The Piano Man

Guess where A and I will be on 10 November 2006?

Getting your hands on tickets for any concert back home in Singapore was pretty easy. Just log on to the SISTIC or TicketCharge online website and tick the right boxes, voila... you have your preferred choice of tickets to a show. Any time and all from the comfort of your home.

Down under in Melbourne, it's a different story altogether. To get my hands on these babies, I could order tickets through the Ticketek website and pay an extra $7.95 for delivery. Or I could go down to the Ticketek outlet itself. Thankfully, we live just down the road from a Ticketek outlet so when the tickets went on sale on 31 July, my 'battle plan' to get these tickets involved rolling out of the comfort of our warm bed and getting into line by 9 a.m.. Silly me, I thought getting there by 9.05 a.m. would have been alright, not wanting to be a typical *kiasu Singaporean and be the first in line. Little did I know that the counter had given out queue tickets from 8.45 a.m.! So there I was, No 18 in the queue, calculating my odds of getting tickets as by the drips and draps of the conversation swirling around me, tickets were moving at lightning speed.

Luckily, after some indecision on my part ("Gold or Silver tickets, miss? Erm.. ermm.... hmm... ok, silver...."), I scored 2 precious tickets. No choice as to seats though but we're quite near the stage, albeit a restricted view. I don't care. All that mattered as I skipped up the slope to the apartment, humming "Sing us a song you're the Piano Man", was that it wouldn't be too long before I hear that line and many other favourite ones, sung live.

*kiasu - Singapore English slang translating loosely to mean "afraid to lose". Typical characteristic of Singaporeans.

Billy Joel - Live in Concert 2006

Friday 10 November 2006 8 p.m., Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne