trio taking to the stage again to perform the music that comes from deep down in us. I'm looking forward to it.

P.S. Sorry, I would have added a picture or two but my internet crashed everytime I tried to.