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5 Seconds of Summer: charms their flock of screaming teens

Thousands of teenage girls donning black T-shirts flocked to the Indonesian Convention Exhibition (ICE) in South Tangerang to watch Australian pop punk band 5 Seconds of Summer

Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post)
South Tangerang
Sun, March 13, 2016

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5 Seconds of Summer: charms their flock of screaming teens

Thousands of teenage girls donning black T-shirts flocked to the Indonesian Convention Exhibition (ICE) in South Tangerang to watch Australian pop punk band 5 Seconds of Summer.

The band was performing live for the first time in Indonesia as part of its '€œSounds Live Feels Live'€ world tour.

The concert was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. but the many die-hard teenage fans, some accompanied by their parents, arrived at the venue at 1 a.m. to secure their entrance pass and purchase 5 Seconds Of Summer official merchandise.

Aware that thousands of enthusiastic teenagers would gravitate toward the ICE concert hall, the event organizer, Live Nation, took care to organize a professionally managed-crowd flow system.

Hours before the concert started, Live Nation allowed 500 fans to enter the concert hall and interact personally with 5 Seconds of Summer band members '€” Luke Hemmings (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Michael Clifford (guitar, keyboard and vocals), Calum Hood (bass guitar and vocals) and Ashton Irwin (drums, keyboard and vocals) '€” during a sound check session.

Separating the 500 fans, Live Nation had divided the thousands of teens crowded outside ICE into two large groups, making the queue for the tickets less crowded and, in a way, provided more safety for the teens who had lined up during the scorching hot day.

Two hours before the concert started, the organizer began to provide access the concert hall, divided into two large sections.

The first section provided seats despite the fact that this was supposedly a pop punk band concert in which most of the audience were planning to jump up and down. The second section had no seats, allowing fans the freedom to roam around, mingle, dance and jump.

At 7 p.m., Indonesian pop punk band Pee Wee Gaskins opened the concert. The crowd warmly welcomed the short and sufficiently timed opening set featuring hit songs such as '€œDi Mata Sang Garuda'€ (In The Eyes of Garuda), '€œBerbagi Cerita'€ (Sharing Stories), '€œSebuah Rahasia'€ (A Secret) and '€œDi Balik Hari Esok'€ (Behind Tomorrow).

Unfortunately for Pee Wee Gaskins, being an opening act also meant they were the first performers to test sound quality and, during their performance, as the vocals failed to reach the audience watching from the back of the hall, it was clear something was technically wrong.

5 Seconds of Summer began at around 8:30 p.m.

Nevertheless, the 30-minute delay did not reduce the enthusiasm of the teen crowd. The hall literally shook with their screams when Luke, Michael, Calum and Ashton entered the stage, took up their instruments and began to perform '€œCarry On'€.

The teenagers roared even more when 5 Seconds of Summer performed the hit single '€œHey Everybody'€ and started to sing together in harmony when the band performed '€œJet Black Heart'€. Those who were in the seated section eventually decided to leave their seats and let themselves loose.

In town: Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer performs at the Indonesian Convention Exhibition (ICE) in South Tangerang.
In town: Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer performs at the Indonesian Convention Exhibition (ICE) in South Tangerang.

In total, 5 Seconds of Summer performed 19 songs, including two encores '€“ '€œShe'€™s Kinda Hot'€ and '€œShe Looks So Perfect'€.

Throughout the performance, the band maintained the mood and the spirit of the audience; they performed superbly without missing a lot of notes and kept their energy strong for almost two hours.

The band'€™s members also made the concert fun with their humble interaction with their teenager fans. To regain some energy after a high octane song, they spent time talking to the fans but they managed to do this while keeping up the crowds level of enthusiasm.

At one point, they performed a spontaneously composed song titled '€œJakarta'€ as an ode to their Indonesian fans. Some fans protested saying the song should have been called '€œTangsel,'€ an abbreviation of Tangerang Selatan, the city that actually hosted the concert.

Overall, the 5 Seconds of Summer concert showed exactly how a concert should be. Despite of a little hiccup in the sound department at the start, all involved did a great job, providing an entertaining event by not sacrificing comfort for security.

'€” Photos by JP/Don

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