Rock The World 9 – Main Stage
Posted by kenchill. Categories Event Coverage, Events, Featured, Music
This is the second part of the 2-part coverage. Check out the coverage of the Indie and Chillout stage here: http://www.lifeinkl.com/2010/01/09/rock-the-world-9-indie/. The heavy afternoon rain forced most of us to take shelter in the media tent, foregoing performances by bands such as Blind Tribe (they were playing when the rain started, and continued playing), Saturnine, Yuna and Disagree.
There was the usual local clothing labels around the venue, this on in particular, the newer Envelove, who stocks the famous Badger (from Bandung, Indonesia) brand.
Republic of Brickfields is no stranger to the local music scene and is a staple band at the Rock The World series (no Koffin Kanser this year though). Recently, they opened for Search at Mon't Kiara and today, they had a real surprise in store for fans.
As usual, Republic of Brickfields sang their own songs, and had 1 or 2 cover songs from various other artists, and tonight, Aru announced that they were playing Balada Pemuzik Jalanan, a song by Search.
Right after the intro riff, up comes Amy Search, running into the stage, surprising everyone. What a nice arrangement indeed, Republic playing a cover of Search's song, and Amy comes up as the guest singer. Search was scheduled to play at Radio Rosak that night, but after it had been cancelled, Aru told me that Search suddenly call him up the night before and suggested this, and after 1 jamming session, it was on!
At this point of time, the organisers realised that they were on a very very tight schedule as the heavy rain consumed nearly 2 hours of stage time. To counter this, all bands were only restricted to 2 songs. Aru was smart enough to avoid any boos or backlash from the crowd and said that they had to give the opportunity to other bands to perform as the stage is shared between them. To top it off, if you want to listen to more of Republic, Aru told the crowd to come to their shows in the future!
Managed to catch a few shots of Ham on stage, due to his request. Nice crowd large crowd indeed. As I mentioned in the previous article, the Main Stage was really high, and on top of that, the TM advertising board and the stage monitors were contributing more to the height factor. Most photographers had tele lenses though, but alas, the drummer was way to behind to be seen from the front of the stage.
Seven Collar T-shirt, veterans of the local scene dished out songs from their latest album, The Great Battle this time around.
There was also Meet Uncle Hussain, still existing after Lan the previous vocalist left the group to form Azlan & The Typewriter. This time around, there were 2 vocalists on stage, running around, alternating between one another, and giving glances and nudges like enemies, or alter egos.
It was a great and energetic performance by the band. The 2 vocalists provided more energy to the song, and lucky for them, the 2 voices did not destroy the band's most famous song, Lagu Untukmu, which was sang really well by both the vocalists. Their separation of the song's parts were also good, it's like there was 2 persons in the song (didn't matter that both of them were males).
Does it look like Pijie? Squint a little bit and it might.
Yep, yet another surprise for the night (well, the band tipped me off the night before, but I needed to see it to believe it, as I am a great fan of Bittersweet). Yes, Pijie and Hafiz have left Bittersweet to pursue their own personal interests, and the new vocalist for Bittersweet is Pijan!
The replacement guitarist is Moon, from The Times. I'm not sure if he got kicked out from The Times or what. Need to confirm on that.
The rest of the band members remained as usual, but their sessionist drummer, Alang is overseas at New Zealand though.
Another sponsor for Rock The World 9
High flyers Pesawat is now set as the second last band for this year's event, with Jipie on bringing out his spanking red keyboard for their intro, before strapping on his guitar for Bingit and Excuse Me.
The coveted last band spot for this year was snapped up by non other than Bunkface, who had a meteoric rise last year to become the new rock stars for 2009 and 2010. It was already slightly pass midnight at this time but the show had to go on (and end as well) and their first song was Bunk Anthem, and the crowd was crazy.
Just as they finished their first song, the stage lights went out and the main speakers on the front was shut off too. It seemed as though the lights were waiting to be turned on for a dramatic moment, but well, after they finished playing Revolusi, the band disappeared from stage also immediately and the lights went off, it was time to go home.
All in all, the 3 stages were great, but alas the rain had dented this otherwise awesome event. Perhaps we could have a less tightly packed band schedule and spread the event to maybe 2 days or so. This way, we can have people enjoying the less known bands, as well as the more famous bands. Also, a 12 hour schedule can be quite tiring, not to mention damn hot standing in the sun during the afternoon sessions. Well, just my thoughts.
The fully packed crowd at the Main Stage and the ultra tight and strict security.
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3 Responses to "Rock The World 9 – Main Stage"
Rock The World 9 – Indie Stage « Life in KL - January 14, 2010 / 11:31 pm
[...] You can check out the Main Stage coverage here: http://www.lifeinkl.com/2010/01/14/rock-the-world-9-main-stage/ [...]
perry - November 22, 2010 / 4:30 pm
Just came across this ol' write up of yours .. nice pics too Nine RTW's ago our small time band was up on stage. 1Utama, May 2000. Memories
kenchill - November 23, 2010 / 10:30 pm
RTW1 lah u mean? Wahahaaaa!