Sunday 8 May 2011

HURTS live in Jakarta – Media Session (Stories from fangirl to fangirls)

On May 7th, HURTS—British duo from Manchester, Theo Hutchcraft on vocal and Adam Anderson on synth—performed in an event called Nylon Music Festival organized by Urbanite Asia. Beside Hurts, there are 10 local bands who performed on this event which took place at Epicentrum Kuningan, Jakarta.

Before the music festival began on about 6 pm (Hurts performed on 10 pm), there was a press conference with Hurts and the 10 local bands at 2nd floor Nylon Mall, near the venue. My friend and I came to the press conference on behalf of one of the biggest media in Indonesia (not a music media, but it’s been around for quite long here). On the press conference invitation, it is said that the press conference should starts on 1 pm to approximately 2pm, but the time set can be change at anytime due to technical preps/band’s needs. So, the crew asked medias to be open for the press conference on 1 pm to 4 pm.

My friend had been there since 1 pm, while I came late due to another event that I have to attend. When I arrived on 2.30 pm, the press conference hasn’t started yet. Imagine my friend waited for 1,5 hours and they only talked about the local bands. The crew told her that they still don’t know whether Hurts will come or not because at that moment, Hurts were sleeping. (I bet they’re tired due to a tight schedule. They played in Kuala Lumpur on Friday night, took a plane to Jakarta on Saturday morning and had to perform here at night.) Few minutes after that, we got the news that Hurts were on the way! I was so nervous. I have prepared some questions for them (with a help from my best mate idlecuriosity). In a normal press conference, the band usually sit in front of the medias and the crew will give us about 30 minutes to ask questions. Usually each media will get a chance to ask 2 or 3 questions to the band. I was hoping for the same thing would happen on Hurts press conference.

And then… the men we were waiting for are here.

Theo and Adam came up from behind us and walked between the media who were standing there and waiting. Theo was wearing white shirt and black trousers (and I think he’s getting tanned), while Adam was wearing white plain shirt, black trousers, sunglasses… and THE BOOTS! When they passed me, I was so amazed. My hands were shaking. *Seriously, it is so hard to act calmly as media in press conference, while actually you are really in love with the band. Feels like I wanna jump and hug them. But once again, I have to be calm.*

After Hurts walked to the front, the crew allowed us to take pictures. The picture below is when Theo introduced the band. He only said, “Hi, we’re Hurts.” (The man on the right is Neil Reeves, the road manager.)

But the happiness of taking pictures was suddenly over. I was surprised when the crew said that they only allowed media partners to ask Hurts questions. They mentioned only few medias. They suddenly asked us and other medias to leave the place because there will be a shooting with MTV Indonesia. WTF? This is what you called press conference? They even asked me to stop when I took Theo and Adam’s picture before I left. This is ridiculous. We might not a media partner, but we want to cover Hurts gig. We got the invitation and we already RSVP-ed it. Of course we need story. We want to ask them some questions. What will we write if we’re not allowed to interview or ask them anything at all? This is strange…

Well, the promoter can make any special interview session or TV shooting session or whatever they want. But, please don’t call it press conference. They are two different things. The last press conference I attended before Hurts is Suede press conference on March with different promoter. At that time, there were also special interview with some medias (such as Rolling Stones magazine and Channel V), but the promoter managed to arrange the time so the special medias still had their interview session and the rest had their turns together in a press conference afterward. And they did it. They got a lot of coverage stories from online and printed medias all over the country.

So, I’m sorry if my writing above disappoints you because I didn’t have a chance to interview them. But don’t worry, I will share the pictures I got. Here they are…

Thank God, the weather in Jakarta is hot so they don't need to wear jacket and more skins are exposed XD

You may share or repost all the pictures in my tumblr or blog as long as you give the credit to me. Check out my tumblr for more photos at picturesquescene.

PS: I will share my stories about the gig next. (Or I think it’s better to share more pictures than writing about it:p)

Regards,

Tessa F. Chen

—a proud fangirl— haha!

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