Stardust 2011, lovechild of the lovely folks from the NUS Student Business, finally concluded over the weekend. To be honest, the somewhat modest turnout at Stardust threatened to dampen and hamper the spirits of those who worked hard behind the scenes but before the night was even over, you can safely say the performances redeemed them back! I was there in advance of time and was back-stage, you could see how the backstage crew were hurriedly scurrying along to their destinations, sticking to their duties to ensure the show gets running on time. Hosted by 98.7 DJs who managed to prep the crowd with their humor, sometimes at the expense themselves or co-host, the event was also boosted alongside judges like Inch Chua, Don Richmond and Amanda Ling.
The solo category contestants graced the field first and it was always difficult for Mhd Faizal being the first in line to come out with a bang. With a backing rhythm track that he designed of his own, I felt that it kinda backfired on his performance than actually helped to elevate the performance. It was confirmed by the judges later on. As the solo category progressed on, some of the contestants were starting to find their strides while the better ones were able to work the stage a little better and in general, impress the judges somewhat bit better.
Performances like Sufie who chose to perform a classic from Nina Simone captured the imaginations of the audience on that night. His performance would have done Adam Lambert proud if he were sitting in the crowd that night as his well-worked performance coupled with good dynamics onstage landed him second place afterwards. Laterwards I did manage to find out that Sufie is no stranger to such competitions as he has netted several top place finishings in other singing competitions so personally I'll be keeping a lookout for him in the namelist if I ever choose to take part in future singing competitions.
There were other contestants who also left us walking away with deep impressions - of course notably, Carmen Ang who eventually walked with the top prize. Music can mean very different things to different people, it can just be a leisure way of passing time or it can simply be merely confined to American Idol on Thursday or Friday nights. For Carmen Ang, it was quite a different story - it was her source of strength. Amongst the few originals that debuted on stage that night, Carmen's had an extra unfortunate twist to hers - recent passing of her mother. She delivered in an earnest and heartwarming manner - there were no questions about it, the lyrics said it all. This connection struck a chord with many in the audience and perhaps more in the front row where the judges were as Carmen walked away with the first place finish in Stardust 2011 in the solo open category.
The format that worked was that performances were scheduled to perform one after another smoothly. At the end of the 5th contestant's performance, the hosts would gather all the contestants who had performed and lined them up in front of the judges American-Idol style. You can check out their jittery faces below: (as well as shots of other contestants, credits to Joycelyn Ng)
Congratulations to Farah Erfina with her 3rd place finish, who surprised herself more than anyone else during the prize presentation ceremony. You can check out her performance alongside some of the other contestants which I managed to get footage of below:
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