STRAIGHT TO YOUR FACE 5 2014!!

courtesy of THORNWIRE RECORDS

All hail everybody. Here is the latest edition of STRAIGHT TO YOUR FACE 5th edition proudly presented to you by THORNWIRE RECORDS headlined by SKELETONWITCH (USA) and ETERNAL REST (AUSTRALIA) supported by various local acts such as MILITANT ATTACK, SATISFACTORY, KURASAKUASA, SEARCH & DESTROY and COUSINS OF DEATH. All details are written on the flyer shown above. Come and enjoy the event!

KUKAR ROCKIN' FEST 2014, a chaos or a just mere misunderstanding in Tenggarong, East Borneo?

photo courtesy of LAWLESS JAKARTA

Word spreads really fast all over the archipelago, many are left confused, some seem to be bemused but above all, nothing can be said much except for the sympathy I may convey to the promoter and the organiser of the show. Mere words from one side does not shake my respect to the all time Thrash metal favourite, TESTAMENT. Here is an article from  http://lawlessjakarta.com/blog/testament-sucked-in-tenggarong-east-borneo.html

Sunday (09/03), there were chaos at Kukar Rockin Fest 2014, Tenggarong, East Borneo. Testament’s crew wanted to do a 1-hour sudden soundcheck when the show has started. This was just before Seringai took the stage and was not on the rundown. The rundown was changed, and the show was behind about an hour to acommodate them. Testament was originally scheduled to play at 10pm, changed to 11pm. When Power Metal was on stage around 10pm, all hell broke lose. Chuck Billy, the lead singer/decission maker, was really angry why his band hasn’t played. After 2 songs, Testament’s stage crew were acting like assholes unplugging Power Metal’s cables from their amps during their third song. I saw this with my own eyes. David, one of the local event managers who was preventing this from happening, got elbowed on the chest by Testament’s crew and was hurting. Chuck appeared on stage, talking trash, making a fool out of himself. Power Metal was really upset, I would’ve been too if it was my band, but luckilly they were not throwing punches. Power Metal stepped down, gave the stage to Testament, and the event organisers begged them to play after, since the crowd were pissed off, cheering for Power Metal to continue. The crowd were sitting down, protesting to Testament. Some plastic bottles were thrown to the stage but were able to be stopped by the persuasion of the MC and organiser. When finally Testament played, only a few people in the front stood up throughout their entire set. Nothing that Chuck and the others can do that can make the crowd alive again. After around 8-10 songs Chuck looked like he lost his mood. He was leaning to the drum riser while singing. When the song ended, Chuck took a can of beer and kicked it on stage, aiming to the side of the stage. I have this on video. “You want some more?” bassist Steve DiGiorgio asked the crowd, only a few people cheered. They were fucked, caused by their own doing. After Chuck confirmed that the crowd doesn’t want to see Testament anymore, they left the stage. Power Metal was back and the crowd went wild again. Maybe Chuck didn’t know about what was happening at that moment. Maybe he didn’t know about the last minute soundcheck that was causing the schedule to be late. Maybe nobody told him because the crew were too scared of him being angry or something. All we know is that Testament asked for a sudden soundcheck, but still wanted to be on stage on the original time, didn’t tell the organiser nor the bands about it, and ended up forcing Power Metal to step down. I heard the communication process in the band was really bad. They didn’t even bring their tour manager. A band as big as Testament having internal communication problems??? Asumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. Testament was not formed yesterday.

Hats off to Distorsi Rockaholicompany that has worked so hard to make all this happen. Big respect to the crowd for not causing a riot. To me, rock/metal fans are supposed to be like this. Thanks to you, we might just have another big festival next year.

To Chuck Billy, this is our house, the bands that played with you are your hosts. Have respect. They didn’t even do anything wrong. You can have your rockstar attitude, I don’t really care. BUT DO NOT UNPLUG OTHER BANDS’ CABLES WHILE THEY PLAY. That was way uncool. Tell that to your crew. You played in a small town in the middle of the Borneo jungle. Even I don’t wanna fuck with these people. You were probably lucky enough you didn’t end up with a spear on your chest. If somebody was fucking shit up in your house, that’s what you would’ve probably done as well.

We were excited to see you guys play. Some of your fans here has waited for 20 years, saved money, and traveled thousands of miles just for you. It’s sad that it had to become like this. Congratulations, you just lost them. 

Source: http://lawlessjakarta.com/blog/testament-sucked-in-tenggarong-east-borneo.html

and this is the statement taken from the organiser themselves.

 (Loosely translated as it is)

I feel my tears rolling down when  my childhood  Indonesian metal music legend " Power Metal " stopped by technicians from an international band last night (TESTAMENT) , and no we can do anything , we have to make the backup scenario in front of more than 50,000 people who watched , that if this was a mistake as a rundown of the event , and we also think clearly after the event last night , to discuss the following morning , stop finding each other's fault , and we find this is a miscommunication between us , agency and international bands , in the afternoon we received information that some international bands wanted the timeshow to be brought backward one hour , for reasons that they arrived late at Tenggarong city just at the time of the event has just started , that's why previous bands eventually had to retreat one hour backward just after the break , but when rundown began , the international band still insist that they should perform at the time stated previously and eventually a little small incident occured and it was a depressing moment, with Power Metal stand down for a while , and then went back after the international bands finished their performance , one important thing that could be a lesson for us last night was, it is really important to run the show systematically , even though it is a delayed schedule, it is still considered trivial by most of the EO , although there were parties tried to bring us down (jealousy), all parties should sit together to find the truth, and a very valuable lesson is that we must be more selective in all things , yea ... I do feel I was in tears last night , not because of the pride about the third annual event in this Borneo Island neither due to its improperness bit rundown, nor the teamwork but I was sad over why the above incident should happen to us all and to our idol band , which has for the past three years we wanted to be in the KRF, that is POWER METAL , I cried when I saw how this Indonesian legendary band , went on pause , and continue again later , and I was sad because I was so proud to see that  Power Metal addressed the situation professionally and that they have a very big heart , and it was worth a living for the Indonesian Legendary Metal Music , this afternoon I was looking for their tape as I did during my childhood, the cassette tape album titled Power One , and looked at the cover and believe in my heart , that I idolized Power Metal (it is a band's name) and I saw their greatness and humility , today I am writing statements like this not only as Show Producer of KRF but rather for the weightage of their fans , and being grateful to all parties for their cooperation. Friends , We're doing our best...preparing annual event which is considered easy by a handful of people but when you were working under the sun and not sleeping for days with desire watching success without profit in it, purely just want to share the happiness and pleasure for many people because this event is FREE and, for what had happened last night , I wanted to convey to all friends that fate is determined by Allah Almighty , and we shall meet again in KRF2015, we apologise for what had happened this year as we are still learning and the fact that we are not a big International promoter  as we are just a bunch of lads who grew up in the jungle of Borneo and a group of youth from loud music scene of the city, a remote interior of Borneo who continue to contribute our part as a dream machine for INDONESIA loud music anyway, from a small town and a district named Tenggarong , 09.03.2014 which is yesterday was coincide with National music Day of Indonesia and it Simply Make me more proud because fanfare Feast loud music Borneo yesterday was owned by POWER METAL , Wassalamualaikum wr.wb ( Akbar Haka )



And this is a statement released by TESTAMENT vides  http://testamentlegions.com/

As Testament returns from our first trip to Indonesia, a country we’ve looked forward to visiting for many years, it is with deep disappointment that our performance didn’t turn out as planned. While our experience in this great land had been nothing but wonderful from the time our first plane first touched down – from the warm hospitality of our fans, local staff and others to whom we are grateful, to being honored by the mayor and the press shortly before appearing in front of 50,000 fans at Kukar Rockin’ Fest 2014, things went awry only at the moment we were scheduled to hit the stage. That’s when the support act directly before us began their set. Normally this would not be a big issue – rock’n’roll shows don’t always run on time as everyone knows – but in this case, there was a serious problem: we had a flight to catch in just a few hours. The flight was from Balikpapan Airport, several hours from Tengarrong (the location of the concert) which required several hours driving over rugged terrain. Making matters worse, several pieces of luggage had never arrived and these needed to picked up in Jakarta before we could board our connecting flights. Missing our connecting flights in Jarkata would have caused the entire band and crew to miss our further connecting flights home (after nearly a month on tour) followed by a trip to Mexico City’s Hell And Heaven Fest within three days of arrival back to the US. So in order to play our full set and be sure we made this flight, an attempt was made to play our set on time, with the support act following us. The local stage managers, while well intentioned, did not seem to grasp the urgency of the situation as the support act (Power Metal) continued to play and we watched our set time disappearing. When our singer, Chuck Billy, came out and attempted to address the support band and audience, he was not understood. Regretfully, this led to a minor confrontation with the support act who only stopped playing once their gear was finally turned off by our crew (for which they responded by dousing water on one of our own amplifiers). While this situation was interpreted as the headliner being disrespectful to the local band, that was not the intention. Not helping these miscommunications was the language barrier for which no one can be blamed – our concern wasn’t understood and nobody in our entourage speaks Indonesian. We were also short of our full crew, some of whom hadn’t been available when this show was added to our tour at the last minute. Regardless, the result was a crowd that was visibly unhappy during our set and for that we accept responsibility. To our Kukar Rockin’ Fest audience: we deeply apologize for any hurt that was caused. While we would have appreciated the support act being more accommodating, we nonetheless apologize to them as well and meant no disrespect. In hindsight, it might have been a better decision to just let them continue and cut much of our own set. But in the heat of the moment, a judgment call was made that backfired. We regret this turn of events, which does not represent what Testament is all about, nor what we’d travelled all that way for. Testament deeply appreciates the fans of Indonesia and hopes they find it within their hearts to understand what has happened and forgive. We truly hope to return to this region one day amidst deeper understanding and better circumstances.

- Testament-

Now, kindly infer your opinions on what had happened here, thank you.