Courtesy of Muhammad AsranurWho’s up for some unpretentious — and even silly — dancing, surprising musical moves and pure, plain fun?Those raising their hands might have met their match should they have gone to the concert on Saturday night at the Fairgrounds in Central Jakarta
span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">Courtesy of Muhammad AsranurWho’s up for some unpretentious — and even silly — dancing, surprising musical moves and pure, plain fun?
Those raising their hands might have met their match should they have gone to the concert on Saturday night at the Fairgrounds in Central Jakarta.
For one, it was a chance to see Architecture in Helsinki, the five-piece indie-pop dance band from Melbourne, Australia.
Ade, one of the showgoers, said he liked the band for their “unique sound” and was hoping to hear tracks from their first album, Fingers Crossed.
“I am curious about their live show … I’ve listened to them since I was at university, around 2006,” he said.
But before Architecture in Helsinki, Bottlesmoker, the electronic music duo from Bandung, claimed the stage, inviting the audience to their world of downtempo beats, soap bubbles and curious sounds from whimsical instruments and various objects.
Anggung Kuy Kay and Ryan Nobie Adzani were dressed in an astronaut costume and what appeared to be Native American headgear, and treated the crowd to songs mostly available for free on the Internet.
The duo, which, according to their tumblr site, has the “concept of bedroom music … in their own room, using custom toy equipment and keyboard”, collaborated with French visual artist Sebastian Sautel Cago, who during their performance digitally produced drawings that were displayed on each side of the stage.
Bottlesmoker is set to embark on a tour to Vietnam and Thailand starting March 14.
“Bottlesmoker is known for its policy of free music sharing … so the songs spread all over the world. They were released and they get plenty of offers to play overseas,” the duo’s manager, Yulius, said.
Architecture in Helsinki performed at around 10 p.m. and the show was packed with energy and gust.
Playing songs with subjects such as feelings of longing, infatuation and scenes in cities without names, Cameron Bird, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry, Gus Franklin and Kellie Sutherland seemed to be having a lot of fun on stage as they interacted with the audience, switched instruments and even performed a synchronized dance at one point.
Whether it is Sutherland’s center-stage dancing, Bird’s air-kicking moves while playing the keyboards, or Franklin’s commanding gestures for sing-alongs, most of the time the band succeeded in drawing the crowd’s cheers and applause.
Architecture in Helsinki played songs from their various albums, including “Hold Music” from Places Like This, the powerful “It’5” and “Wishbone” from In Case We Die and “Escapee” from Moment Bends.
“We’re basically neighbors and it took us so long to be here,” Sutherland said about the band’s excitement at being in the country during the encore, in which they played the rather melancholic “Maybe You Can Owe Me” and the catchy “Heart it Races”.
“Some electronic music is just set to be played, but these guys are attractive on stage,” Tosi, who said he was a DJ, said after the show.
He said he plays mostly house music when he DJs, but he also inserts elements such as disco and music from the 1980s, and he said he considered Architecture in Helsinki one of his influences.
Rebecca, an Australian currently living in Indonesia who went to see the show, said it was her first time seeing a concert in the country and also the first time she had seen the band live.
Although she considered the performance “brilliant”, she also noticed a difference between the local crowd and the ones at Australian shows. “The crowd is very still here,” she said of the very few among the audience who danced to the music.
However, it was not only the lack of movement. The venue, which could hold roughly 3,000, was a little over half full.
According to Chico Hindarto from Beyond Productions, which organized the event, the venue was admittedly a bit too big for the show, but “in Jakarta, venues are either really small or really large.”
“The [ticket] sales were OK, it’s as much as we predicted, but it was still below the ideal,” Chico said.
He added that Architecture in Helsinki was a good choice for the growing indie scene in the country, and the group was chosen because their music “is a bit rare because it is usually about ‘bands’, but this one is a bit of a synthesis.”
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