Dream Theater @ Singapore: The January Bashing

Walaupun Dream Theater sudah bermain di Singapore pada Januari lalu, sedikit rangkuman pengalaman dari Ellary di sini bolehlah dijadikan imbasan kembali persembahan yang mungkin sukar dibuat di Malaysia. EDITOR

A rocking chaos in Singapore..

Place : Fort Canning Park, Singapore

Tour : Chaos in Motion – Asian Tour by Dream Theater

Date : 17th January 2008

Time : 8.00 pm

I was not a fan of Dream Theater previously. I knew the band in 1998 but they did not turn on my interest to listen their “ordinary materials” like Metallica and Nirvana. But my perception went wrong when my college-mate playing the DT – Live in New York concert (after the album of Scenes from A Memory released) on his PC. I had a jaw-dropping moment after watching their mind-boggling playings. The fact is – this band has attracted me to watch its second concert in Singapore, which I assume this is my first time experience of watching an international concert out of Malaysia. It is one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen!!. Crazy enuff? Yes, I had to take a trip down to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur and it was worth it. Listening to DTs music on the album is just great, but seeing them live is the best thing in the world!

The show kicked off at 8.00pm SHARP!! I had been standing in front of the barricade since 7.00pm. The moment the lights went down the place went nuts!!! DT started off the show in the best possible way. The first song was Constant Motion. Throughout the 2 hour show, the band mostly played songs from the latest album “Systematic Chaos” such as The Ministry of Lost Souls (we crowd sang the riffs!!), Prophets of War, The Dark Eternal Night, In The Presence of Enemies Pt 2. It was an exhilarating experience to see four of the most respected and technically advanced musicians — John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, John Myung, and Jordan Rudess to show theirs unlimited mind-boggling musical techniques to tantalizing the fans. They kept us all captivated with genius virtuoso skills and rocking out the fans with their vibrant and powerful live show. Every single member of the band was in top form, Mike especially – and that new kit is absolutely astounding! I always thought he was the best drummer in the world, now it has been confirmed! It was very nice to see Jordan in front doing some keyboard vs guitar war solos with John Petrucci. It was awe-inspiring and I was stoked!

In the middle of the concert, the rain started to fall but it did not last longer. The crowd was simply awesome; we sang and cheered with the band throughout most of the songs (the exceptions being – obviously – the songs from Systematic Chaos, which most of the fans didn’t know by heart yet because it was just released last year). Finally we had the awesome Medley for the encore of Trial of Tears, Finally Free, Learning to Live and I forgot the rest lah… Sorry for not being able to provide a set list here as I hardly remember the sequence of the songs.

All in all, great night, great band, and great bunch of people I met!! Great set list (even my fave songs were not played though), great light show, great showmanship and nice cartoon displayed. Funny enough, Mike is the man behind the making of the cartoon production. We fans were silent for a while to watch it instead of seeing the band! I cannot rave enough about how amazing this show was. It was the experience of a lifetime, and I can’t wait to see them again Once again, just an incredible show! Dream Theater rocks the fans and they really put us in a chaos state of mind…

Ellary Petrucci

Sunburst KL 08 Reviewed

Malaysia’s Own Woodstock?

At first, I thought the inaugural Sunburst Festival at Polo Pavilion, Bukit Kiara Equestrian last Saturday would repeat the same history of the fiasco Rentak Asia few years back. But I was totally wrong!!

Two half domed stage a-la Woodstock. Photo: SEIR

In fact, the melting pot carnival of various music types has managed to draw about 12,000 people to throng the venue. Despite the heavy rain started an hour after the fest began, it absolutely did not damper the constant inflow of music enthusiasts until the mid night. I missed watching the Gigi’s show including its semi-god guitarist Dewa Budjana because I was late to reach there. Coincidentally, the rained started when a Malay indie rock outfit Hujan was playing on the main stage. I was told by Seir that what the main anxiety of the concert organizers is the rain and normally, they will hire a “bomoh hujan” before a concert begins, no pun intended here.

Both 28 international and local bands were amazingly awesome, presumably. I truly enjoyed watching Tempered Mental, One Buck Short, the funked George Clinton, the Roots etc and the entire festival ran smoothly without any hanky-panky or unwanted incidents along the 12-hours non-stop event. All I saw was a sea of humans rocking to the craziest bands. The mass crowd too was thrilled by difference music genres ranging from hip-hop, punk rock, ska, R&B, funk, pop, rock etc. I wish I was John Legend –the centre of women’s attraction. I did not expect he would make all women regardless of age and
race went totally gaga over him. If my girl did that, I would become a green-eyed monster. Next time, I will try to compose songs like he does and try to be an astonishing piano player like he is!!! Period!!

The most successful crowd puller should go to the modern rock outfit Incubus. They really stole the show. Its performance was met by energetic enthusiasm shown by both the band vigorously and the lively listeners. By the time Search took over the baton to
rock the crowd, the size of the crowd shrunk drastically to half. Maybe Incubus had driven the frenzied crowd to exhaustion?

Search played after Incubus. Photo: Ellary Petrucci

I was too burnt out waiting Incubus to end the show (Incubus is great but not my cup of tea) and let Search kicked off. In spite of a minor technical glitch and audience fatigue,
Search successfully overcome to keep the spirit carried on entirely although they played about 6 songs only. After the small hiccup has been ironed out, hatchet has been buried, finally Din rejoin-ed his old buddies and this time, his showmanship was really much
aggressive compared to the last gig I saw at Backroom in December 2005. But the diehard fans did not have enough fun due to the time was almost approaching towards the allowable curfew fixed by the local authorities. The organizer (Nanas) was supposed to
remind the artistes/bands to not exceed the allotted time. International bands especially, had overreacted until they went beyond one hour from the allocated time. If I am not mistaken, each band was permitted to play abut 45 minutes only. Perhaps they had to react excessively in order to mesmerize the Malaysian fans once in a blue moon? By the way, Estranged continued the event as the last band (impromptu changes) unfortunately, I had to leave. Friends can’t stand my manana attitude. Eh, I noticed there was not a single Indonesian there?

Despite the variety of music choice, the heavy metal genre had been sidelined. I was informed that the legendary Malaysian heavy metal band – Cromok – would make a special appearance with the resurgence of its original guitarist – Karl after a long hiatus. Yet, I truly had no idea why Cromok was not selected even though they were on the preliminary bands list. If they had the chance the play the gig, I believe it would attract an unlimited number of heavy metal fans to turn out and annihilate Bukit Kiara Equestrian as what happened on Rock the World V in 2004 – and they would outnumber Incubus. Would you agree with me on this?

The Roots on stage. Photo: SEIR

I strongly believe that this successful event has really put our country on the world music map and really hope there are a lot of concert festivals to be organized here at a cheaper price, or maybe free. For a low income and meager salary earner like me – RM 200 is really cost my arm and my leg. (Actually, at very last minute, Seir called me up informing that he had an extra complimentary ticket, thanks bro). The good thing that I am really proud of is this event relies heavily on the home-grown talent besides Rock the
World. I presume the local bands should take the golden opportunity to learn from the international bands on rigs, set-up, gadgets and the professionalism manner in playing instruments, entertaining fans etc.

I met my old friend who is the singer cum guitar of a local punk rock band. His band did a gig in London last year December and they had a chance playing in front of a member of Sex Pistol, which I forgot his name. It seems that he was dissatisfied with the quality of sound system provided. “If possible, I would try to get Rahmad (Kamikaze) to be the sound engineer. I know we are a rubbish band,” he said matter of factly. I also heard that one of amps was blown out when Love Me Butch ran amok on the stage. Was it true?

In the end, it was humid and exhausting yet overall show was great and much fun with craziest bunch of music lovers… It was definitely a day to be remembered and everybody went home with something to talk about. I finally got dazed and confused with the constant “rojak” music flew into my brain that day

Ellary Petrucci

More Sunburst pictures at flickr taken by Cipoi, Remin Noir, and Seir. Enjoy browsing!

cromok resurface?

The reunion of ‘the real’ Cromok is most likely to happen

Hari ni aku seperti biasa ke kedai muzik Yamaha membawa hati yang lara. Lara kerana lagha dalam kerja. Mahu mengubat hati sikit dengan memukul atau memetik atau menekan. Berjalan dari pejabat di Boulevard, Mid Valley City, ia hanya seperti hari biasa. Selepas menekan butang-butang piano Yamaha mencuba lagu yang tak boleh-boleh, Live & Let Die (Wings), aku mencuba memukul dram elektronik Yamaha. Di tepi sana, dikelilingi gitar-gitar berkilat-kilat, seseorang sedang memetik gitar dengan asyik masyuk sekali. Nampaknya pemain gitar ini bukan yang sebarangan. Petikannya bersih, laju, penuh konsentrasi, penuh tona dan bagai biasa kudengar. Tapi… di mana, ya?

Aku tak mampu nak main dram dengan fokus lagi kerana tertarik nak tahu siapa yang bermain itu. Batang dram kusimpan dan terus aku berjalan perlahan ke depannya. Ya… aku kenal orang ini! Dia ialah gitaris yang bermain dengan band yang bernama Cromok pada suatu masa di Australia dahulu. Dengan baju pejabat bertali leher warna merah, dia bukan seorang laskar kolar putih yang biasa. Dia ialah seorang rocker sejati, brader. Dan dia berjaya membuktikan itu hanya dengan hujung jarinya sahaja…

Ya tuan-tuan. Dia ialah Chot aka Karl dari Cromok dan aku menghabiskan hampir 15 minit melihat dia memetik gitar dengan tekun. Aku sempat juga mengambil video dengan telefon aku bagi menghasilkan ‘gambar bergerak’ yang cukup tidak berkualiti di bawah. Yang penting, dia memberitahu Cromok asal mungkin akan bergabung semula pada 15 Mac ini untuk sebuah konsert berskel antarabangsa yang dianjurkan syarikat acara sohor Pineapple Concerts.

“Mungkin Cromok dan Sheila Majid sahaja yang wakil Malaysia. Yang lain semua dari oversea,” kata Chot yang peramah dan suka tersenyum. Dia menukar amplifier bagi gitar Yamaha dan Ibanez yang dicubanya, dan katanya dia sedang dalam pencarian sebuah gitar yang sempurna. Dia menyambung, “diorang nak buat konsert macam apa tu…?” dia cuba mengingatkan namanya. Aku rasa aku pasti tahu, mungkin seperti Rentak Asia hampir sedekad yang lalu.

Minum teh bersama Chot di kedai mamak selepas itu melengkapkan salah satu fail hidup aku. Chot ialah anggota asal Cromok yang belum pernah aku jumpa. Arwah tu terkecuali.

Aku masih ingat, kali pertama mendengar Cromok ialah di sebuah rumah sewa rakan mat kilang yang berselerak, di Penang lebih 15 tahun lalu. Petikan gitar lagu Metallurgigal cukup mempesonakan walaupun aku bukanlah kaki metal sebenarnya dan ia merubah banyak sudut pemikiran dan pandangan aku.

Aku tak dapat jawab dengan baik apabila Chot tanya aku, dari sudut mana? Aku mungkin tak dapat menjawab dengan tepat juga sekarang tetapi itu adalah antara beberapa saat yang paling sukar aku nak lupakan sampai sekarang dan harusnya, aku akan ingat sampai bila-bila juga. Memang… sebenarnya ia terasa amat segar sekali dalam peti memori muzikal aku. Dear Chot, thanks for the teh tarik too!

SEIR

Mempersembahkan Chot aka Karl…

the mule

The great ‘drum song’ 

Deep Purple played this 1972 song with 70 percent focused to the drummer, the great Ian Paice! Hurrah! And look out for the Ritchie Blackmore’s killer style too.

rock kangkang balas dendam

Selepas 20 Tahun…

Sektor muzik yang sering digelar “rock kapak” ini sebenarnya masih segar dan semakin membesar. Kini, band-band terkini rock kapak akan bergabung sekali lagi dengan beberapa band jemputan khas yang tidak tertulis di flyers. Tak perlu diberitahu di sini, tetapi… expect the unexpected. Find your tightest jeans, and yeah… the rising star bandana and don’t forget, some old fond memories…

mohd jayzuan

Mohd Jayzuan, yang juga sinonim dengan band Indie dari Ipoh – Free Love – kini muncul pula dengan rakaman solo – Love-Fi.

“Ini lagu-lagu yang aku tulis masa tengah sakit (kemurungan-putus cinta!),” jelasnya.

Platform dan mood latar akustik, rakaman dilancarkan secara ‘lembut’ (soft launch la…) ketika IDOF lalu, sudah boleh didapati. Hubungi Jay di mohdjayzuan@gmail.com dan layari juga www.myspace.com/mjhome.

Rakaman ini dibantu oleh rakan-rakan pemuzik antaranya Noh (Hujan). Kamu beli, dengar dan kemudian bagitahu Jay macam mana bunyi lagu-lagu dia… Ok?

elle j. hafiz

oh chentaku

Ini Myo, vokalis dan gitaris dari band Oh Chentaku. Band yang katanya berteraskan post-hardcore & emo rock (seperti dinyatakan dalam CD baru mereka) telah melancarkan material rakaman studio yang diberi judul Heartbreak Ridge Was Never This Arrogant di bawah label Delicate Entertainment.

Maklumat lanjut boleh hubungi mereka di ohchentaku@gmail.com atau layari www.myspace.com/ohchentaku.

* Untuk mereka yang meminati muzik irama baru.

elle j. hafiz