The Project
This was my first project with the Rockstar Collective in a really long time and it was nice. 100 Bands is a grassroots driven festival that focuses on Singapore talent, and spans over 3 weeks showcasing 100 acts. To say that it is a logistical headache is an understatement. The 100 bands team has been at it for a couple of years and they manage to pull themselves together going through heartaches trying to pull this off yearly. It gets disheartening when efforts like these get put down by stupid reasons. Maybe bands nowadays are happier playing baybeats. Maybe they want a bigger font for their band on bills. Maybe they aspire to play the next NDP, or the next NYE countdown or be in a 7-11 ad or score a slot covering bon jovi at whichever corny bars that host 'live bands'. Maybe they should just shut up. I hate playing the nostalgic card, the 'how it was back then' card but people seemed to have more heart then. At least my surrounding peers did. We did not care if we got paid, we were just happy to just play. I'm not saying that bands should just be contented with getting paid with just 'exposure' (thats another rant altogether) because the talent we are facing now is definitely amazing, but the sterilisation of the music community here just got a bit too apparent.
100 Bands is no Coachella nor Glastonbury by any means. It is super far from it. And despite its logistical and administrative headaches and slips, what it has is definitely heart. People forget that the folks behind really have better things to do than labour through this. I even question why they do this because it takes so much effort. But they do it anyway. And they do it because they because they sincerely care. They do have heart.
