Melaka's Music Festival

Just the fact of being outside of Kuala Lumpur already
made us excited, and add to it the fact that is was 
together with other KL bands in the same bus, and the fun 
was even greater! We left Kuala Lumpur at around 9 in the
morning, the organiser (good old Jubli from the Bukit
Bintang scene) rented a bus and took good care of all
the bands, the organisation was really professional.
The journey was long and tiring and we had little sleep
the night before so we managed to snooze a little in the
bus. When we got there it took us some time to find the 
place (we got lost for a couple of hours) but finally 
managed to find it. Melaka seemed like a peaceful 
town down south, where soft portuguese influence is still 
seen among the kind people and colonial relics adorn the 
quiet landscapes..well how wrong we were! :) Melaka's scene 
is among the toughest and most violent in the entire 
Malaysian peninsula and we came to find out on the day of 
the gig itself! woohoo! what a rush it was..we were pretty 
scared at first, intimidated by the hordes of skins and 
mohawk-haired punks, by the endless swastikas, the 
threatening mood in the air and by the fight after fight 
going on inside the place. While watching the bands play,
we made friends with some people who were also watching the 
show from the side of the stage and we bumped into Al, 
Kelp's drummer! That was cool, we hung out with him and he 
introduced us to many other cool people there. Everyone has 
been toughened up by the scene, its really amazing. Anyways, 
talking about the sound system, it was pretty cool! There was 
a mixer on the floor and there were big speakers on the sides,
which made up for the large size of the hall. Reminded me of 
the halloween hall in Cheras, last year, only a little smaller. 
Our turn was second last, at around 8pm (was it?) and after
plugging in everything, we found out Lymeus Delta refused to 
play (the pc)..the electricity inside the place was too 
unstable and the video card was having problems with it..so 
after trying several times we decided to play without it. 
Our set started off softly with Uneasy (how appropriate) and
the "I am happy, is that the problem?" caught some people's
attentions. Most of the people were sitting on the floor on 
the far back of the hall, while the moshpit had around 25 
guys standing and watching. We went on to Entenderas, and 
put a little positive vibe in the heavy atmosphere..then
played Size does Matter, which does a good job in raising
eyebrows and smiles among the strangers in the place..that
was nice. We went on to Purda Kurda then to close the set 
with four songs, and it sounded pretty cool, getting a nice
feedback from the people..but as soon as it was over, and I
thought it was over for us, Boy began the intro of Something,
which I had been reluctant to play (due to my ill lungs which
had been damaged for weeks)..and we were just carried away
by it..nevermind the computer..just play and let go, seemed 
to come to our minds. So it happened, Something, the psycho
song was taking us away. Suddenly the song became increasingly
paranoid and loud, we started getting off with it..the middle
part came up and caught some people off guard (except the KL
lot who knew that the "there!" was about to come)..right away
the screaming and the guys recklessness on stage started and
hell broke loose for us..we didnt know again what was going 
on and we didnt care either..I remember hurting my hand
and pushing Jubli who came onstage to ask us to cut the song
short cause we ran out of time..(i spent most of the trip
back apologizing for having done that..i couldnt believe I 
pushed him away..!)..victor tried his first on-amp 360 jump
on the climax of the song while boy jumped around the stage
unaware of his surroundings! Finally after having pushed 
Jubli I ran towards moez and slammed on him as hard and as
fast as I could, it was a headrush I had not felt in a long
time! The drums fell over, people were shouting, feedback
was everywhere and chaos was coming to a stop. I found myself
on top of moez, my legs still on the drums and him struggling
to get off the floor..then some good people came to help me 
and mo to get up and asked if we were ok. I walked to the side 
of the stage and tried to do something to keep my mind occupied. 
The rest is history..me and my brother ended up outside making
friends with the punks, skins and mohawk dudes and speaking
about ourselves in my broken bahasa. We sympathised with them 
and they invited the entire KL bunch for a drink! that was
really cool. Unluckily, we lost our way trying to follow them
to their usual hangout place (we took too long placing our 
instruments back in the bus), and we found ourselves standing
in the quiet dark streets of Melaka, as if everything had been
nothing more than a dream...and we came back to good old
hectic Kuala Lumpur.

THE END

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