Jazz Moments with Tompi

At the end of last month, we accidentally saw the big billboard for Cat's Pajama's 1st anniversary with Tompi. I quickly wrote down their hotline number, luckily we were at the traffic light. Why the enthusiasm? My husband has been Tompi's listener since his first album and he got me into listening Tompi. Afterall, it was Tompi's song my husband sang that melted my heart *blush* way back before we got married. The reason why he likes Tompi is because of his unique voice and I assume he's a fan of "scatting" since he can mimic them really well.

It's finally October 1st and we couldn't wait for the sun to set so we can be one of the first audiences at Tompi's live performance. We got a pretty strategic table with a good view of the stage, but not too close to the speakers to blow our ears. After waiting eagerly for 3 hours, Tompi & his band finally arrived at the stage. He just walked casually from inside Cat's Pajama, he seemed very down to earth.

They opened with "Sedari Dulu", followed with a Mario Bros'-themed jam session. It really brought back a lot of memories of nintendo playing days with sound effects like the coin "ding" and the menacing tune when Mario reaches Bowser's underground.

The next one and a half hour went really quickly, before we know it, it was already the end of the show. There were a lot of improvisations in the familiar songs so they don't sound exactly like the recorded versions. Of course there were tons of scatting at the point where Tompi's voice resembles a trumpet and at other times like a squeaky little girl. He could definitely reach the high notes, that was amazing! He's also very creative and played around a lot with his mic.

Finally he closed the show with a melancholic song "Tak Pernah Setengah Hati", which will be officially released in his upcoming new album, out this month. We hope that Tompi will make a come back to Surabaya in the near future!!