geek in the pink rocks my socks

Cue screaming and gushing: I LOVE Jason Mraz! And Toca Rivera!

But first, a paragraph to the opening act: The UnExpected are a quartet consisting of two guitars, one bassist, and a violinist. Which obviously makes them quite a rarity in Singapore's rock band scene. They started off with "Paddy McCarthy" (it's in The Corrs' Talk On Corners album in case you're wondering), and then they did a number of covers and a couple of originals. I thought they were pretty decent, although the lead singer (Shirlyn) had a tendency to sing/shout into the mike. Hm.

After the opening act, we had a twenty min intermission. This meant we didn't get to watch Mr. A-Z perform until about 45 mins after the show started. (Which, really, is wasted time to me. Haha I'll take as much of him as I can.)

Two men come on stage: Jason Mraz with his acoustic guitar and his good friend and percussionist Toca Rivera. The contrast is obvious: Jason is lanky and fluid, Toca is big and solid. But their rhythm is excellent. Jason opens with "Plane", which I found surprising since most acts like to start with a bouncy number to get the crowd going. But it is precisely this slow song which portrays Jason's fantastic vocals that gets the crowd cheering for him.

Mr. A-Z's wordplay really shines as he twists his own songs, adding lyrics, changing them, singing perfectly in tune and making the audience laugh at the same time. A true performer, he even does funny faces and tells stories just to make us laugh.

And speaking of laughs, Toca Rivera has THE cutest laughter. It's really funny. Jason would be saying something or other and the crowd would just give a small laugh. Then, about five seconds after Jason finishes the anecdote, Toca bursts into this full-bellied gravelly laugh, and it comes out like Hah Hah Hah. It made the audience laugh all over again.

Jason got the crowd to sing along with his cover of "Rocket Man", and "You And I Both". But when he injected "Our House" into one of his songs and asked everyone to sing, only a handful got the tune.
(It goes "Our house, in the middle of the street/Our house, in the middle of... You get the idea)
So, without breaking the rhythm of the song, he breaks out into the chorus of "Where Is The Love", before switching back to his own song. Whoo.

Jason Mraz is incredibly talented, even doing an operatic bit (which, by the way, was better than Michael Bublé's attempt). He really is an entertainer, telling a story of his song "Please Don't Tell Her", which ends with something like Please don't tell her that I love her and I've been missing her because I don't.
So he says: "No, that's not true. I do miss her."
And the crowd goes "Awwwwwww."
Then he says: "And then I say that just to get your sympathy."
Haha.

All in all, Jason Mraz completely surpassed my expectations (and believe me, I had high ones) with his acoustic renditions of all his songs. Now if only he and Toca Rivera would cut an album with just Jason's vocals and guitar, and Toca's percussions.....

[Just a side note: YAY for Wilfred Phua who fantabulously squeezed through the cashier and got the last autographed Jason Mraz cd for me!! Hahaha. Told you I'd mention you.]