a festival of excelso

Interesting fact: Nearly ninety percent of the people on the first to the third row wore converse shoes with candies colors, jeans, black shirt with cute design or polite and sweet political message like “Nobody Dies Virgin, Coz in the End Life F***s Us All” campaign, “Give Me a Starlight” poster, with jansport or eastpack backpacks with different designs and optimistic colors for their belts.


Bawdy as it may be, being in the Muse gig was clearly a whole lot different experience compared to watching Hanson’s in Score! (mwahaha…iya lah). Despite of their so-much-enjoyable music, with Hanson it was like being herd into a dim place where you will see beautiful men being glimmered in purplish lighting. So, the queue was so ehm, pastel. With Muse. Ok, first thing first. I stood on the second festival row exactly in front of the stage. Matthew Bellamy was so discernible from where I was. Then, the show started with Knights of Cydonia. Exactly at that point, the people become so onerous. FYI, front row of the festival floor was packed with young men with their pastel converses. Before the show started, I thought they would be this selected-whole-new-generation-who-would-and-could-pay-half-million-rupiahs-for-an-hour-semi rock-concert-thus-they-won’t-be-rampage.

But, it is wrong. Suddenly they battered each other. Listen to what the crowd had to say (we communicated in English on the floor, so this not a translated enscription): “Hey dude, chill in!”, “What? You fuckin’ asshole, stop pushing me around”, “Hey, I’m not pushing you, Dude. Everybody in the back was pushing.”, “Hey, what are you doing?!”, “Anjing Babi.”, “Would you just shut up?!”. (I was so much included in this conversation).

Then, when the heat was even more boiling, the bodyguards distributed cold mineral water to the front liners. So, we literally drank from the same bottle together with ten people’s saliva on its tip. We desperately needed it (somehow, we understand what does it like to queue for sembako). Then the shouts began: so, the water distributed was in the bottles in the middle of the songs. So, when you received it you had to jump around with Matt’s falsettos. You could drink only at his minor classical riffs that tone the rhythm down. Thus, sometimes the water was splashed off with the jumping. “Hey girl, don’t waste the water.”, “Hey you stop splash it on my face”, “Whatever.”, “Do you want it/”, “Yeah, water please!”, “Hey stop bitchin’ soakin my shirt, dude!”, “Mas…mas..(to the bodyguards), “Apa? (he gave a bottle of water).”, “ah, enggak Mas, minggir dikit dong, aku nggak bisa liat, nih,hehe.). I was pretty much included on this scoffing as well.

Next, I still had this one chance to clean my hands, I put a pinch of Antis and rub them. “Hmhh… apaan nih?”,”Antis, ya?”,”Hmm..iya kayaknya. Antis Stroberi!.”, “I’m sorry,” I smirked,” Duh, kirain absolut vodka,” said the guy, “antis ada alkoholnya dikit kok mas. Mau?” (This is a real conversation. I don’t know why I even had to clean my hands since there’s no use of it).

While silly shouts and conversations came around the experience went on. See, I wore this strapless bras, and when Muse was singing Plug in Baby (it means, near the end of the show), I realized that they (my bras) had slipped down to my waist for almost an hour of jumping and semi-moshing around. In random, I got sticky sweat in five minutes, which equals to two hours of aerobic class. I got my mitten shirt being pulled down, young guys on my back, left, and right. All of them were curbing and pressing. Literally, I hadn’t had this so close encounter with men for one year. It’s okay, as long as their cute, clean, and dripped with Hugo Boss, Armani, or Ck sweats (Thank God, they’re not smelly). Ok, what am I saying here. In sum, it was nasty, nasty yet highly releasing and loosing experience for my soul. The concert left me with my deeply soaked shirt and hair, perennial fatigue, and a flimsy control of mind. if only they had had a Spa service in the midnight, I’d absolutely go for it.

Then, the juice. I think it was a spiritual experience. Adri Subono as the prime minister of the kingdom who herds and provides the security and pawang ujan for the fans as the worshipper to Muse as the god. Seeing how great they infused the youngsters more than the pundits in our country. We love Mas Adri better than om-om at the Ministry of Education or Hatta Rajasa, since everybody feels save coming to his events. We love Matt better than our representatives at the legislative. Coz these om-om can only make an obscene videos, while Muse has us sing and think:

“Come ride with me
Through the veins of history
I’ll show you how god
Falls asleep on the job

And how we can win
When fools can be kings
Don’t waste your time
Or time will waste you

No one’s gonna take me alive
The time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive.”


Other interesting facts:

-In total, there were eleven passed-out people being carried out, literally, over my head.
-Beside me, a 150 cms girl from Madiun who had to come by plane to Jakarta and stayed a motel in Blok M, but on the second song, she was also passed out.
-In front of me were four French high school girls, who were undoubtly gorgeous, and Indian guy even had a time to ask for their number in the middle of the show.
These four girls brought digital cameras and they used it in the face of the Indonesian bodyguard. However, the bodyguard yelled to a young boy far away, “Dek, kamu bawa kamera, ya! Awas kamu, kalo gak dimasukkin, nanti saya ambil.”. What a discrimination. (or is it just because he can’t speak English? So he gave an indirect message?)
-I took a picture with Ian Kasela at the end of the concert, mwahahahaha…
-I still think that Suede and The Tears are better than Muse J