Entering the complex from the area near Bung Karno Stadium, one could hear the echo of dance music being played at the Senayan swimming pool where the Starlight Music Festival was being held.

Amid all the enthusiasm and the congestion was Rockvolution, boasting the tagline “The Biggest Indiependent Rock Festival”.

The show last Saturday and Sunday had a lineup of both old and new stars: local funk-savvy Gugun and the Blues Shelter, thrash metal knights Betrayer, Australian pop-punk act Tonight Alive and the show’s final gun — Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg, featuring Marky Ramone from the legendary punk band the Ramones.

It was a decent formula for a decent crowd but for the fact that the dates clashed with the Herculean 2011 Java Rockin’land (JRL) in Ancol, North Jakarta – an event labeled the biggest international rock
festival in Southeast Asia.

At around 7 p.m., Rockvolution’s “Whatever” stage was hosting the acoustic set of Michale Graves, the former singer for horror-punk band the Misfits, while the “Distortion” stage featured Tonight Alive. The latter drew some 300 audience members, some of whom sang along to a few songs, while most just nodded their heads to the rhythm.

Mufti, who came from Bandung with his friends to the show, said he came to Rockvolution that night mainly to see New Zealand hard rock act the Datsuns, as well as Blitzkrieg. “I went to Java Rockin’land yesterday. Honestly, I think the arrangements were better [there],” he said.

Gugun and the Blues Shelter at the “Overdrive” stage drew a substantial crowd that succumbed to their slick tunes and myriad guitar licks, while the band Morfem played the “Whatever” stage.

Morfem is the new project of Jimi Multhazam, best known as the singer for indie darlings the Upstairs.

While the latter shot to fame with a signature quirky electronic sound and whimsical lyrics, Morfem oozed with punk rock’s no-nonsense chords, reminiscent of Jimi’s pre-Upstairs era.

The Datsuns gave an impressive and energetic show, rocking the crowd with tight, raw chords and firing them up with numbers such as “Emperor’s New Clothes”.

Few were aware, however, that a darker storm was engulfing the “Whatever” stage at the same time. Luky Annash, the rising artist Jimi Multahzam referred to as a “genius”, was performing to a sparse audience.

Dressed in a chef’s apron with red splatters and palm prints and carrying a fake cleaver, Luky filled the stage with his angsty, dramatic tunes.

His songs “Disturbia” and “Kritik Tanpa Solusi” are mixtures of powerful rock beats imbued in classical music’s melancholy. His stage acts included getting up from his seat and slamming his fingers down furiously on the keyboard’s keys while wailing in the microphone.

The Saturday show wrapped up with an acoustic set of American punk rock act Rufio on the “Whatever” stage. At one point, Tonight Alive’s Jenna McDougall got on stage to sing with the band.

A similar spectacle of multiple stages and lines of stalls promoting food and merchandise was present at Ancol’s Carnaval Beach on Sunday.

JRL, however, featured not three but ten stages, and most of them were visibly flashier than those at Rockvolution.

Impressive and varied performances were carried out on the smaller stages. Screaming vocals and growling chords from Jakarta’s hardcore band Step Forward were heard from the “Radical” Stage, while Bandung’s sultry, jazz-pop act High Time Rebellion got the crowd swaying at the “J.U.M.P” stage.

Natasha, an audience member from Jakarta, said she had been attending the show since its first day on Friday. “This is my first time. I just want to see what it’s like. I am not actually a rock person,” she said.

Natasha said she was most looking forward to seeing the Cranberries, Tohpati Bertiga and American pop-punk band Good Charlotte.

The latter entertained the crowd by performing their hits such as “Sex on the Radio”, as well as doing comical stunts such as singing a line from the song of a local boyband. They were succeeded by quirky, alternative pop act from Australia Frente.

Meanwhile, Sunday night at Rockvolution was overflowing with a distinctive sort of energy — one that was beyond enthusiasm and bordering on the cult-like.

That energy was fueled by Marky Ramone.

Marky joined the Ramones in 1978 to replace Tommy Ramone. He continued to play for the legendary American punk rock band — one of the first to pave the way for the three-chord revolution — for 15 years and previously played for other acts such as Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. According to his website, he even launched a signature pasta sauce.

Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg included Michale Graves on vocals, and they played on despite intermittent rain.

Power metal: German band Helloween performs at Java Rockin’land at Ancol on Sunday. JP/NurhayatiThe crowd of punks and Ramones fanatics were given the merciless treatment of song after song, intervened only by the trademark “Hey ho, let’s go” yells. Sweat and rain-soaked bodies slam-danced and crowd-surfed through Ramones numbers such as “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “The KKK Took My Baby Away”.

Graves also played an acoustic set, calming the crowd’s encore yells, before Marky and the other players joined him again on stage. The show ended with one of the Ramones’ most famous numbers, “Blitzkrieg Bop”.

Rockvolution, which promoted antismoking messages and embraced the National Commission for Tobacco Control as one of its supporters, might not have been the biggest nor the best organized show in town that night, but it certainly left an impression on audience members walking exhaustedly away from the stage after the drizzle ceased that Sunday night, with their faded Ramones T-shirts stuck to their skin.

“This is not exactly the original Ramones, but it certainly fired me up,” Fadhila, who was among the crowd, said.