Report: World Press Freedom Day Gig Day #1

I missed out on most of the bands. When we got there Lurks was onstage and the sun was beating down rather fierce, forcing the crowd to hide under the shades, mostly away from the stage front. Then we went up to CM’s foodcourt for lunch.

When we were done and went downstairs again, I think Mushbuttons was playing. It’s one of those Indonesian indie-rock thing. Not my cuppa. After them there was Project Ei8ht, some kinda radio-friendly rock band, pretty polished musically and could have been one of those cover bands plying the club circuits (but I’m sure they were playing originals). They played a longer set which saved my band from going up early without our drummer who were trapped in a traffic jam somewhere near Leboh Ampang.

My band went up somewhere around 5pm. We played 8 songs, some were fouled up as per usual, and also an extra unrehearsed Labour of Hate when people asked for more.

I’m regretting the fact that I missed Nao’s set, a highly incendiary and political post-punk band from the Soundscape gang.

And I’m also pissed off that we didn’t have Hameed to go to after the show. Without Hameed, the many friends who came for the show and who I wanted to meet and hang out with, all scattered off somewhere else.

Thankfully the show ran like clockwork though. It’s all courtesy of Hasbee (Wasted Talent) who have managed it all very, very admirably. No hiccups, no drama and the bands all played without going over their time limits! Impressive.

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A report of the day with pictures by Lainie: Artword Addict

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Here’s Hasbee’s report of the first day:

WPFD @ Central Market : Day 1 – Post Mortem

hey guys,

just woke up. got home and collapsed on the sofa. anyway.. here follows the post mortem.

» post mortem

i was late this morning. got there at 830am but the equipment was just being unloaded. setting up took a longer than anticipated and we could only start soundcheck at 1130am.

thanks to nao, asna, lurks, fathullistiwa soundscapes and skyjuicecoffee for keeping their soundchecks short. the rest of the bands didn’t soundcheck.

1st band, grape, kicked off at 1230 after a short speech by sonia.30 minutes behind schedule but we managed to catch up (thanks to the bands) and by the time carburetor dung came on at 5pm, we were ahead of schedule, which gave joe kidd & kidd for a longer set.

the gig ended at 545pm.

» foul-ups & blunders

we did have some minor hiccups during the show. overall the sound was good but:

the right crash on the drumkit came off a few times (missing the lock which broke during soundcheck), once during skyjuicecoffee’s set and lots of times during carburetor dung’s set.

the kickdrum also kept shifting forward. my apologies to the drummers.

we lost power once during fathullistiwa’s set.

the crowd got a little rowdy during carburetor dung’s set and the Special Branch officers in attendance got a little itchy so we had to deploy security (me) to the front of the stage. i saw 2 people carrying crash helmets in that crowd but no injuries were reported. i didn’t want anything untoward happening because we still have one more day to go and i didn’t want the permits being cancelled on us.

but then again, rock music is not supposed to be safe, is it? it’s supposed to be controversial and world changing.

» my gig review

the first band grape kicked off the gig at 1230pm. very polished for a young band. radio friendly rock, hints of funk and jazzy progressions. very incubus-y, safe for mainstream consumption.

next up was asna, a 4 piece band (siblings). first thing that caught my eye were the vintage guitars, a gibson les paul, a fender strat and a tele (all from 70s). they dedicate their first song, “smile”, to their grandad who had just passed away 3 days ago. sweet. they played 2 originals and 1 cover (i’m with you – avril lavigne), so i hope we don’t get into trouble with MACP. radio friendly rock.

fathullistiwa soundscapes came on next. this was my first time seeing them on stage. wow. fathul gets very worked up on stage eh? they played 3 songs from the romantikarat cd.

peter brown and markiza provided some (unintentional?) laughs during their set but it was good. markiza touched on the black metal and “bangsa asing” and only AFTER that asked me if the gig was being recorded.

“..continue to conducts your experiements on kambing” – peter hassan brown, cij world press freedom day gig.

nao! very weird timings. the timing for their songs sound very dillinger escape plan to me. very very passionate on stage. their frontman tat was quite vocal about their stand on state of press freedom in malaysia. quite brave for mentioning the oil hike protests in KLCC. the first overtly political band on stage for the day.

skyjuicecoffee came up next. punk-emoishy. very energetic set. lots of support from the crowd. mtv-consuming crowd would love them.

lurks? ipod+drum machine+guitars = layan. i can’t think of an equivalent word in english.

next, farasu. attracted a fair sized crowd at the front of the stage. lots of black shirts. no goats in sight. i made them tie up their live stock behind the stage. metal! metal! metal!

mushbuttons. first time i’ve seen them with a second guitar. did a mixed set of english and malay originals. the smashing pumpkins influence shows.

project ei8ht was a pleasant suprise. a bc rich mockingbird? guitar hero! their material was quite good, blues-rock.. the vocalist sounded a bit vedderesque, but hey, if that’s your thing..

last band for the day was carburetor dung. this was the band everyone was waiting for. central market born and bred, they were an apt choice to close day 1. joe even called central market their “spiritual home”.

first thing that caught my eye was the anti-ISA sticker on joe’s guitar, then i saw the guitar that the sticker was attached to.

i.want.a.les.paul.

from the first song “potong nama”, it was kick ass set from carburetor dung. at one point, i thought alak was going to moon the audience while singing “mari nyanyi menjilat”. good thing he didn’t, because later sonia told me that DBKL were on the scene. they seemed disappointed that we had permits for the gig.

and yeah, it didn’t rain.

anyway, good luck to the bands performing tomorrow. and thanks to all the bands who performed today.

warm regards hasbee

:: angry middle finger ::
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