Thursday 31 March 2011
Is It Really Made by Me?
Saturday 26 March 2011
Please be Calm, Mother Earth
Wednesday 23 March 2011
Sneak-peek of My Latest Drawing
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Article about Suede's gig in Jakarta
Here's the full-page-article from Tempo newspaper (Koran Tempo) on Monday, March 21st 2011, page A18. The article is in bahasa Indonesia.
Article in English:
Suede Shake Jakarta
The British alternative rock band shake Jakarta. Unfortunately, the sound system was inadequate.
Accompanied by spotlights and hysterical screaming, four black-clad men arrived on the Hall A stage at Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran on Saturday evening. The four members of Suede – drummer Simon Gilbert, 45, bass player Mat Osman (43), keyboardist Neil Codling (37) and guitarist Richard Oakes (34) – took their positions.
The screaming grew louder when Brett Anderson, 43, the vocalist of the British alternative rock band joined them and stood centre stage. Without further ado, Brett, dressed in black shirt and trousers, took the microphone and sang This Hollywood Life. Brett completed the song, taken from the album Dog Man Star (1994), perfectly.
Without pause, Brett performed the numbers She, Trash and Filmstar from the their album, Coming Up (1996). This was followed by Animal Nitrate from the album Suede, released 18 years ago, and We Are the Pigs from Dog Man Star.
After performing around six songs, Brett finally greeted the audience. “It’s great to be here. Are you enjoying the show?” he said, to enthusiastic cheers from about 8,000 people.
That night Suede performed as part of the “Konser Live & Rockin’ ” event, promoted by Ismaya Live. The concert, which started at 19.00, began with a performance by Korean boy band 2 PM, who only sang four songs.
The evening’s Suede show was their second performance in Indonesia. In 2003, brought by promoters Java Musikindo, Suede had their own concert at Tennis Indoor Senayan, Jakarta.
The “Live & Rockin’ ” concert was announced around a month ago. No billboards or banners advertised it. “This was a request from the sponsors BlackBerry to announce it via social media, such as Foursquare, Twitter and websites,” said Christie Atmadja of Ismaya Live’s marketing and promotions staff, via cell phone.
The organizers of the “Live & Rockin’ ” concert implemented a BlackBerry trade-in program. Unlike normal concert ticketing, people who wanted to watch this concert had to purchase a BlackBerry Onyx, Torch or Curve 3G for two tickets and a Rp 200,000-400,000 reimbursement for every second hand cell phone of any type that they traded in.
This unorthodox ticketing system frustrated devout Suede fans in Indonesia. In response to this, Christie said that “Live & Rockin’ ”was an event derived from BlackBerry’s trade-in program. “There were negative reactions because they wanted to watch the concert, not buy BlackBerrys,” said Christie.
Suede fans, aged between 20s and 30s, expressed their disgust on a forum at Suede’s official website, www.suede.co.uk . Fortunately, their dismay was heard by Suede’s management.
On March 8th 2011, the official Suede website announced contests to win concert tickets without having to purchase a BlackBerry. The contests were a form of compromise between Suede, the promoters and sponsors. “Luckily Suede’s management fought for the fans’ wishes so that tonight we could see Suede’s show,” said Suede fan Tessa, 29, after the concert.
To date, Suede, formed in London in 1989, have released five albums and one Best of album. But no songs from New Morning, their last album released in 2002, were performed in the 90-minute concert that evening. Meanwhile, from the preceding album, Head Music, the songs performed were Electricity, Can’t Get Enough, and Everything Will Flow.
After changing guitarist and keyboardist, Suede decided to disband in 2003 and work on their individual projects. Finally at the beginning of last year, Suede officially announced that they would reunite with the line-up from the Coming Up album.
Though they had split up, you could say that Suede’s performance that evening, with a total of 19 songs including the encore (audience request for more songs) of Lazy and Saturday Night, was perfect. Especially with Brett’s energetic display and communication with the audience, even though he is already 43 years old. With their all-out, prime musicianship, Suede showed their class as a veteran band that night.
Sadly, the evening’s sound system was lacking, resulting in Brett’s voice and Richard’s guitar sounding imperfect. Poor sound engineering made the keyboard sounds played by Neil out of step with the other sounds.
The evening’s concert ended with interaction between Brett and the audience. Brett climbed down from the stage and shook hands with the crowd in the front row, from left to right while performing the final song, Saturday Night. Brett also promised the audience to perform again in Indonesia. “Thank you so much. I’d love to come back to Indonesia, to Jakarta,” he said.
Article in bahasa Indonesia is written by Fanny Febiana (Koran Tempo/@fan_78 on twitter)
Fotos are taken by Jacki (Koran Tempo)
Translated to English by: Hasief (@hasief on twitter)
Monday 21 March 2011
Suede Press Conference part 02
Friday, March 18, 2011
It was a hot and sunny day in Jakarta just like any other day here, but there was something special happening today. Suede—my favorite band ever since 14 years ago—will have their press conference regarding their upcoming gig on the next day. The press conference itself will be held in Ritz Carlton, Jakarta at 3pm, according to the invitation. I came to the hotel with my sister, Fanny and we met my friend, Tyas there. We arrived there, did the registration and waited…
The conference finally started at 5pm. Mat, Simon, Richard, Neil and Brett came into the conference room, bombarded by camera blitz from the audiences. After they sat on the front chairs, the host invited us to ask questions for Suede (and Shontelle who also has a press conference and will share stage with Suede).
Some reporters asked questions fro Suede. I tried to write them down and share them here.
Question (Q): The reason why Suede chose Indonesia on this tour.
Mat: I think the reason we chose it because the last show we did. We played here in 2003. I think we were the first band to play here after the Bali bomb. We got an amazing reaction from people here. You know, it was a great gig.
It's somewhere we'd like to play again and then we got an unfortunately split up so we couldn't. So when we come back, definitely the place we're interested in.
I can tell that Jakarta isn't anything like where we come from, thank God. It's warm and we don't have a lot of mangos and guavas in West London.
Q: do you have any plan to release new album with new songs?
Simon:We don’t know yet. It has to be very special. We have to believe in songs. We have to be great to do that.
Q: What are you going to perform tomorrow and what's the difference with your previous concert in 2003?
Mat: I think we’re much much older now…
Simon: in a good way.
Mat: We have to stop ten minutes for a break to have a drink. It’s probably kinda more a look back to our whole career.
*audiences were laughing*
Q: What songs will you perform tomorrow?
Brett: You’ll have to find out.
Mat and Simon answered most of the questions in this less-than-20-minutes press conference.
Sunday 20 March 2011
Suede Live in Jakarta
Setlist:
This Hollywood Life
She
Trash
Filmstar
Animal Nitrate
We are the Pigs
By the Sea
Electricity
The Drowners
Killing of a Flashboy
Can't Get Enough
Everything Will Flow
So Young
Metal Mickey
The Wild Ones
New Generation
Beautiful Ones
----ENCORE----
Lazy
Saturday Night
It was a fantastic performance. Thank you very much for singing old songs. Personally, I prefer Suede's first three albums and also the compilation album, Sci Fi Lullabies. Too bad, they only sang Killing of A Flashboy from B side tracks. Wish I could see them singing Sadie, Sound of the Street, My Insatiable One, My Dark Star, Living Dead, Young Men and others.
Brett Anderson Signing My Painting
Me: Brett, could you sign this for me?
Brett: Is it me?
Me: Yes, I painted it
Brett: What's your name?
Me: Tessa
Brett: Can you spell it?
Me: .... (suddenly I don't know how to spell my name, luckily I signed my own painting on the left bottom) Like this! *pointing my name on the painting*
I gave him the printed version on the gig.
Saturday 19 March 2011
Suede press conference
Suede's Press Conference at Ritz Carlton Jakarta on March 18th, 2011.
Neil Codling with his dazzling smile and blue eyes
Richard Oakes who looks a bit different
Simon Gilbert. He's really nice to his fans. We love you, Simon!
Matthew Osman. What a lovely guy! He answered almost all questions yesterday.
Brett Anderson. I lost my words when I saw him. XD He's very quiet on this press conference.
The band! SUEDE!
Me, Simon, and Tyas
Me, Matt, and Tyas
Neil and me
Being able to meet Brett was one of the greatest moment in my life. He's one of my inspirations. The picture above was kinda blurry. I think the camera was nervous too. I took this pic right after he signed my painting (the one that I hold).
Brett was soooooo nice. He let me took another picture because the first one was blurry. I asked him him to hug me and HE HUGGED ME!
This is my painting I talked about. I was so nervous...! I can't even spell my name when Brett asked me.
Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture with Richard. The hotel security was about to kick us out from the hotel :p