Indonesian soul: Joenifar Arief, from Soul D‘Soul, takes on the stage at Istora Senayan last Saturday. About the only thing Simply Red and Coolio have in common is that both Mick Hucknall (lead singer of the former) and Coolio are 47.
The two acts hardly together as strawberries and cream, but the festival directors of Java Soulnation saw it fit to place them in that festival’s lineup. Fortunately they did, because these strange bedfellows made for excellent festival fare. It is these two acts which struck the greatest impact at the weekend’s event at Istora Senayan, which was, for the most part, fairly pedestrian.
I have never been a fan of Simply Red. In fact, I’ve been vocally critical of them on a reasonably consistent basis over the past twenty years. Their soft melodies are like razors cutting through my head, provoking a writhing reaction as I gulp out the phrase “get it off!” with the desperation of a man with only a minute to live. Such is my loathing for the band that it has always struck me as incomprehensible that they should enjoy the amount of success they have done (several one hits in the US, UK, Europe and Australia).
I’ve never met a Simply Red fan and I’m not sure any of my friendships would survive such a revelation.
Nor has Mick Hucknall’s arrogance escaped my ire: speaking recently he announced himself as “one of the best singer-songwriters this country [England] has produced. Ever.”
Hardly becoming, but then perhaps someone who has dated the likes of Helena Christensen and Catherine Zeta Jones enjoys some right to arrogance, even if that was some time in the past.
So it was on Friday night that I stood in line waiting the media to be let into the concert. I made a few mumbled complaints about never being able to be the same again after having willingly waited in line for a Simply Red concert, and then observed that I couldn’t see who would be seeing such an event. Surely middle aged people to whom Mick Hucknall’s smooth vocals spoke in the halcyon days of the early 90s.
Once the media pack was let through, we made our way through a narrow passageway into the auditorium. I felt like a cow being led to slaughter. But what occured was something of a revelation.
When Mick Hucknall emerged singing a song I’d never heard before, the crowd went completely insane.
Crowd pleaser: Simply Red performs at Istora Senayan last weekend. They waved and clapped and cheered. I looked around, confused. Middle-aged people don’t usually have so much energy in their celebration. Nay, indeed. For they were young. Early twenty-somethings. The strangest thing? They knew all the words. All of them, to every song. By the time the first chord to “straight into your arms” was played, the crowd were in a kind of frenzy: screaming and wailing, arms over shoulders, swaying, faces beaming. The sound of the crowd almost drowning out Mick Hucknall’s voice.
I had my answer: lots of people like Simply Red. They like them so much that they make up for any disdain I feel toward them indeed, I confess to feeling so impressed by the crowd’s reaction that I laughed in disbelief for most of the concert. Java Soulnation certainly got it right in getting Simply Red.
Even if they are all washed up and doing their final tour, the fans just love them and the concert was something else.
My weekend’s experience of Coolio was somewhat different. I have no real feelings to Coolio either good or bad. Sure, I remember Gangsta’s Paradise. I was in my early high school years when it was released and went on to be one of the anthems of my generation.
Equally, though, I am aware that since that time he has experienced something of a dry spell. No major hits since 1997’s I’ll See You When You Get There. Two appearances on Britain’s Big Brother would seem to cement just how far he has fallen. Just a sad celebrity has-been waiting out his days on reality television.
Living in a gangsta’s paradise: American rapper Coolio, best known for his hit single Gangsta’s Paradise, brings a touch of hip-hop to Java Soulnation. My colleague and I were to interview Coolio on Saturday morning, but ran into him the day before. He greeted her with the sad euphemism “are you afraid of the dark?”, before he was whisked away by his minder, never to find out.
Coolio is 47, the same age as Mick Hucknall, but his ability to bring the house down is nothing like the same as the Simply Red singer’s.
He gave his all, but unlike Simply Red, his back catalogue is not so well known and apart from the chorus to Gangsta’s Paradise (not even sung by Coolio), they are hardly repleat with sing-along melodies.
Regardless of what happened on the stage, the pathetic figure he cut attempting to pick up my colleague (which included a request she feed him strawberries) spoke more about the washed-up former star than the lack of atmosphere at his concert, or indeed the talent possibly could.
And what of the festival itself? Istora Senayan proved an excellent venue. Its constrained setting helped make what were lackluster crowds seem bigger than they were and facilitated a genial atmosphere, each stage adequately separated from the next with little to no sound bleed.
However, spreading the festival over two days was a little ambitious. Crowds for just one day would probably have been bigger. The strange decision to program Akil after Simply Red rather than Coolio (with whom he shares the most in style and substance) did not pay dividends, with the event being fairly empty.
Overall, the festival was a strange event, albeit mostly enjoyable for the fans. It is difficult to see what the “soul” of the Java Soulnation festival is, with little actual soul music being played (Coolio, for example, is a hip hop artist) and the acts being mostly fairly dull — one of the highlights for me was the funk band which played in one of the sponsor’s tents. Whilst having two big acts like Coolio and Simply Red is worthwhile, the overall musical standard of the festival is in some need of a facelift.
—Photos by JP/P.J. Leo
