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)