Sunday, February 12, 2006

The Konsert Rock Revival 2006 Experience

Man what a night. Yesterday I had a blast of a time at the Rock Revival concert at the Marquee despite some of its shortcomings. Man, the malay community turned up in full force to support the concert, some of whom queued up at least an hour earlier than the stipulated performance time of 7.30pm. The whole concert rocked and nothing can compare to the pure energy of live music with legendary Malay rockers like Reeha (some were former members of Sweet Charity), The Unwanted, Awie (the former Wings), Amy (Search) to a new generation of strong, local rockers like Man Toyak (Tribe), Fuad Rahman and Shah who are blessed with great vocals.

Joey from BPR (Bumiputra Rockers) couldnt make it at the last minute but it was alright cos we caught his act at the Semangat Zaman concert at the Esplanade last year.

I was one of the lucky few to win a pair of tixs to the concert which kept $90 bucks in my pocket for a while more. If you get the tixs at the door, 1 tix would have cost 10 bucks more at $55 each. The lucky top winner himself won a pair of tix too but he also won a Rock Revival t-shirt + an electric guitar sponsored and autographed especially by Awie, Amy and Joey from BPR! manz..did i drooled at that but Yan as always practically pointed out that I would not know how to play it either but well it would have made a good keepsake arrrgg :)

So anyways, Yan brought his camera along but concert policy stated we gotta leave it at the door, so Yan ended up taking it back to his car. I went ahead to grab a good spot cos people were like streaming in but thank god the Marquee was pretty spacious, so i think everybody got a good view of the stage. At 8.05pm, the lights dimmed and the audience surged forward for the start of a 4-hour rock concert. Yan and I had a good standing spot in the middle and were only inches away from the separation railing....very the kiasu but hey its a rock concert laah.

The first few opening acts were from local bands like Andresha Andin featuring Emma, Alhambra, and Osairis. They did alright but only thing was, the music very nearly drowned out their voices so they should have rocked it harder there. Andresha appeared all decked out in rock gear and ready to smash it up but then sang a pretty friendly almost Bhumiband-like number. Don't get me wrong I like friendly numbers but i think kinda salah frequency. Still, they did good cos anybody who attempts to sing at a rock concert with a fickle crowd (they can love or hate u in a sec!) deserves a pat on the back.

The concert really picked up when Man Toyak Tribe and Fuad made their appearance. I mean they were pure energy and natural born performers, revving up the crowd and interacting with them. They sang old favourites by Sweet Charity and encouraged the crowd to sing along. Their voices were so strong, the music complement them not the other way round. I was caught off guard though when Man Toyak came down the stage to the centre side and sang prettty close to us all and yep he grabbed my hand and all i could do was..giggle shyly..damn paisey hehe.

Yan and I caught Tribe's act before at the Semangat Zaman concert at the Esplanade. At that time, I felt Tribe stood out cos their music were pretty good and Man Toyak had a great voice. This is definitely a boost for the local scene.

I gotta admit I didnt know some of the old hits but those that i know and liked boy did i sing along. Its hard to get over the songs cos while some were rocking good, others were memorable 'jiwang' tunes. Even though they are a different genre altogether, its hard to forget these hits just like its hard to get over the late P.Ramlee's style of music.

So it was non-stop rock revival over the 4 hour concert when more than 20 odd hits were sung, hits like Kamelia, Teratai, Sejuta Wajah- Sweet Charity, Masih Ada Rindu, Penyesalan- The Unwanted, Seribu Tahun Takkan Mungkin- BPR, Cinta Palsu- TZ, Pawana, Isabella, Isi dan Kulit, Gadisku- Search, Melissa- Helter Skelter, Hukum Karma, Sejati-Wings, Tiada lagi kidungmu- Lefthanded etc.

Times have really wrought changes on the performers with the good natured Awie making light bantering with the audience on his weight gain and past loves (ahem figure it out :)), Amy still thin and sexy rendering old hits like Isabella, he mentioned that Search will be having their 25th anniversary reunion concert in K.L this year. For those who wanna find out more, the url is
www.duniasearch.com thanks bee! The Unwanted still had their original ensemble and legendary guitar maestro Rosli Mohalim (of Sweet Charity and now Reeha) formed part of the professional music ensemble supporting all the vocalists.

Crunch time came at 11pm with the concert nearing its last hour before curtain close. Awie did a half hour set sharing the hour with Amy. Somebody shouted good naturedly "Ehh Awie dah bulat!" which made everyone laughed cos Awie had these big biceps kinda like he's a member of the Harley biker club and at one time Awie smiled and nasally said "Diam lah!" when one guy shouted that Awie's tummy was looking gembur..whatever that means. He had his hair tied up in a pony tail and delighted the crowd when he came down to shake hands with the fans..i only managed to grab his finger!! arrrrgg...Amy (see left) on the other hand still maintain maybe he still drags those ciggies but he still had what it takes to bring the house down but was more reserved than Awie though.

The whole concert ended with all the performers donning the Konsert Revival tshirt, cant quite recall what the song was cos i was busy snapping pics away. Initially i activated the night mode on my phone camera but the quality was really bad, they said it was no use taking cos you wont get to capture due to the lighting so camera phones were not a threat to the organisers. Still Nokia 3230 is known to be the best of the worst in this conditions and in real day, it takes really great pictures despite 1.3 mp. All the pics in this blog were all taken by my 3230. So i took lotsa pictures and before long, realised it was over.

Yan and I left the Marquee with the others but we soon heard people screaming and making lotsa noise. We looked at each other...ROCKER ALERT! We headed back and there was Awie meeting the fans signing autographs and all. Thank god there wasn't an insane number of people so we went quickly and got him to autograph one of the tixs, yeah pathetic i know shoulda brought something more solid for him to sign on then he kindly obliged to taking a picture together!! with me!! I shakily raised my 3320 and hoped it wouldn't fail me cos sometimes, it would flash a space limitation warning. Thank god it didnt and the pic looked great hahahahaah i can live happy now :)



Man what a night, i got caught offguard, grabbed a coupla rocker limbs and got me my autograph and pics...best of all Yan was there with me having flown back (see left: at T1) a few days before. I'm so happy he's back in time to go to the concert with me. Though he'll be going away again in a month's time, its great we're still going strong despite the occasional separation.

I love u dear and thanks for the great company. We were cool Mat and Minah rock yesterday!

I'll definitely attend more rock concerts in the future with the following tips in mind :)

1. Not to switch off my mobile phone. The more noise the better, not that it matters at a rock consert

2. Not to wear heels, cos typically rock concerts can up to 4 hours plus so my feet will suffer.

3. No tight fitting or thick clothings. You'll be trapped with hundreds of sweaty, gyrating bodies, its gona be like in an open oven- unless the venue is airconditioned.

4. Bras are especially important what with the jostling and packing crowd cos no wardrobe malfunction fiasco please unless its for a darn handsome rocker, I'm kidding bee!

5. Never to leave expensive cameras at the door. Leave them in the car cos as careful as the crew can be, mistakes can happen and the expensive Nikon may end up in the wrong hands

6. To be appreciative of the effort put in by both the organisers and amateur opening acts, cos singing rock tunes in front of a large audience is never easy. Booing just dont cut it, in fact you you might just find yourself being slam dunked by angry fellow audiences for being a bad sport or worse, the rocker may smash you with his guitar. They need the exposure if not at these concerts then where else?? But bands pun don't salah frequency lah, macam maner people not fed-up

7. Make sure you eat before you go for a rock concert cos with all the heat, sweaty bodies and loud noise, you might just go all dizzy and faint dead away hence missing the show. Analogy: Engin belum start , kunci dah patah heehee

8. To go earlier and be very kiasu cos I wana be at the front. They have all the fun aaaaaaahhh

9. Wear Black

10. Stay behind when the whole thing ends cos inactivity usually means something big's gona happen in a few minutes just like a movie blooper. sigh..luckily got my pic :)




























posted by GirlAwake @ 9:56 PM 6 comments