They want to join in The Fray

On Friday, US alternative rock quartet The Fray will once again perform for fans here - with a bit of mystery thrown in.

The venue will remain a secret to the event's 1,759 ticket-holders until the day before the concert.

The highly anticipated show is part of this year's Arthur's Day celebrations in Singapore, marking the anniversary of the Guinness brewing company, which had its origins in Dublin, Ireland, in 1759.

It is also exciting that a local act will be picked by The Fray to open for them.

Over four weeks, 21 shortlisted bands battled it out during the Play On The Day rounds before they were narrowed down to four contenders - Tim Koh Band, The Facade, Ellipsis and Light Up, Charcoal. Who deserves the spot? We let the bands tell us in their own words.

Tim Koh Band

With bassist Iru Suratman, guitarist Andy Chong, keyboardist Anna Foo, drummer Wong Wei Lung and vocalist Tim Koh, we're a high-energy homegrown pop/rock act.

Our music fuses addictive grooves as well as catchy and melodic riffs with heartfelt lyrics. We should be The Fray's opening act because...

We have worked tremendously hard to hone our craft.

We truly believe that hard work will always pay off one day. And we do hope that that day will be on Arthur's Day!

Light Up, Charcoal

We're a two-piece acoustic act that is everything young, simple and fun.

Comprising Tan Yu Quan on lead vocals and guitar as well as Clarkson Chang on guitar, we play music that allows our audience to engage their own imagination.

We should be The Fray's opening act because...

We've been spending a lot of time outside of national service for our music.

But we'll just leave it to The Fray! We can only say how much we want this.

Ellipsis

We're a rock quartet made up of three guys and a girl (Jowell Tan, Soh Zhengping, Teng Yen Hui and Japheth Ng) and we have varied musical influences - from the dynamic shifts often found in instrumental post-rock, to the hard-and-fast rhythms of indie music, to even the psychedelia of the 60s.

We somehow manage to blend these elements together to create attention-grabbing songs. Fun fact about us - we started out as a comedy rock band, performing songs about unfulfilled pet terrapins and alien abductions.

We should be The Fray's opening act because...

We are four regular people with big dreams and we are a young band eager to share our music with as many people as possible.

The Facade

We're four friends (Jereld Ang, Brendon Chua, Jared Chan and Shawn Chan) who love music and we play anything from pop to blues to rock - anything that makes your heads bob.

We are in the midst of writing our own original music to create an EP. We are also working on putting up more YouTube videos to reach out to more people.

We should be The Fray's opening act because...

The Facade and The Fray have so much in common. Our band names starts with "The", we're both fourpiece bands, both of our lead singers have shaved heads.

More seriously, we think our sound is unique and we love to entertain and interact with music lovers.

ashikinr@sph.com.sg

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