you can cut stars.

It was such a wonderful concert and Rachael is all kinds of awesome. She's funny, cool, and talented! And her shows are really energetic and fun at parts and suitably soft and quiet and touching at times. She started the show with Letter Read, a powerful rock out song, and then Collide, which is one of my favorite songs on her EP. The arrangement was slightly different and I must say, I love the live version better. Then it was What If I Leave, a song which I think is on her next studio album, which she mentioned should be released this spring/summer. She went on to explain the basis of the new song and ended up swearing, and then she said something like "I told myself I won't swear during the show, this being Singapore and all, but I also have this policy of being true to myself." Talented, and with a cool personality!

She then went on to play Be Be Your Love. She first played the tune on the piano and most people recognized it straight away and cheered so loud. She was surprised we knew it by the first few notes and told us to sing the first line. I could have sworn almost the whole of the concert hall went "if I could take you away". Okay, maybe not everyone. Did I mention the concert hall was fully packed? I believe it was a sold-out concert.

Honestly, I'm not too sure about the sequence of the rest of the set anymore, but it was something like I wrote above. I knew she was wondering if we knew Would You Please when she started the tune on her guitar since she wasn't sure if the EP was released here, but some guy in the crowd yelled out the title. I was as surprised as she was because (guilty) I didn't recognize the song even though I have the EP. I really didn't know there was even another hardcore fan out there. Didn't think she was as well known here. Me? I knew her way back in 2004. I included one of her songs in my Draco/Hermione fanmix way back then, and I remember debating whether to get her album or to save up for the then upcoming Half Blood Prince book. I bought both in the end. Heh. I suppose her fan base here has been slowly building up. Alright, back to the concert.

She also played Meet Me By The Water, a beautiful song. She went too high on the vocals a few times and she laughed it off. I think she's the only person on earth who can go out off tune and still have people enjoy it. After that song, she made a joke about smoking and points out that's why we should all not smoke and also mention Singapore could use her in a campaign against smoking, given our strong policy against it. She also mentioned the durian (an Asian tropical fruit known for its acquired smell/taste), but she didn't know what it was called. She called it the fruit with the spiky shell or something. I just love her for knowing Singapore like she does. Felt like she really like our little country. She even mentioned she was thinking of getting an apartment here! I suppose she's joking, but how cool would that be? Hee. But she did mention she wanna come back here, so yay!

And there was the powerful Worn Me Down, which she asked us to all sing along to the chorus. That was awesome fun. And then she performed her second new song, Sunday Afternoon. I knew that song was performed live somewhere else before, but I never heard it before. It's now my favorite song. The lyrics are gorgeous (there's blood on my feet as I'm walking away). It started out slow, and slowly rose and ended with head-banging rock. I wish they would release a recording of that soon. It's really amazing!

She left the stage after that but being the pesky audience we are, we demanded ENCORE and she came back out to play Reason Why solo on her piano! Told you she's awesome!

And then it was the autograph session! We literally raced out of the concert hall and across the Esplanade's foyer to the place where they were holding the session because it was only one hour and we didn't want to get stuck at the back of the line. And no, of course we weren't the only ones. There were quite a lot of crazy fans running around. It was crazy. But fun.



She was sweet and cool and amazing and gorgeous. I'm the one in the green Rolling Stones shirt. That's my best friend on the other side. Yes, I know, I should have gotten my contact lens. But this post is about Rachael. Yes. She wore black all over, even black nail polish. Did I mention she was sweet and cool and amazing and gorgeous?

And here's the autographed album cover!