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| 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/
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.
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