| By Jermyn Chow | ||
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Performers with illuminated balls will be dancing during one of 10 chapters of the show. The NDP theme song will be performed by Electrico. -- ST PHOTO: CAROLINE CHIA |
THIS year's National Day Parade (NDP) will have a distinctly rock vibe.
Local indie rock band Electrico will take centre stage to perform this year's theme song, which it penned.
It is the first time a local rock band has been picked and given the honour of singing for the nation. Solo local pop artists like Stephanie Sun and Kit Chan have usually been the choice.
The band's frontman David Tan said: 'It shows we have progressed...We are proud to be recognised as the people the NDP organisers would like to make the change with.'
Electrico has appeared before at the NDP, but those performances were before the main event. Mr Tan, 33, said it took him two weeks to compose the song What Do You See? The final version of the song was approved by the NDP organisers two weeks later.
'It's a song that goes out to four million people...We wanted it to be poetic as well as simple, so that aunties and uncles in the coffee shops can sing it as well,' he said.
The four-minute song started airing on television last night.
The performance on Aug 9 will also be the first time Electrico will perform without their keyboardist Amanda Ling, who left the band last month.
Mr Tan shrugged this off, saying her departure was 'not really taking its toll on us'.
The band members said they hope to give goose pimples when they perform in front of 27,000 spectators and more than a million television viewers.
Yesterday, show committee chairman Colonel Desmond Tan revealed more about the two-hour production, titled One Show. It will trace the Singapore story from its start as a fishing village to its status as a metropolis today.
A military parade and a display on Total Defence will be worked into the show by more than 6,000 performers. The highlights include lit boats in Marina Bay, life-size puppets and images projected on the floating platform.
Setting the show's creative direction is Mr Ivan Heng, the artistic director of theatre company W!ld Rice.
Col Tan said the show will not just dazzle audiences with its mass displays and special effects. It will be rooted in the National Pledge, a 'familiar and meaningful' statement, which he hopes will be recited with renewed conviction at the end of the show.
