Throughout her career, BANKS has released two critically acclaimed albums which are Goddess in 2014 and The Altar in September 2016 featuring hit single ‘Gemini Feed’. BANKS toured with Canadian singer The Weeknd twice as his opening act in 2013 and 2015 before embarking on her own international tour which includes performances at world-renowned music festivals such as Coachella and Bonnaroo in the States, and St. Jerome Laneway Festival in Australia and Singapore.

“BANKS has got a lot of fans in Indonesia and Jakarta especially. We are very excited to finally bring BANKS for her very own concert in Jakarta.” said Sarah Deshita as the Assistant Brand Manager of ISMAYA LIVE, the promoter of the concert. “When she came here for the first time to perform at We The Fest in 2014, she only had one album out. Now with two albums, her performance this July will certainly be different and much more captivating that ever before.”

Tickets to BANKS Live in Jakarta are on sale starting from Friday, 3 March 2017 at 6 PM Jakarta time through www.ismaya.com/tickets. There are two ticket categories; presale 1 priced at Rp435,000 and presale 2 priced at Rp520,000. Prices are excluding 15% government tax. Tickets can also be purchased at all Pizza e Birra restaurants in Jabodatebek area and in Bandung, all Fook Yew restaurants, The People’s Café Kota Kasablanka, Sushigroove Pondok Indah Mall 2, Blowfish, and Dragonfly.

This event is an 18+ event.

Last weekend, thousands music fans once again congregated at The Meadow at Gardens By The Bay for St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival – Singapore edition, which become annual year festival. And for their fifth year’s edition they brought sets from Chet Faker, Pond, Mac Demarco, Jon Hopkins, Angus & Julia Stone, Courtney Barnett, Jungle, FKA Twigs, Little Dragon, Banks, Future Islands and many more.

But it seems like it’s not only for the sake of music only this festival was meant to be, but also for commercial entertainment to show Australia’s summer music festival vibe feels like. Combining the old and new Laneway’s alumnus, we can expect new generation of so called music lovers and festival goers gather together experiencing whats new and what have they missed from previous festivals. With three stages which divided based on either different genres or target market, crowd are force to choose between the acts they knew more and new acts they have never heard before. Another unfortunate but understandable thing also happens when the rain started to poured down just not long after the festival get started, the humidity is just unbearable to see especially for all hipster’s outfits who came not only for the music but for the scene.

Started the festival by English post-punk band Eagulls, rocking the main stages of Laneway with fun yet angry sounds made the punk lovers bopping along to their tunes. Continued by Perth psychedelic band Pond, crowd can enjoy the modern age of rock and roll with an Australian twist. With the distortion of the guitar, heavy drums, swaying vocals and groovy Australian attitude. And that marks the start of the festival.

Another fun sets came from the witty solo singer – songwriter Mac DeMarco and his band. The Canadian-native Mac DeMarco attracted the largest afternoon crowd at Laneway, with his jizz jazz laid-back music. Whilst he fixed up some technical issues, his band mate covered Yellow with some karaoke style goofiness. And as usual, Mac ended his performance by crowd surfing over the soaking wet crowd.

Talking about women’s day not long after the festival, we can see that there are long list of female performance for this year’s festival. Starting with Melbourne, singer-songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett, her performance is just as sweet and sly as her music style. Playing songs from her EPs, we can pretty much enjoy what she had brought to festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and Coachella.

We also experienced another awesome rock band from duo Royal Blood that afternoon. With the guitar-like bass and drums rippled among the crowds, we definitely thank the promoter for not being too mainstream.

Angus & Julia Stone, the formidable brother-sister duo, hailing from Sydney, which also another top act who have performed at a large-scale event bring their heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics and honey-like harmonies is just nice to company couples that afternoon. Follow by local Singapore acts .gif and Hanging Up The Moon, with their folk acoustic tune which suits the timing for the crowd to have a break for food or just chilling before the sun goes down.

After the sun goes down, the party started up. As expected with big crowd, London’s tropical mambo jambo percussion rhythms band Jungle, serving up without doubt the funkiest set of the day, just nice to start the weekend night. Continued with some other girl power such FKA Twigs, and Swedish band Little Dragon, and followed by Banks, whose electronic efforts were almost wasted on a crowd that was running for cover. As expected with bigger crowds, they are as impressive as what electronic with lots of sound effect could offer. Name that we couldn’t missed was Chet Faker, man who was once a faceless musician with a powerful voice, and became the best of what electronic soul has to offer. After collaborations with the likes of Flume and his hit remixes of songs like Trembling Hands by Australian band and previous Laneway Festival Headliner’s, his live performance is one of the too bad to be missed that time.

Probably things they need to take notes of next time when they want to do such festival in Singapore, are consideration of what exactly the target audiences wanted to enjoy, and again when it comes to after party. We think if they still wanted to held such festival in one of the cleanest place on earth, maybe they can hire some volunteer to do it or just simply not having too much waste cause commercial booth – you know, it’s supposed to be simple raw music festival for music lovers not farmer’s market with lots of unnecessary pop up booths. So lets see what they can bring next year, will the festival be more commercial or they can introduce us to more of music options like what they will do in SXSW. (Photos : Michael Reily)

Unlike our perceptions on other live concerts or festivals, WTF has its own set of throne. It had the perfect ambiance of an indie-hipster fest or whatever shenanigan you may call it, with a balance of mainstream music you listen on the radio during traffic hours. Soon after we saw the set list released by Ismaya Live, we fell in love almost instantly seeing how all the artists from different genres somehow are fused into one wholesome

When we arrived at the Parkir Timur Senayan, we didn’t really know what to expect. The concept was vague, yet intriguing, there was no certain image of what the festival would be like but we ended up psyched when we saw all the festivities. Clowns, gorillas, man-eating sharks, weird bunny-like creature, balloon rides, bananas, free lollipops, tumblr scene kids with flower headpieces, young tweens that make you feel older, artsy cliques who looks much cooler than you, 18+ drinks, booths, festival foods, it had it all. A dream-like carnival.

The first set we got to see was Sore, one of the best local performers we have in the current music scene. It was very nice vibe to sit around the area and swaying to songs like Merintih Perih, Setengah Lima and Vrijeman, and other songs from the album Port of Lima. Other local performers of the Banana Palooza including Lala, Vox, The Experience Brothers had the crowd beguiled.
Timeflies was set to play after Maliq & D’essential’s lively performance at the Clown Chella stage. We can honestly say that the duo was much more than that overplayed song on the radio as they have some serious skills in freestyling and a voice that would melt even the coldest heart. Their set included the songs ‘Swoon’, ‘Monsters’, ‘Until The Sunrise’, ‘I Choose U’, and a very sweet and intimate freestyle song of Jakarta that definitely hyped up the crowd. Miami Horror continued the set as well as Goldroom all away across the other stage while we had some festival snacks by the food booth.

Jessie Andrews brought the party people out with her mixes followed by RAC’s DJ set. A lot them teenagers were lining up to see RAC’s synthpop and electo vibes and sick mixes from the album Strangers, both parts. Azealia Banks, the rising queen of rap and Rapunxel had the crowd cheering over her badass rap beats and her flawless figure wearing a metallic blue steel romper. She performed songs including ‘BBD’, ‘Jumanji’, ‘Liquorice’, ‘1991’, ‘Venus’ and the attitude anthem ‘212’. During Azealia’s set, Mayer Hawthorne also had some mixes up his sleeve. With a sharp suit and weird combination of matching shorts, Mayer brought the dance floor to groove along to the tunes with ‘Reach Out Richard’, ‘The Walk’, ‘Henry and Gingerale’, ‘Her Favorite Song’ and a cover of Hall and Oates’ ‘Kiss On My List’.

The summer fest lineups were definitely dominated by fierce female solos, one of them includes Banks. The enigmatic singer and songwriter wore an all-black attire and the doe set of sad eyes she sings with, including the songs ‘Before I Met You’, ‘Change’, ‘Brain’, ‘Fall Over’, ‘Warm Water’, ‘Waiting Game’ and the roaring song ‘Goddess’ from her newest album of the same title. It was so moving, her performance, the energy that comes from what looks like minimal effort is so empowering that the whole crowd were mostly paralyzed by the grace and the haunting music Banks have brought upon. Banks enlightened that her show in Jakarta is her last set from her world tour, which made the night even more special than it already has. Leading up to last concerts of the tours, the leading lady of the night, Ellie Goulding, ended her two-year tour with a heated finale in the heart of Jakarta.

Ellie Goulding’s performance was undoubtedly the most anticipated one, along with Havana Brown’s set across the stage. The two performers shifted the mode of the festival from a calming summer fest into an energetic rave party. Ellie’s set started with three songs from her recent album ‘Halcyon Days’ with ‘Figure 8’, ‘Ritual’, ‘Goodness Gracious’ and the wild untamed ‘Animal’. It is unimaginable how full of life Ellie is and that she was an absolute sweetheart on stage. Ellie wore a two piece silver and metallic black dress and has her signature platinum blonde hair dancing around the stage. Up next were ‘Starry Eyed’, ‘Stay Awake’, ‘Tessellate’ and ‘Life Round Here’. The set list of the night was a gem, as it covered mostly all of the favorite songs from both of her internationally acknowledged albums.

Continuing with a slower pace songs, Ellie played acoustic ‘Guns & Horses’ and a lovely piano interlude of ‘Your Song’. Ellie Goulding’s music have always been related to synthesizers but watching her live just proves that she is even better without the mixings and computer-distorted sounds. ‘The Writer’, ‘Explosions’, ‘My Blood’, and my personal favorite a mashup between ‘Bad Girls/Salt Skin’ and ‘Every Time You Go/This Love’. By now, the whole audience were already jumping out of breath singing along and trying to keep up with Ellie’s soprano vocal ranges. As if she was saving the best for last, most of the popular singles were performed last which includes the summer pop ‘Anything Could Happen’, hopelessly romantic tune ‘I Need Your Love’ and her timeless single ‘Lights’.
Ellie Goulding’s set ended with her epic youth anthem, ‘Burn’ with firey red lights glistening up the entire stage and the flame-colored glare hypnotized the faces of the mass. Even without an encore, It was that great, and worth the hype. I can righteously say that the festival was a huge hit and we cannot wait what Ismaya Live will offer on the next We The Fest.

The upcoming and super brand new festival from Ismaya Live is started by their post on Instagram asking their followers to name the new music festival which promises something new and fresh. As they started the buzz and also spilled some hints for the line-ups, the live music enthusiasts began their guess-the-act agenda for this festival. So it’s We The Fest (WTF) that will blast Jakarta on August 24th!. On Wednesday (24/04), Ismaya Live released the first phase line-ups of this fest. The followers on Twitter erupted into a massive excitement when Ismaya Live tweeted “We told you ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN! And it’s happening! Confirmed for #WTF14 is @elliegoulding !!!”, and confirmed Ellie Goulding,the British female singer will be one of the line-ups for WTF 2014.

The announcement of the first names then followed by another exciting names, they are RAC, Goldroom, Time Flies, Jessie Andrews, and Banks. More names to perform at this festival will be released on their second phase announcement which will be revealed next month. To surprise you, WTF 2014 will have more than ten performers to debut at this boutique festival and they all are ready to drop balls for about twelve hours!

The tickets can be purchased this Saturday ( April 26th) via online on Ismaya Live’s website and Rajakarcis and also at all Pizza E-Birra outlets and Kitchenette’s outlet in Bali. The price starts at IDR 500.000 (early bird), IDR 575.000 (1st presale), IDR 650.000 (2nd presale), and IDR 1.000.000 for VIP access (the holders need to be +18 and it includes all of the VIP facilites, such as exclusive row, drinks, in short, it offers you the most comfortable treats that you can have while seeing your favourite musicians). The venue of the festival will be announced soon. Who’s ready for the 12 hours of fun? Us!