Our Marie Digby Weekend!

UPDATE: Check out Che's post on her blog.

In case you haven't been checking out Che's blog, Che is one of the biggest Marie Digby fans out there. Ever since she found out about her sometime last year in YouTube, she's always checking out her youtube for her latest music videos.

For the pictures, just check out Che's blog for any updates... That's her niche, so she gets first picks on the pictures to post. :) I guess I'll just stick with the story-telling of what went down. :)

Friday, May 9, Acoustic Session. We were outside the Zouk Velvet Underground waiting to get inside to watch Marie Digby's acoustic session. We were there around 7:30 PM, but the queue has already reached the street. Still, after a few minutes, the queue even got longer; it extended down to the tunnel to the basement parking of the hotel next door.

Around 8:00, people were let in. The place was too crowded. The front row was already full. We managed to squeeze in somewhere in the middle. To our dismay, the big taller guys are hogging the front rows. I had my doubts about us getting a decent picture or video of Marie later.

It's 8:30. She finally came out. She really is as white as in the youtube videos. She would really stood out in the middle of any crowd.

Just as I feared: we can barely get a good shot of Marie. In almost every picture, you'll see this guy's head, and this guy's Jamaican hair, and this guy's big camphone popping out from nowhere. Still, we managed to get good shots, but we had to do a lot of cropping and stuff. :)

Anyway, she was a great performer. She's good with botht he guitar and the piano/organ. She sang five songs from her new album which of course included "Say It Again" and her version of "Umbrella". I was a bit surprised though that she only sang five songs. Well, she was on a tight schedule and this was not a concert, so I guess that explains it. The session lasted around half an hour -- about half an hour shorter than the time we spent on queue. I'm not complaining, though. It was worth the smile on Che's face. I knew she was happy so I'm okay with it.

Sure, my flat feet were aching again, but it was a great show anyway. :)

Here's the video we got from our camera:



Saturday, May 10, Autograph Session. We were at GAP in the Wisma Atria along Orchard Road. The session was at 4:00 PM so we arrived 30 minutes earlier. Still, the queue was already too long and I ended up on the outside; we were like number 30 in the queue or something. I stood in the queue while I let Che and the rest of the "Batswan" inside the store to "maximize" the aircon. :)

We had everything ready: the poster, the CD label, the section of the label where we want her to sign, and a gift. [Che wanted to make sure that Marie would get something out of her visit here.]

When she finally came out and after singing two songs, the autograph signing was under way. Che promptly went to my place and we waited patiently on the queue. The rest of the "Batswan" were on the front row ready to take all the pictures they can when it's Che's turn for the autograph signing.

It took around 20 to 30 minutes before it was finally Che's turn. I guess due to the time and the still long queue, the staff there were a bit irritated: they kept saying no pictures, no notebooks, no scratch papers or the like; only autographs on posters and/or CD labels are allowed.

Despite what the staff around were saying, my gutsy wife introduced herself to Marie [they already exchanged messages in MySpace] and then gave her the gift. Then, the thing that Che was only dreaming of happened:

Marie Digby stood up from her sofa, leaned over, and gave Che a hug!

And the crowd went wild!!! Not only that, I managed to get a picture of the two of them! :)Obviously, the staff can't do anything about that. The crowd cheered as they knew that at that moment, my wife was the luckiest Marie Digby fan! :)

Needless to say, my wife was all-smiles. She has that "smile that had to be surgically removed"; she was very, very, very happy. And so was I.

Anyway, just check Che's blog to know her thoughts about her close encounter. :)