Erstwhile Disney starlet turned chart-topping singer and X-Factor judge Demi Lovato hit some high notes at her first concert in Indonesia, A Special Night with Demi Lovato.

Lovato’s claim to fame was a starring role in Disney Channel original movie Camp Rock (2008) and a same-year signing with Hollywood Records, culminating in the release of her first studio album Don’t Forget, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200.

While sojourns in rehab seem to be an inevitable proviso for the young and famous, Lovato parlayed her struggles with self-harm and substance abuse, the fruit of bullying so severe Lovato beseeched her parents to home-school her, to find her true musical self.

Her 2011 album release, Unbroken, featured the confessional ballad “For The Love Of A Daughter”, a venting of pent-up dismay at her alcoholic birth father (“Oh, I can be manipulated only so many times/Before even I love you starts to sound like a lie…”) and rise-above-all-odds first single “Skyscraper”, which spent 17 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and was inspired by a picture of the apocalypse showing one building standing unscathed amid total ruin.

Although having begun to annex the soul-baring straits of music, Lovato is, first and foremost, a pop-rock crooner, as she made clear in her recent performance at Istora Senayan.

No confetti cannons, no bubblegum hair and not one costume change — Lovato’s vocal mettle and wholehearted stage presence trivialized such accoutrements.

 Thirty seconds after the band assembled, she had bounded onstage, calling “How are you doing tonight?”

Lovato launched into a rendition of the electro-pop “Unbroken” from her eponymous third studio album, commanding the stage without the need for pelvic-gyrations-passing-for-choreography or one backup dancer, though when she moved her hips from side to side with a come-hither look during the verse “No need for me to run,run,run/You’re making me believe in everything”, appreciative whoops resounded.

Her attire, too — leather cigarette pants and a black tank covered with a sheer thread mesh pullover — was uncharacteristically nun-like for a girl with a penchant for neon highlights and figure-hugging bandage dresses.

The performance of “Get Back” that followed, a wishful retrospect of a former passionate if conflict-ridden flame rendered in 152 beats per minute, made it hard to believe Lovato will indeed shed her pop-rock roots for a “more mature”, “more R&B pop” sound in her upcoming album; the angry guitars dovetailing with her breathy, soaring vocals the way an eagle rides the wind.

Lovato’s rendering of “Here We Go Again” from her second studio album, chronicling the rollercoaster of emotion in an on-again, off-again relationship, made Lovato seem, in a rare moment, like, well, a 20-year-old girl.

Hand on hip, flashing the crowd a conspiratorial wink, Lovato proclaimed “I’m not a supermodel/I still eat McDonald’s/Baby, that’s just me in ‘La La Land’ and that she could very well “wear her Converse with her dress” if she damn pleased.

Pausing to address the audience for the first time, Lovato asked, “Are you guys hot?” fanning herself with her hand. “Just be careful, okay; if you guys start to feel really hot just make your way up here, I mean, not up here,” she hastily corrected, as the crowd roared its approval. “Alright, I just want you guys to be safe,” Lovato said, indicating that the spate of young girls who had begun to faint in the front row halfway through “La La Land” had not escaped her attention.

“It’s been so amazing being in Indonesia, this is my first time,” she told the crowd. “When I go back home you guys won’t forget about me, will you?” she asked, cue an uproar and an apt segue into “Don’t Forget”.

Lovato strummed the opening chords alone on her chrome-and-black guitar, replacing one atmosphere with another as only skilled musicians can do as the crowd quieted, the lights turned low and her voice carried the pain of a former lover moving on while the protagonist still has wounds to lick.

Lovato paused to let the crowd sing the first chorus, affirming, “You guys sound beautiful”.

Despite Lovato having made her name on sugary pop-rock music stamped, much as she might hate to admit, with Disney-brand lyrics and catchy beats not unlike the soundtrack for Camp Rock, her live rendition of ballads from Unbroken reassured fans that even if she were to deviate from her signature sound, the girl knows what she’s doing.

An organ piano was hustled to the centre of the stage. Lovato sat before it, turning to face the crowd, looking nervous for the first time. A palpable hush descended.

“A lot of you said thank you for opening up about some issues that I’ve dealt with. And I think it’s so important for these issues to be talked about,” she said slowly.

Lovato’s bluntness tugged many a heartstring as she went on: “If you guys are struggling with cutting, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, bullying, just know that you can get through it if you ask for help. I had to ask for help, and thank God I have this support from you guys.”

As Lovato played the opening chords solo, the vast stadium seeming to shrink as it took on the intimacy of a blues performance in a candlelit pub, a fan circulated photocopied pieces of paper printed with the words “YOU SAVE ME” to every spectator standing at the front.

These the crowd held up over their heads, standing stock still, giving a somewhat eerie impression of flowers in a field on a breezeless day.

Lovato’s voice was nearly drowned by her fans singing the first chorus of “Skyscraper” back to her, but by the second chorus silence reigned as everyone listened raptly.

Moments later, red and yellow strobe lights were streaking frenetically overhead, and Lovato had the crowd jiving to a cover of Chris Brown’s “Turn Up The Music”.

Fans were then supplied a foretaste of her upcoming album with first single “Heart Attack” featuring the infectious hook: “But you make me wanna act like a girl/Paint my nails and wear high heels/Yes, you make me so nervous that I just can’t hold your hand”.

The commonplace, almost pubescent theme about teetering on the precipice of falling in love , rendered in Lovato’s pitch-perfect vocals and opening with an electro remix of her voice, endears the song to anyone who likes a good beat.

After “Remember December”, Lovato blew kisses to the crowd and ran offstage, just a little over an hour into the show.

Nonplussed, the crowd began to yell “We want more! We want more!” Lovato came running back on a minute or two later, reassuring “I can’t leave you hanging like that”, to sing the set list staple “Give Your Heart A Break”, and fans, having been promised a two-hour concert, thought there would be much more to come.

But no. The lack of parting preamble – “Bye guys!” and a gleeful wave before she ran offstage; no bow, no blowing of kisses, no lingering last looks — had the audience stunned. “It was supposed to be two hours and she started late and we ended early. We were cheated,” Tantri, 20, a fresh university graduate, said. “But it was amazing!”

— Photos by R. Berto Wedhatama

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