Last night, the lovely Ms. Vogel and I attended the Kylie Minogue concert with Tim's brother Top and his better half, Tham. Despite the fact that I had never heard of Kylie or her music, the evening was very interesting.
The story behind the tickets is a bit funny. Top received the tickets from Signha Beer. Tim and Top's business are a client of Singha, the main sponsor of the concert. Originally, Signha was going to take Top (and other clients) to England for a week that included watching soccer matches. The problem was that Top, in addition to his duties as CEO of the company, is a police officer (don't ask). Due to the current political turmoil, the police department has ordered all officers on stand by, preventing them from leaving the country. This effectively prevented Top from going to England. As a consolation prize, Singha gave top four tickets to the concert. Bad deal for Top, but a good deal for my blog.
Prior to the concert, the four of us went to dinner. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but its a place we've ordered out from before. I tried ostrich for the first time in memory. It wasn't anything special, and I don't think I'll have it anytime again soon. Overall though, the food was very good. Roasted chicken and sticky rice are the staple of any good Northeastern Thai cuisine.
The music itself was uninspiring. It sounded to me like any other pop singer from the last twenty or so years. After twenty-four hours most of the songs had faded from memory. There was something about being in some one's arms, and some techno-music about a speaker phone. Actually, I think it was the 90's on the speaker phone asking for the act back.
So you might think, if the the music was blase, why was the concert good for the blog. It was a fun event because it was a great opportunity to people watch. One could learn so much about Thailand just by watching those who attended the concert.
From a Thai perspective, the biggest celebrity at the event was not Kylie. The Crown Prince's daughter attended the event. Her entourage was escorted to their seats by a half dozen police officers, including one sporting a colonel's rank on his shoulder. We actually left the concert before the encore in part to avoid her motorcade when she left.
Apparently, Kylie has an enormous following in the gay community and they turned out in mass for her performance. I would not be surprised if fifteen plus percent of the attendees were very openly gay men. The vast majority fit into that flamboyant gay stereo-type. There were gay couples as well as groups of four or more men. There were gay Thais and gay falangs. Often, there would be a falang-Thai couple. Many of those Thais were undoubtedly sex workers, although one can never be certain.
The gay Thais were a lot more dramatic and flamboyant than the gay falangs. If you saw the falangs when they weren't with another guy, some of them you might suspect as gay, others not. There was absolutely no doubt about the Thais.
The perfect example of this was the couple who sat right in front of Tim at the concert. A European and a Thai guy. The Thai guy was anorexic, wore tight jeans, an open shirt, teased up hair, and some make up.
It wasn't just his outfit (topped off with a shiny silver woman's belt) that gave him away, but it was how he behaved. He acted and danced like a woman. Actually, in a lot of ways, he acted like a thirteen year old girl. He would get so worked up that he would shake his hands at shoulder height and have that excited look on his face. He so wanted to be the center of attention. The guy desperately wanted to stand up on the chair and dance, but no-one around him was doing it. He tried to talk Tim into standing on her chair, so he would have a partner. Finally he jumped up on his partner's chair and danced behind him. That actually worked out better, because if he had danced in his chair (which was directly in front of Tim), I would have had his ass in my face. Instead he was farther over to my right. Gay or straight, I really didn't want his ass in my face during the show.
My attitude towards gays has really mellowed over the last year or two. Truthfully, I don't care if people are gay. I'm really apathetic about the whole gay marriage issue. It really doesn't have any impact on my life, so I just don't care. I will say, however, that I think that those who want gay marriage would find more success if they lobbied for civil unions that are the same as marriage in everything but name. That is a much easier fight. I think its a lot more productive to win an ballot initiative allowing civil unions than to lose one for marriage. After civil unions are legal for a few years and people realize that the continents weren't gobbled up by the seas, then tackle the name issue. Okay, time to jump off my soap box.
So while I'm pretty ambivalent to whether some one is gay, I roll my eyes at the hyper-feminine act. Truthfully, its hard not to laugh at a grown woman who acts like a thirteen year old girl, much less a grown man. Hey, when it came down to it though, that guy in front of me and many others like him kept me entertained.
While Tim had one non-traditional couple sitting in front of her, to my left was the typical Thai-falang. If you thinking "forty-five year old falang with an eighteen(maybe seventeen) year old Thai girl", then you win. I'm guessing on the ages, but I think I was in the ball park. When he came back with a beer for her, I was going to request to have her carded, but why spoil their fun. Well, more precisely, his "fun" and her "day at the office". He didn't grope her too much by bargirl standards, although you don't see Thai couples hanging on each other to that degree.
The guy sitting, or more precisely standing, in front of me was a pretty large falang with a compact digital camera. He probably took fifty pictures at the show, and I'd be willing to bet that not one of them turned out well. The lighting at an event like that makes photography difficult even with the best equipment. Holding a beer in one hand and snapping shots with the camera in the other is just not the recipe for success. Even if you manage to luck and the stage is well lit at the moment you take the picture, from our vantage point, you really couldn't compose much of a picture. He must noticed that the pictures were bad, as he tried a few with his mobile phone. I couldn't help but chuckle.
Of course, there were a number of katoeys at the show. Unfortunately, these were not the "omg, that has to be a woman, she is stunning" variety. No, this was the "omg, are those football players" variety. If you want to chose that life style, more power to you sister, er brother, but put a little effort into it.
There was only one time that I wish that I had brought my camera with me to the show. On the outside of the venue, there were food stalls and souvenir stands. The best was a small stand with two attractive women dressed in red and black selling cigarrets. I wanted to take a picture and caption it "merchants of death" or something to that effect. It was just something you wouldn't see in the states.
Overall, I had fun at the concert. While Kylie's performance didn't carry the night, she attracted the crowd that did.
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