Hayley Williams agreed to write a special series of tour diary parts especially for Paper Magazine. In the first part Hayley writes about the Warped Tour, in the second part about being at The Pacific Rim Tour in Hong Kong, while in the third part the lead vocalist of Paramore shares with the readers her experiences from Bali. In the fourth, Hayley writes about Jakarta and in the brand new Singapour. Together with the entry, ‘Hayley Williams’ Tour Diary Part 5: A Damn Good Time in Singapore’, new eight photos taken by Lindsey Byrnes were made available. Click “read more” to read the entry and click on the pics below to see them bigger!
Our trip to Singapore was a bittersweet time.
This was the last show that we played outside of the United States. We really didn’t want this trip to end. I’m still not sure that I’ve fully accepted the fact that we have enough fans in this part of the world to round up and play shows for. A lot of bands skip some of these countries because honestly, it costs a lot of benjamins to get here and there’s no way to predict how it’s gonna go until you just go. Thank God we finally got a clue. All of these places were new to us except for Singapore. We came here a year and a half ago and played to an amazing crowd of people. And I’m starting to think that that crowd is partly responsible for the fact that we were able to come back to this side of the world so quickly… and even play in new places like Hong Kong, Bali, and Jakarta. So with that being said, thank you very much Singapore!
Not only was it the last show of the year outside the U.S. but it was also the last night we would share the stage with our friends The Swellers. Look, don’t get ’em started on the subject, but for some reason we didn’t get them on the last show which happened to be in, ahem, Hawaii. I know, I know… we’re obviously the worst friends ever. Not sure what went wrong there but uh, anyway. We decided since Singapore was going to be our last stop together we’d go all out. In other words, we’d visit the Night Safari on the night before the show, eat french fries on the trolly that drove us past such majestic creatures as “the bearded pig”, and volunteer Anto (Swellers’ bassist) to conquer his fear of snakes by holding the biggest, largest, hugest snake that I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I mean, I wouldn’t have done it. Ever.
The day of the show was even better. It just so happened that on this day, out of all the other days, a comic book convention was in Singapore. Being that we too were in Singapore, there was clearly no other option than to attend. When I say that this was one of my favorite on-tour extra-curricular activities, you best believe it was one of my ALL TIME favorites. We stayed for a few hours, trying our hand at Japanese manga, taking pictures with Stormtroopers and Predators, and basically forgetting our adulthood altogether. How will we ever top this? We probably won’t top it. That’s the bitter part. The sweet part, however, is the fact that we had a killer show. The Swellers ruled as usual and I was so stoked to hear the crowd singing along to them as we were getting ready. By the time we took the stage it seemed like the whole place was about to explode. We’re talking about a pretty big place too. In fact, I never got to express how good it felt to play the “Indoor Stadium” in Singapore. So let me just say it felt good. Damn good.
–HAYLEY
