Live 比一比 – July Finals
The competition saw more female grand finalists compared to the last few months and the showdown was between 5 females and 2 males.
^ judges giving their valuable commentsFor the first round, they started with the normal rendition of their chosen song.
In the second round, they were required to present their titles with either Rock or Dance music...
And the songs that they chose for this finals were:
- Wei Ting: 风筝; ROCK
- Wen Shan: 爱过; DANCE
- Cixian: 我真的受伤了; ROCK
- Wan Ru: 会有那么一天; ROCK
- Henry: 绝口不提爱你; ROCK
- Emily: 没有烟抽的日子; ROCK
- Jing Wen: 旧梦; DANCE
Dance music is rarely heard in Hark, thus it's really refreshing to have another music element!! Seeing the contestants dancing and singing along with the techno music added a lot of entertainment value to the grand finals show too!!
The crowd enjoyed the finals too, with all their screaming and cheering...
^ The stage, as seen by the audienceThe results?
^ Who will the audience save? Who will the judge eliminate?Another first: The final three are all females... (guys, you'd need to add more gas!!)
Champion - Wen Shan
1st Runner Up - Wei Ting
2nd Runner Up - Emily
Congratulations ladies!!
And for the other awards:
Best Hosting - Jingwen
Best Star Appeal - Henry
Best Vocal Tone - Wei Ting
Look out for the video uploads for the finalists soon... :)
Cheers to all!!
Youngest Singer to celebrate her birthday at Hark!
We have yet another record first in Hark Music Café!!
Yup, one of our customers was here to celebrate her birthday and she really set the bar for the youngest birthday girl in Hark since our opening in July 05 (Just check out the photo)!!
And being the youngest singer on stage, she got the most cheers after her rendition of 'Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough'.
The singer after her was 'deprived' of some encouraging applause as most have been given to the little cute gal (as commented by Amos)..and attention has already been shifted to her table which is just right in front of the stage.
Talking about her setting the record since the birth of Hark's Cafe, Yes, we are ONE already!!!
In August, our celebration month, we will be officially launching and promoting our nightly shows, and all Hark Members get to enjoy 25% discount on Weekdays (Sun to Thu) and 15% discount on Weekends (Fri, Sat)!
PLUS, Hark Music School will be having her course preview in Hark Cafe on 21 Aug (Vocal); 22 Aug(Pop Piano) and 23 Aug(Acoustic Guitar), and great giveaways (E.g. Free Acoustic Guitar, Yamaha Keyboard Rebates, and Course Fees Discounts) awaits you!!
So for those who love listening to what we are playing and singing on stage, c'mon down and have a preview on the instrument you’d like to play and discover how fun it is to learn the music you enjoy!
Admission is FREE but seats are limited! So be quick to book your seats early!
Visit our website, http://www.harkmusic.com for more information!
Live 比一比 – Semifinals
For the first round of the semi finals, we saw 5 contestants battling it out on stage (unfortunately, one of the semi finalists could not make it). While everyone else was trying to impress the judges and the audience by crooning their 拿手好歌, Ci Xian (the very first contestant of the night) made his impression by getting his own band to play for him while he brought to us his very own compositions!! Great job!!
Another highlight of the show was from the audience!! After one of the female audience offered her constructive comments to one of the contestant, witty Amos challenged her to a demonstration, which she sportingly did!! The mood was definitely sparked up when she sang a Fish Leong’s number!!
The competition was really intense, so much so that the judges had a hard time deciding the finalists. The management finally decided to reveal the results after the 2nd semi final…
For the 2nd round of the semi finals, we had a different way of releasing the results (a Singapore Idol inspired way). When it was down to the last finalist position (with 3 contestants remaining on stage), Amos chose to reveal one of the fallen ones first, whose “journey of the Live 比一比 ends here…” Chet Hao (when his name was announced), bravely and confidently came on stage to share with everyone his 感言 on his route in this competition.
So here’s the finalists you’ll catch on Sunday’s Finals in Hark Music Cafe:
1) Wei Ting
2) Cixian
3) Jing wen
4) Wen Shan
5) Henry
6) Wan Ru
7) Emily
Fans and supporters, you know what to do… Book your seats early to avoid disappointment....
Members Night (Students Concert)
Many graduated students were around and gave their best after 1.5 years of learning at Hark..
Right after the performances, the instructor of the graduated guitar class, Mark, gave them their certificates one by one on stage... with all the heartfelt thanks and compliments...
It was a happy session, believed to be full of the fun memories..
Many commented that Mark was a dedicated teacher who never rejects students who ask him questions/doubts outside the lesson syllabus..
He also teaches them challenging songs to make them improve more..
Yeah, we know that's the spirit of learning! Well done Mark and his students!!
Birthday Bash at Hark!!
It was Patrick’s (our June Live比一比 Champion) Birthday!!!! Unannounced, his friends specially bought a BIG Panda face cake and gave a surprise entrance through the back door of the stage when the birthday song was sung!...He was sitted just at the table from the door...
Happy Birthday Patrick! Hope you had fun (like all other birthdays in Hark Café) celebrating your special day with us. Here’s wishing all your wishes come true!!
Live 比一比 – Last qualifying Rd
Here are the qualifiers (and some of their background) for the last preliminary round:
Wan Ru (2nd time participating. First time, her sister won 2nd runner up in Apr!)
Emily (2nd time participating. First time, her boyfriend (we suppose) won Champion in May!)
Kai Wen (1st time participating but a regular Friday customer.. you’ll always see him on Friday night at Hark!)
Chet Hao (1st time participating.. not sure of his background thou..;) )
Catch them all at semifinals on next Thursday...
Live比一比 - July 2nd premlinary round
A new element was added into tonight’s contest!!
After reviewing past week’s audience comments, we can see that they give very innovative and constructive feedback. We thus decided to bring all these comments to you and the participants Live!! Face to face for all to hear and reflect upon!! So, other than having our regular instructor judges comment on the contestants performance (all in the aim to help them improve), we now have our host walking around to get the audience to act as judges to give their valuable views on the participants!!
In tonight’s show, we also saw many of our past winners 不约而同的来到了 Hark Music Café!!
Let’s do a count: May 1st runner up (Adrian); May Champion (Jason); May 2nd Runner up (jianming); April 2nd Runner Up (Sharon); March 2nd Runner Up (Yong Kwang)...
As unarranged as their presence, our host for the night, Brenda, decided to pick these past winners to share their tips with the contestants for the night too.
Talk about Live in a singing contest!! All these must surely put the Live比一比 a cut above all other contests!! And what live is there without cheering fans and screaming supporters!! Great job to them too!!
So here’s the semi-finalists for the night:
Wei ting, Henry, Bi Yong, Wen Shan
Maiden performance by our Live! Workshop Participants
With the end of the world cup season, we are seeing more life and activities back in Hark Music Café. Over the weekend, while Germany and Portugal are squaring off for the 3rd placing, we kick started with our first batch of Live! Workshop singers, who were here to show what they’ve learnt from the 4 sessions workshop, conducted Live in our music café every Sunday afternoon in June.
We must say it’s a one of it’s kind workshop that you won’t be able to find elsewhere. Lessons are conducted straight from the performing stage and participants are thought all the Do’s and Don’ts of performing on stage, and more importantly, how to carry themselves properly in front of a live audience.
On Friday, Yi Ling and Lena were the first 2 to deliver their show and though nervous, we could see that they really made a point to rehearse all the things they want to say to warm up the crowd. And the show was thrilling, as their supporters were waving neon sticks around and screaming for encore!!
Saturday was equally exciting, with Danick, Ryan and Crystal in centre stage.
What more can you expect from these singers from the Live! Workshop in the following weeks to come? Well, we have one participant by the name of Vynson (who is a regular in the café himself) who have recently gotten himself to imitate singers, matching their characteristic voices and singing methods. This cool act never fail to bring laughter, loud cheers and applause from the audience!! So far, his signature songs are Daniel Chan’s 心理游戏, and 伍佰’s 浪人情歌. We sure look forward to seeing him “bring more singers” to our café!! And if you feel the same way, remember to catch him Live in our café in one of the July weekends!! Seeya!!
First Qualifying Round for Live比一比 – July 06
For those of you who missed the show, here’s the result of the first qualifying of our Live比一比 – July 06 (sounds like the world cup, don’t it? :P)
1) Ci Xian – 绝口不提! 爱你
2) Ezann – 你的微笑
3) Jing Wei – 担心
4) Raymond – 豆浆油条
Not much surprises for this round though, and the judges and audience’s choice were consistent with one another.
Congratulations to the above 4 semi finalists!!
Live 比一比 - June Grand Finals 成绩大公开
The Grand Finals was packed with screaming supporters and was it a hot event or what? We even have supporters who made supporting “banners” out of neon sticks!! What creativity!!
Anyway, after a round of normal unplugged presentation and a second round of a ROCK version of the contestants’ songs, the results were announced as per below:
Champion – Patrick Chua
1st runner up – Jeff Teay Che Wai
2nd runner up – Jessica Zhuang Rui Jing
And the other prizes were awarded to:
Best Hosting – Jeff Teay Che Wai
Best Star Appeal – Loh Feng Yi Charlotte
Best Vocal Tone – Max Ho Ming Xuan
Towards the end of the night, it was brought to our attention that certain fans were not satisfied with the result and felt that their friend should have won instead. They also misunderstood that more supporters = sure win!!
The management would thus like to take this opportunity to share the results of yesterday’s Grand Finals to discount the above wrong concept.
Audience Voting
1) Charlotte: +2
2) Patrick: -13
3) Jessica: -25
4) Jeff: -31
5) Kok Leong: -32
We shall not explore the list further, but for those interested parties, the lowest for audience voting stands at -57.
From the above results, Charlotte apparently has got the most audience’s votes (or most number of “supporters”), but as the judges felt that she chose the wrong song and could not bring out the best of her voice/ song, she did not clinch any of the top 3 position.
On the contrary, though Jeff was ranked 4th by the audience, he came in 2nd overall!! And what’s more, he even got the Best Hosting award!!
As all of you should see, numbers does not equal winning.
Why is that so?
1) Our voting system do not just have positive votes. Audiences can cast negative votes if the contestant is really not to their liking. Similarly, they can cast more than one positive vote if they think other contestants are good too!!
2) Unlike Singapore Idol or project superstar, our voting system is 50: 50. Half of the points come from our judges (based on the contestants’ singing abilities, hosting skills and stage presence), which will compensate for any biasness from the audience (if any).
We would like to stress that the “Learning Process” is the main aim of the competition. We are definitely glad to see contestants improving as they progress through the rounds. So keep on striving, improve and we’ll see you in next month’s contest!!Remember, the “Best” is a subjective thing, everyone has different likings and dislikes.
