How else better to spend a Friday night? At The Coliseum, Hard Rock Hotel in Sentosa catching the YouTube sensations perform on stage of course! I did not know what I was in for because to be honest, I have never heard about most of the performing artistes before. Indeed, I was blown away by the power packed performances! From online to a live stage, Starhub presents Under The Stars: The YouTube Sensations, a second round of YouTube stars concert which happens every year. This year spotted more regional acts, like The 38 Years Ago from Thailand, Zendee from Indonesia, and our very own local indie quartet, The Sam Willows. In the lineup were also Tanner Patrick, Madilyn Bailey and Nate Tao from the United States. First up, we had our opening act, Irene. A group of aspiring local YouTubers took part in a contest to compete for the opening act spot, and Irene was the lucky winner!

Performing covers like Heart Attack by Demi Lovato, she hyped and woke the crowd up with that powerful voice of hers, the crowd screaming every time she hits a high note! Next up was 13 years old Miguel Antonio, whom John Jr Robinson (a Grammy award winner who has worked on Michael Jackson’s albums) commented that Miguel reminds him of Michael Jackson. Wow, that is one huge compliment!

Dressed smartly in a suit, even though he is just 13 years old, he came up on stage serenading the ladies with songs like When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars, Someone Like You by Adele, and one of his original songs about a girl, which the lucky crowd that night were the first to hear! One definitely could not tell that Miguel only just learnt playing the piano last year all by himself, with the help of videos on YouTube (YouTube is just SO amazing, don’t you think so?!)! After the hype from the two opening acts, the first act to perform was Tanner Patrick. Girls rushed to the front to catch a good view of him, all of them went wild screaming their heads off!

With only his guitar, this charming guy performed hits which he had covered and posted on his YouTube channel like Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People. This was followed by his original, Sideways Figure Eights. I personally feel that it is pretty upbeat and catchy! One new song added to my playlist this summer! I loved how there were lots of interaction between Tanner and the crowd.He really knew how to interact with them and catch their attention! During a bridge of his original, he taught the crowd a small part and asked them to sing along. After, he invited Zendee up to sing a tune that everyone were familiar with, Good Time by Carly Rae Jepsen! It got everybody bobbing and singing along. Despite it being a slow acoustic version, their strong vocals shone through.

He performed another three covers, Stay by Rihanna, Clarity by Zedd and A Team by Ed Sheeran. Just before he ended with another of his original Merry Go Round, he took a video of the crowd, saying that it will be uploaded to his YouTube channel! The crowd went into a frenzy when Tanner said that he loved it here and that he will definitely be back! Here is Tanner performing Pumped Up Kicks: Next on stage was Taiwanese-American Nate Tao from Los Angeles, which got the girls screaming as well! He opened with Sooner, an original song of his. It had happy vibes to it, so catchy that everybody were clapping along, and fans who knew the lyrics were singing and grooving along to it!

Nate then went on to cover Beautiful by Mariah Carey and Set Fire to the Rain by Adele, before stopping for awhile to chat with the crowd. This was not Nate’s first time here and just like most artistes who have been here, Nate, too, love our local food! Some of his favourites were chicken rice and laksa. How about durian, you wonder? Nate could not even finish a tasting spoon of the mild durian ice cream! However, he sweetly said that maybe one day he will grow to like it after tasting it again. Well, not many tourist would dare to even try it, so kudos to him! Nate brought the atmosphere back up with the popular anthem Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepson, before ending with his original Someone Like Me.

Next to grace the stage was our lovely indie quartet, our very own The Sam Willows. They also recently performed at another music festival, Music Matters. Without a doubt, this charming group of four has a good stage presence!

Benjamin

Narelle

Sandra

Jon

They performed originals like Crimson, and also covered It’s Time by Imagine Dragons and Good Time by Carly Rae Jepsen (I know, it was a Carly Rae Jepson kind of night!). Not only blessed with good looks, all four of them are blessed with talents as well! Not only can they sing, they can play the instruments too. They had really good harmonising! To add on, they were all really nice and down to earth. It makes us wonder how can one be so blessed?! The Sam Willows performing Good Time: The next YouTube star to perform on stage, all the way from Thailand, it was The 38 years Ago!

They performed hits like Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars, Nothing On You by B.O.B. and I Won’t Give Up by Jason Mraz. The both of them are so smiley and bubbly, it was so infectious! It got everybody clapping and singing along to them. The 38 Years Ago performing Just The Way You Are: Next up was the star that most of the crowd were waiting for, Madilyn Bailey. Everybody moved up front to get a good view of her. Only with her acoustic guitar, she nailed songs like Thrift Shop, Radioactive, Talking To The Moon and Titanium perfectly. It is not easy to turn an upbeat club song to a slow acoustic rendition, but she did it! Madilyn performed two original songs, Tradegy and Like It, Love It, Gotta Have It. Interestingly, the title of the latter was inspired by the ice cream cup sizes at Marble Slab Creamery!

Fans were screaming hard for her, some even holding up “I love Madilyn Bailey” signs! Noticing them from the stage, she said she loved it. Her vocals were really sweet, clear and supported! She has a good control of her voice! The concert ended with a high, with the small but powerful Zendee. Walking up on stage, Zendee looked really petite! However… Her vocals were the complete opposite. Sparing no mercy, she started her set off with a bang, performing I Could Go The Distance. I could not stress how impressive Zendee’s voice is. It is really strong, powerful and in control. The crowd got really hyped up, everybody screaming whenever she hit the high notes and sang her lungs out!

Her song choices were songs that were challenging to sing, like Hallelujah by Pink and Love On Top by Beyonce. Queen Beyonce. Everybody knows that it is not easy to cover a song by our very own queen Beyonce, but Zendee nailed it! She also performed her new original single, Runaway. As if that was not enough, the crowd totally went wild when Zendee invited Nate back up to do a duet together, Just Give Me A Reason by Pink. Like how most people have felt, I too felt that this was definitely the highlight of the night! You have to check it out!

All the YouTube stars went back up on stage for the finale, performing We Are Young by FUN.

In my opinion, this year’s talents definitely packed a mean punch, however, the atmosphere from last year’s concert still top the list. We cannot wait for next year’s already! It is really amazing how these stars rose to fame from this online platform, YouTube. From behind a computer screen to performing live on stage, to thousands of people. Aspiring stars out there, do not feel shy to post your covers online, give it a shot! You never know what would happen. Give it a try, you have nothing to lose. 🙂 With that, I would like to share with you a quote that was told by one of my teachers.

“Don’t ever stop reaching for the moon becayse even if you fail, you’ll pick yourself a star! And when you feel like giving up, remember why you held on in the first place. In life, it’s not about attaining a goal, what’s most important is WHO we become during our pursuit.”

We would like to thank Starhub and the sponsors for making this possible, for making our (especially avid YouTube fans) dreams of watching these YouTube stars perform on stage come true! Also, we would like to thank Samantha from Music Movement for giving us this chance to cover this event. It was indeed a wonderful experience for us! For those who were there, we hope you had as much fun as we did. See you again next year! 🙂 (All photo credits to: Warner Music Singapore)

UPDATE!

Good news! For those who missed the concert, you can catch the whole 5 hour goodness here! Thank you, Starhub!