A number of Lady Gaga fans, known as little monsters, rally during a flash mob event in front of the Presidential Palace on Sunday. They expected the singer could perform in Indonesia and demanded that the government protect freedom of expression. (JP/Jerry Adiguna)
A number of Indonesian Lady Gaga fans, dubbed “Little Monsters”, gathered at the Bung Karno Stadium and in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Sunday to lament the cancellation of the singer’s gig.
Local fans from Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bali and Bandung, West Java, came together in front of the stadium where the Grammy-award singer was supposed to perform on Sunday if her concert had not been cancelled, with some bringing flower bouquets representing “the country’s death of freedom of expression”.
Gaga’s management cancelled her concert last week amid pressure from the country’s hard line groups.
Separately, other little monsters wearing black outfits staged a rally in front of the Presidential Palace, Central Jakarta, stressing that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had to ensure citizens’ rights to freedom of expression.
The fans who flocked to the two locations also performed a flash-mob dance as a tribute to the 26-year-old singer, reenacting what they had done at eX Mall in Central Jakarta last week.
“We were born this way, Gaga!” they shouted at the end of their event, responding to Gaga’s statement to her Indonesian fans at her Singapore concert last week.
They also stamped their handprints with colorful paint on a large poster of Gaga, which stated “Little Monsters’ tribute to diversity”.
“The cancellation was not merely an assault to our idol, but also to the values that she promotes through her music such as equality, humanism, diversity and compassion,” said Fia Rahmatia, founder of Gaga’s Twitter fan-base @IndoProGaga.
Formed in mid-May in the wake of the Gaga brouhaha, the Twiter account has a total of 6,927 followers as of Sunday.
Gaga, who held her three-day concert in Singapore without controversy, implied that she still regretted the cancellation of the Jakarta gig via her Twitter account late on Saturday.
When one of her followers pointed out that Gaga would have been in Indonesia over the weekend should her Jakarta show have gone on as planned, the singer replied, “I know. It is all I can think about.”
Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is scheduled to perform at Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, on June 7, 8 and 10 as a part of the 2012 Born This Way Ball tour, according to her website. (asa/iwa)
