I was that kid who grew up with Simple Plan's music in high school.

Yup. one of those millions of kids all over world.

 

And now, a decade later…..

 

They land in Malaysia; performing in front of our very own eyes!

 

 

It was not only surreal; it was a dream come true. 

And I know I speak for many youths and even adults out there!

 

 

 

At 9pm sharp, Simple Plan came out with gusto and a grand entrance! 

They introduced themselves, greeted their fans and burst into their first song of the night, 'Shut Up'.

 

Simple Plan -- Shut Up

 

Next up was their favorite song from their latest album, 'Can't Keep My Hands of You' and 'Jump'

 

Wiggle wiggle wiggle!

 

Loved the way they performed those two ;twas cheeky and cute! 

 

Hundreds of screaming fans at the Kuala Lumpur stop of Simple Plan's Get Your Heart On tour

 

 

What came as a surprise was when Simple Plan sang a cover of Black Eyed Peas 'Goodnight'.

Pretty damn good a rendition, if I do say so myself! 

 

 

'When I'm Gone' came up next. Lead singer Pierre Bouvier extended his hand to shake hands with his zealous fans at the mosh pit!

Watch the footage for yourself!

 

Simple Plan - When I'm Gone

 

The next song that they performed rocked the socks right outta me.

I was yelling/singing along to one of my favorites from Simple Plan, 'Addicted' with many other fellow fans!

 

Simple Plan -- Addicted

 

All the members of Simple Plan began to interact and engage with their fans, holding a friendly "competition" to see whose side of the stage sang/cheered louder than the other. 

 

They cued the crowd to sing along with them.. or rather, SCREAM ALONG!

 

 

'My Alien' came up next, followed by 'You Suck at Love'. 

What I found really ingenious was when Simple Plan sang their next song 'Thank You', they sang a local version of it!

 

 

Yup, you read right.

They sang the song in Bahasa Malaysia; replacing the lyrics of the chorus with TERIMA KASIH instead of the English THANK YOU

 

TERIMA KASIH! TERIMA KASIH! TERIMA KASIH!

 

 

After they performed 'Your Love is Just a Lie', the stage lighting faded into darkness.

 

 

Simple Plan gave a cue for the audience to hold up their phones and wave them in the air with their screen backlight turned on and they began to perform 'Astronaut'.

So clever! Sending SOS from this tiny box indeed -- using our cellphones!

 

 

The band proceeded to sing 'Summer Paradise' before belting out more cover songs

This time, it was a cover of Cee-Lo's 'F*ck You', Taio Cruz' 'Dynamite' and Pink's 'Raise Your Glass'.

 

Simple Plan -- cover of Pink's 'Raise Your Glass'

 

It was stellar! Two thumbs up!  

 

Like many others, theboyfie and I enjoyed their spontaneous rendition of those songs.

 

 

A dramatic build-up in the midst of their performing 'Jetlagged' and the backdrop changed -- unveiling a new one altogether.

 

 

Simple Plan -- Jetlagged

 

 

They continued spreading their contagious energy drive and continued their 2-hour set with 'This Song Saved My Life', 'Welcome to My Life', 'I'd Do Anything'.

 

Simple Plan -- Welcome to My Life

 

 

When they left the stage and the entire concert venue was shrouded in darkness, the fans were certainly not ready to go home yet.

Chantings of ENCORE were heard bellowing from all sides of the crowd and after a few minutes….

 

 

The band came back on stage with 'Loser of the Year'! :D

 

 

Emotions and nostalgia came rushing back to me when they began to sing my favorite Simple Plan song of all time. 

Their very FIRST single that they released back in 2002 from their first album 'No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls'.

 

 

Please take a moment of silence and watch the footage below with smiles (and occasional headbangs)

No wait, scratch that.. JUST SING A LONG with them just like I did!!!! 

 

Simple Plan -- I'm Just a Kid

LOL you can actually hear me scream-singing.

 

They wrapped up their gig with a beautiful song, 'Perfect'.

Many people were seen joining hands and singing along to the said melancholic and meaningful choon with the band and everyone else.

 

It was a wonderful gig, I can totally vouch for that!

All the top favorite songs from all their albums were performed with so much enthusiasm and the energy-driven concert was just unbelievable! So much joy, nostalgia and headbanging resonated from wall to wall! 

 

 

Thank TuneTalk for bringing Simple Plan down to Malaysia for their series of 'No Big Deal Lah' concerts!

If it weren't for TuneTalk, we wouldn't be able to have the amazing pop-punk-rock band performing right in our city

 

 

For that, THANK YOU VERY MUCH TUNE TALK! The first of many more concerts to come! 

Credits also go to both my awesome assistants for the day, Pamela for helping me out in the afternoon at Simple Plan 'Get Your Heart On' tour Press Conference and Kon for shooting the footages of this concert night.

 

Theboyfie also got me the Simple Plan band T-Shirt as a memorabilia for tonight's amazing event!

Loving them for more than a decade, clearly there will always be a part of me that belongs to Simple Plan

 

 

My gurls and I 

 

So before we entered the main Siloso Beach of where ZoukOut '11 was to be held, the whole lot of us decided to dive straight into our own party. Pre-drinks at the adjacent beach.

Don't know what beach it is but it sure worked for us

 

Chilling at the bench during pre-drinks

 

I miss my Aussieguest Carly

Come back to Malaysia soon!

 

Venessa and I

ZoukOut once more hey? ;)

 

Take two!

 

We finished the bottle in a jiffy

 

We made friends with ol' McDonald from Detroit, USA!

 

Chugged my last glass in the water

 

Alright, that's a wrap!

Now that we're all pumped up, hyper and tipsy, it's time to adjourn for ZoukOut 

 

Where the party began 4 hours ago!

 

Just three enthusiastic partylovers amongst hordes of  many others!

 

Correction: FOUR!

 

Correction: FIVE!

 

Correction: SEVEN!

And the number just kept growing

 

Once we entered, we started running helter skelter, exploring what this year's Zouk Out has to offer

Mostly the same good food, good things on sale and heaps of freebies up for grabs!

 

Went to the Havaianas outlet

 

Played with the giant inflatable flip-flop! 

 

Bumped into an old friend, Adelyn

 

And a few others too -- Danny and Charlene

See, we Penangites came all the way from the north for this yo 

 

After all the exploring and fun, we escaped to grab a bite of the nearest yummy food possible

 

Headed off to Mcdonalds!

Where I impulsively bought a slurpee cup with a red bikini on it :O

 

DOESN'T MATTER, HAD FOOD!

With our satiated tummies, we marched back to where the party's at, ZoukOut '11 awaits us 

I've made a video compilation of my ZoukOut 2011 experience, watch out for it at the end of this post!

 

Got to the main stage pretty early to secure our spots

DJ Simon Dunmore was playing at that time

 

Raving with my buddies! Ze clan and I

 

Party vibe is building slowly!

 

Squeeeeee! Carly piggybacked me

 

Bumped into another Penangite, my old friend Sabrina

 

At last year's ZoukOut, I came to watch my 3 fave stars in 2010's line-up: Tiesto, David Guetta and Afrojack

This year, I came fully anticipating DJ Chuckie, Avicii and Armin Van Buuren

 

and……. DJ CHUCKIE IS UP!

 

WHO IS READY TO JUMP?

 

There were fireworks blasting across the sky as we partied!

DJ Chuckie kickstarted his set with a remix of Daft Punk's 'Around the World' and was playing various EDM tracks of his own including remixing those by David Guetta, Rihanna, Swedish House Mafia, Benny Benassi and more.

 

There were beer showers everywhere too!

 

His 2 hour set was pretty radical, I must say. I enjoyed watching DJ Chuckie's facial expressions too; they were so animated and at some parts comical! He also really knew how to work the crowd.

And then… it rained not confetti, not streamers… BUT GLITTER (Blimey, I actually thought it was sand!)

 

NEXT UP, GUESS WHO'S CRUNKING UP THE LEVELS AT 3AM?

 

Nobody else comes close to these nasty levels… IT'S AVICII!

 

Got up to Level Two so fast that I had to blink twice before confirming that it was indeed 2 white girls

holding up the Malaysian flag while screaming AAAAAAAAAVIIIIIIIICIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!! 

 

So proud of my country's flag but then again, wait.. what? Malaysian flag? White girls? Avicii?

Am I missing something here? 

 

Avicii's 2 hour set was stellar, just as I had imagined it to be

 

DJ SPIN THAT SH!T! 

 

He shot the party to the skies the moment he appeared on the decks with 'Fade into Darkness' as his opening song before proceeding to his other popular tracks like 'Sunshine', 'Swede Dreams', 'Hello Miami', 'Freedom' and more.

 

 

The young Swede and rising starlet Avicii (aka Tim Berg) also remixed popular favorites like David Guetta's 'Titatium', Diddy's 'Coming Home', Nadia Ali & Alex Kenji's 'Pressure', Tiesto's 'Escape Me', Coldplay's 'Waterfall' and others. 

 

While raving, the gigantic, transparent beach ball landed on our heads!

 

Ohhhhh~ Sometimes, I gotta good feeling

YEEEEEAH~

 

The feeling was surreal when Avicii played his debut 'Levels' right there and then.

To see 'Levels' playing LIVE RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES BY AVICII HIMSELF was unlike any other.

 

Everyone else in the crowd could relate; they were just as euphoric as I was!

 

Major love fo my gurls for the awesome company!

 

Sex dolls were flying everywhere.

Heck well, naked blow-up dolls, more of. They sure looked like sex dolls to me LOLOL

 

At 5am sharp, something bigger was coming our way.

Already almost at the crack of dawn, there was no sign of stopping us ravers from welcoming the World #1 trance legend for several years in a row, ARMIN VAN BUUREN!

 

It started off with a big bang

 

He greeted his fans and loyal revellers with arms wide open!

 

Nothing could bring me down.

T'was amazing to finally rave to Armin Van Buuren LIVE and seeing him in the flesh after following his 'A State of Trance' (ASOT) episodes and yearmixes. *swoons*

OHMY. YES IT IS ARMIN. 3 METRES IN FRONTA ME

 

Ohmylord. Armin was so charming that night.. not to mention unbelievably talented too

 

When he spun Cosmic Gate feat. Emma Hewit's 'Be Your Sound', the crowd shut their eyes, jumped and traversed into an uplifting state of trance. 

It was absolutely food for the soul 

 

Bursts of confetti (and glitter!) were everywhere

More fireworks came in abundance too!

 

I recognized the songs from his yearmixes.. nothing beats hearing it LIVE.

 

The beach ball kept bouncing up and down amongst the crowd!

 

Rave it up, rave it good till the morning light!

 

He played till the sun came up 

 

Now, here's my video montage of ZoukOut 2011 through my eyes

Experience it visually, embrace it and make sure I see you at this year's rave beach party of the year 

 

ENJOY!

 

Only a true rave begins outdoors with thousands of people, rising its temperature with triple the amount of people and ends waaaaayy past the sunrise

Every year, ZoukOut is a true pinacle of a rave party. ZoukOut 2012, we shall meet again