Kosovo Charity Festival

It all started when underground artists Joanne Kian/
Joannou and company decided to raise money to help 
the victims of the Kosovo racial extermination
and do something useful out of the underground gigs!
As it was, the gig-turned-festival hosted almost 20
bands of all sorts of styles (punk, beach-rock, harcore,
metal..you had almost everything)...and the support 
from the crowd was amazing, rarely seen in underground
gigs! Nearly a thousand people attended the Petaling 
Jaya Community Hall. Since it is difficult for me to
explain with details all of the bands, I'll write
about the time I was there, and about our performance.

It all started off with beach-rock band Ruana, too
bad the festival started late (8pm, when it was 
supposed to start at 6pm. Some bands couldnt play.)
The band kicked! The vocalist's melodic singing went 
along great with the guitar's and drums punkish 
riffs..very light, and well played music it was. The 
mixing of the instruments was alright, considering 
weak guitars along the night, but it was audible, 
quite ok. The people were starting to gather in the 
dance floor and sitting near the stage...unrest was 
starting to affect everyone there! After Ruana's
set it was our turn to perform, and the people
gave us a warm welcome! After the instruments were
set up, we opened the set with Huger to Rule..
people who were sitting on the floor started getting
up and people from around started approaching the
moshpit..and suddenly a huge crowd was jumping and
moshing to the song! What a great response, man..
Right after that, Size does Matter brought up more
people to the dance floor! Girls, boys, old-timers,
newbies..it was amazing! The people were singing
the pre-verse, which has no vocals, (only the jumping
session of "hop-hop-hop-hop..") together with me. 
The song went on energetic until the end. After that,
I mentioned the unity with the Hiphop scene, and 
we started the new song "we dont know hip-hop"
(Is that the name? I have to ask boy). It went on
great! I didnt know Jimmy had such a great stage 
presence until I saw him communicate with the masses
and play the "say heeeey" game with the people! And
what a show! After the song was over, we continued
with Nothing, and closed the set with the paranoid
Something, which came on appropriate, since the whole 
idea of the concert was for the affected by the Kosovo
crisis..so in the middle of the song, right after
the reggae verse, everything went silent and I told
everyone to pretend to be someone from kosovo..and 
pretend to be locked inside his/her house while an
armed soldier approached the house's main door..
and just as the soldier opened the door..he was
THERE! THERE! breaking the silence with all the 
instruments together...and building up in the "he's
getting closer..!" part..and breaking up into the 
psychotic screaming and full instruments! It was a
powerful feeling..its like it was really happening!
Then the song ended up in Boy's sentimental bass solo,
with the company of victor's guitars and moez's drums,
until everything faded away and left me speaking about
the River Selangor, and the risk of it all disappearing
if the state government built a 2 billion Ringgit
Dam in it. It's really illogical and hard to understand
why they don't go for the environmentally friendly
pipes, which last longer, are much cheaper, wont 
require to relocate the Orang Asli population AND 
wont sacrifice one of the world's largest Firefly
communities...so I decided to give my little help and
stripped my clothes off holding the "SOS Selangor" paper
I printed out earlier at home in front of my boxers,
for the rest of the time we had to play (around 3
more minutes). Thanks for the people who understood 
my actions. I thought I was going to go to prison after 
that! The rest of the concert was great as well. 
I went to eat something after our performance and came 
back in time for Love me Butch's incredible performance!
(If you havent's checked out Love me Butch, you are
missing an EXCELLENT band, seriously!). Later I danced
with the lights on to the great punk melodies of
Carburator Dung, while waiting for the MPSJ thugs 
to turn off the music. What a night!