dear jason,

"tears streaming' down your face
when you lose something you cannot replace
tears streamin' down your face
and i...

lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and i will try to fix you"

if you're careful enough when you're reading my diary dated 7 june 2005, you may have known that these lines come from the song "fix you" of coldplay, one of the hottest bands in the world today and in the past few years. hong kong was one of the stops of the band's asian tour this year. the concert was held in asiaworld-expo at 8p.m. last thursday. i didn't buy the ticket until 6 hour before the show began cos i wasn't sure if i'd be able to leave office that early that day. luckily, i got the time to change into tee and jeans and arrived at the asiaworld-expo with k before 8p.m.. people who've been to foreign band shows would know that the show usually won't start until at least 45 minutes later. so at around 9p.m., the audience were all screaming, waving their hands in the air and shouting "coldplay!" when the lights were turned out. k an i and most audience stood at our seats throughout the 90-minute show. hightlights of the show include chris martin telling the audience a peculiar incident happened in the changing room in deep water bay beach that morning and a dozen huge yellow balloons filled with golden confetti rolling from corners of the arena and bouncing around by fans during the song "yellow". chris martin was a great crowd pleaser and he ensured the entire crowd was part of the show, moving from one side of the stage to the other throughout the night, and even racing to the back of the arena towards the end of the show to touch hands with some lucky fans. the finale was "fix you" and it's definitely a perfect song to end the show. it starts out slow but erupts mid-song into a wall of guitar and four-part harmonies. chris martin swung a light bulb around the stage when the song exploded, which was one of the best moments in my life. and i'm really glad that k got really high throughout the show as well. we waved our arms in the air and clapped our hands together like twins.

all in all, it was a great show though a bit short (around 80 minutes) for me and it can hardly be compared with sigur ros' show in april this year and massive attack's 2003 concert in amsterdam. rumours say massive attack's going to release their new album in february 2007 and i do really hope their tour will stop in hong kong next year. at the same time, i read from portishead's myspace page that they're writing songs for their third album finally. fyi, portishead has not released any new stuff since their second album "s/t" of 1997. being one of the most famous trip-hop bands, they're surely one of my favs.

as regards work, i got nothing much to tell except d's leaving the firm at the end of this month. i wasn't surprised at all when he told me he would be leaving but of coz i did feel a bit down for losing such a good friend and mentor in office.

btw, i can't remember if i told you that my sister eva gave birth to her first baby, rosie on 6 april. i had a video call via mobile phone with eva and rosie yesterday. rosie looks really cute and she's much bigger now.

jason