This year we have seen so many eye-popping concerts. From Indonesia to Singapore and also to the furthest, Ireland. But, since we want to dig it more about the concerts in Indonesia. We made a list of The Best Live Acts of 2012 for concerts that we attended here. We will rank it from “the best” to” the better than the best” live acts. Ready for some reminiscence?

8.Avicii Live In Jakarta

Venue : Fairgrounds, SCBD.
Date : April, 5 2012
Promoter : Ismaya Live
Full Review : Dimensions Avicii

The ticket show was sold like a cupcake! Very fast and it was sold out. What we love about the show (beside the ground kicking set by Avicii) is the concept! Really, we never experienced seeing a laser show at Fairgrounds before! By the time We entered Fairgrounds, we were like entering the future. Time capsule to the 2020? Might be. Plus, since the tickets were sold out, the venue was so packed! The crowd was awesome and blended in one wave. Especially when “Levels” hit the speaker.

7.Playground Jakarta : (Best Act : Saint Etienne)

Venue : Tennis Indoor Senayan
Date : May, 5 2012
Promoter : Urbanite Asia
Full Review : Play Ground 2012

We know it rained buckets at Playground, but really, that’s why we loved it! It rained heavily when Saint Etienne were performing, then rain seemed like a party pooper. But wait, Saint Etienne paused the show and decided to comeback when it stopped. It means….. two sessions of their show! And over all, Play Ground really really played it well for designing the arena. We saw a ferris wheel there! If this list was about “The Best Festival with Edgy Concept”, Playground will top the list. Good job, Urbanite Teams!

6.Djakarta Warehouse Project 2012 : (Best Act : Angger Dimas)

Venue : Tennis Indoor Senayan
Date : December, 7 2012
Promoter : Ismaya Live
Full Review : Djakarta Warehouse Project 2012

Honk! Honk! Djakarta Warehouse Project was the house of EDM lovers. Maybe you all are asking why we choose Angger Dimas instead of Calvin Harris or Avicii or PVD. The answer is because Angger Dimas is our local hero! DWP is coming to all-EDM lovers’ favourite festival, it even kicked Zouk Out anyway. So, having one of our local heroes like Angger Dimas was amazing. He has worked with Steve Aoki and Tiesto. He did the deck in many EDM capital city all over the world. So, seeing him in Jakarta was our pleasure. Angger Dimas, you are one hell of a future of Indonesia’s DJ Generation. Best World’s DJ in the making!

5.The People’s Party 2012 : (Best Act : Metronomy)

Venue : Fairgrounds, SCBD.
Date : January, 13 2012
Promoter : Soundshine Event
Full Review : The People’s Party Jakarta 2012

Metronomy’s album was placed No.2 (No.1 was PJ Harvey) on NME’s Best Albums in 2011. Eversince we heard this mini festival would bring Metronomy (and also Bombay Bicycle Club, The Jezables, and Naked & Famous) as one of the lineups, we were making a bee-line to “Let’s Go to The Show” counter. Soundshine Event was pretty smart by putting Metronomy as the band who would close the show. It’s a worth time of waiting to see them performing last.

4.Foster The People Live in Jakarta

Venue : Tennis Indoor Senayan
Date : January, 11 2012
Promoter : 3 Ocean Live
Full Review : Foster The People Live in Jakarta

Who doesn’t know Foster The People? And also their super hit “Pumped Up kicks”? Got to see them live in the first month of the year was one of the best choices to start your year! We can just deny it that Foster The People did their job really well. Surprisingly, we thought the crowd would be just chanting along for “Pumped Up Kicks” but we were wrong! From the first song to the closure song, which is “Pumped Up Kicks”, the crowd put it all together! The interesting moment is when Foster The People performed Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So”. And also their new song “Ruby”. Anyway, back to the Pumped Up Kicks’ momentum, We just want to say it again, it was dope. Plus they did the remix stuff on it. Say it again. It was dope.

3.Feist Live In Jakarta

Venue : Fairgrounds, SCBD.
Date : February, 15 2012
Promoter : Soundshine Event
Full Review : Feist Live in Jakarta

Feist teared down the place that night! When she performed “I Feel it All”, our jaws were dropped to the floor and they stayed there until the show ended. Feist also brought her three backing vocals who are known as “Mountain Man”, and the backing vocals were also amazing. The best was when one audienced showed a “Happy Birthday” on a paper and then he also gave her a present (sadly he didnt bring a cake, at least Feist might share some to the crowd. Okay, whatever). And it wasnt over just there, later than the crowd sang Feist a Happy Birthday song in Indonesian version (Selamat Ulang Tahun)! And then when the show was about to be over, here came a little surprise, Erlend Oye of KoC joined her to stage and danced. Feist amazing vocal and stage performance really convinced us that Feist should win a Grammy instead of just getting nominated in it.

2.Beatfest 2012 : Friendly Fires Live in Jakarta

Venue : Fairgrounds, SCBD
Date : March, 17 2012
Promoter : Urbanite Asia, Berlian Entertainment, & Hybrid Entertainment
Full Review : Friendly Fires Live in Jakarta

Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires is known for his deadly energetic moves. Even NME Magazine said “You have to see Ed Macfarlane’s dancing for once in your life!”, We did! . Performed their best 17 songs, we kept wondering, how came he kept dancing like that. The crowd got bombarded by Friendly Fires’ performance which really satisfied us! The icing on cake moment was when they performed “Hawaiian Air”, we could feel the Polynesian tunes with some breezing tropical air. One thing that would be great, if only they also brought some Hawaiian dancers to the stage (like when they did at Reading&Leeds 2011), There was no doubt the greatness would be two-fold.

1.Morrissey Live in Jakarta

Venue : Tennis Indoor Senayan
Date : May, 10 2012
Promoter : Indika Productions
Full Review :Morrissey Live in Jakarta

The wait is over! The congregation of britpop lovers finally got their aim in life accomplished. Morrissey, The former frontman of The Smiths who were the most important alternative rock band to emerge from the British independent music scene of the 1980s brought his Greatest Hits Tour to Jakarta on May 10th 2012. “It was radical!” that’s probably most of the crowd said after seeing Morrissey’s show in Jakarta. Many of his fans (even from the Smiths or his solo era) will never ever forget that night. That night was pretty much a karaoke session, all of them sang every single song perfectly. Morrissey even took some of the crowd to the stage and hugged them. Can it get any greater? Yes, He then took of his shirt then threw it to the crowd! Some people even got glassy-eyes after seeing him, no wonder, they’ve been waiting for ages and they finally able to see their legend live right infront of them. It was a history.

Those are the Best Live Acts of 2012. We just cant hold our excitement to catch the concerts in 2013! Yeah Yeah Yeahs,Weezer, Blocparty, and many more! So, who’s with us to continue the journey? (Alcander Alonzo)

What’s the best, fun and right way to celebrate friday the 13th if not by attending the biggest gig of the month or can we say by going to The People’s Party, event which organise and promoted by Untitled Asia together with Soundshine Event and in partnership with British Council.

After hitting Hongkong and Taipei, last friday (13/1) was Jakarta’s turn to experience the ‘mini’ indie rock – dance festival. The show started around 7PM with first performance from Jakarta’s own local band, Roman Foot Soldiers. Even though the band still a rookie, but we think they’ve quite succeed warmed up the audience with their friendly interaction with the audience along with their hits such as Street Without Signs, You Make Me Feel Like Summer and Waterfront.

Though its still hard to describe their genre or if we can quote them as they said that they can be called “intensindie”, this Sydney based band The Jezabels succeed made the audience (or most of the front row) to sing along that night with their hits such as Hurt Me, Easy to Love, Disco Biscuit Love. Hayley Mary the vocalist was able to amused us with her high unique voice that stay stabile until the end of their nine songs.

Probably this is the second most wanted band of the night (which mostly by the girls). Bombay Bicycle Club may represent what British indie rock sounded like nowadays. Started with their new hits such as Shuffle, and Your Eyes and continued with songs from their previous albums such as Dust on the Ground, followed by Leave It then fasting their tempo with Lights Out, Words Gone, Ivy and Gold, Evening/Morning, Cancel on Me, Lamplight, How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep, What You Want,Always Like This and What If. Even so the audience couldn’t stop sing and dance along with them. And surely they do really knew how to rock the stage.

The fourth band of the night might get or probably gain more of this country’s attention after this show. The Naked and Famous with their vocalist Alisa Xayaith really mesmerise us, no wonder even though they just have one studio album their name already get well – know around the planet. That night they played most of the songs from their Passive Me, Aggressive You album such as Frayed, All of This, The Sun, Girls Like You, Eyes, then they play their rock side with Spank, and A Wolf In Geek’s Clothing continued with No Way, Jilted Lovers and last but not least their most waited songs Punching In A Dream, followed by Young Blood.

The party isn’t started until this British electronic music group, Metronomy heated up the stage. Joseph Mount, Anna Prior, Oscar Cash, Gbenga Adelekan played most of the songs from their Nights Out and The English Riviera albums started the show with We Broke Free, continued with Love Underline, Back on the Motorway, Holiday, She Wants, Heartbreaker, The Bay, and after that we could hear another awesome talent of Anna Prior when she sang Everything Goes My Way, and continued with The Look , You Could Easily Have Me, A Thing For Me, Corrine, and finished up with song requested by the audience Radio Ladio, which made most of us sing loud and dance through the beat. We think Metronomy is one of the band that have the  package of what (at least) should a band take on stage. Well one word describe that night even though it’s raining after was happy enough. Not much of an euphoria but not less than we’ve expected.

TPP – Indonesia
Friday, January 13^th 2012 . Doors open @7PM.
Fairground (ex-Bengkel Night Park, SCBD) Jakarta
Tickets are on sale now at all Aksara Stores Jakarta, FFWD Records Bandung, and online at www.soundshineevents.com

METRONOMY (UK)

Metronomy are Joseph Mount, Oscar Cash, Anna Prior, Gbenga Adelekan and they are not a device known for its deviation. It strikes a predictable, functional pattern. Each time Metronomy release an album, on the other hand, there is a scorched earth change of pace and tone. Yet the pulse never disappears, it just reanimates for a brand new dancefloor.

Anyone expecting more of the same digital melancholia as heard on the universally-lauded Nights Out is in for a shock – but a pleasant one. The English Riviera, Metronomy’s third album – and second, after Nights Out, on Because Music – is a belting, unashamed pop album, a gorgeous record full of languid, sunset funk songs, which looks set to propel Metronomy even further than they have travelled thus far. The gorgeous ‘Everything Goes My Way’, featuring the voice of Roxanne Clifford of Veronica Falls, is an understated summer classic.  The organ hook that defines first single ‘The Look’ burrows into your head and doesn’t leave. Crucially too, it is an album that is even more danceable than its predecessor.

Listened to again with this knowledge, much of Nights Out (particularly the opening title-track) sounds like a glorious death march for bedroom recording, for Metronomy at least. “If I stayed recording in my bedroom,” explains Mount, “it would be like when rappers keep rapping about their street lifestyle when they are obviously a lot better off. Now it would be a real decision for me to keep doing it on a shit computer, with a battered soundcard. For the first time ever, as studios are cheaper due to the recession, it is in the realms of possibility [for us to record in one]. It might sound quite hypocritical of me, but the problem with home recording is people think that anyone can make music on computers without putting the work in. You forget that there is this real tradition of recording music this way.”

The new album was recorded in a converted garage in Wapping, east London. “We did it in a studio called the Smokehouse, run by a proper old school guy who is always talking about the Faces and Led Zeppelin,” says Mount. “Maybe next time it will be in LA, but for now it’s Wapping.”

If Nights Out was possessed by the feel of the 4am chemical-inspired journey to the next party, The English Riviera is floating over calm waters on a balmy summer’s day, with Mount swapping on-edge, nocturnal fuzziness for the warm studio feel of classic 1970s artists, such as Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder. Though Mount splits his time between London and Paris these days, the album was born out of a newfound focus on where he started making music over a decade ago: Devon.

The idea of The English Riviera connects Mount and co with the chunk of the South West coastline near to where he grew up.  “I just fantasised that this area was a cutting edge place of music and youth culture, which it isn’t at all,” he explains. “Imagining that this part of England creates a specific kind of music – the ‘Devon Sound’ – similar to West Coast studio music of the 1970s. If you went there and you had the geographical landscape in mind you’d end up making quite reflective, introspective music. This was just me writing a fantasy about Devon being this cool place like Portland, Oregon, so saying ‘I’m from the English Riviera’ to the music press would get you a few column inches, instead of remind you of Fawlty Towers.”

Mount remembers tuning into regional radio when growing up in Devon, and being appalled by songs like ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean, and ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac. “I would always have the same reaction to those songs. I remember hearing ‘Dreams’, I was like, ‘Oh fuck I hate this song. I don’t know why, but I hate it so much.’” Yet an epiphanal listening session transformed his attitude.  “A few years ago, I bought Rumours, and when I heard ‘Dreams’ I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is completely amazing.’ It had been there all along in my subconscious, and I suddenly thought that Fleetwood Mac are great and that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Being as cocaine-fuelled as they were and also doing this amazing music, which is also really catchy, that’s pretty impressive.”

Metronomy started out in Totnes in Devon, after Mount had spent years drumming in “loads of bands, some questionable” at school. Drunk on Björk and Aphex, he locked himself away in his bedroom and started recording on his computer. Moving to Brighton for educational reasons, he released debut Pip Paine’ (Pay The £5000 You Owe) in 2006. When Mount was asked by Erol Alkan to play live at his club, he enlisted Oscar Cash and Gabriel Stebbing to join the project.

Mount still writes all the songs, and keeps a “Kevin Rowland-like” grip on the way they are produced, but live Metronomy is definitely a quartet.  Ahead of The English Riviera, Stebbing left with the group’s blessing, so Mount acquired a drummer and a bass player in Anna Prior and Gbenga Adelekan to add to the remaining core of he and Oscar.  “When we started, the three of us wanted to get to the point where we were literally just playing live,” he explains. “It has taken a while, but now we don’t use backing tracks or anything like that, it is all completely played and so is more of a spectacle.”

Mount is pleased with the path the band is heading down, although he is still keen to keep things fresh next time round. “I definitely had no intention of doing the same thing again. I like the stuff that changes,” he says. “I still feel like we’re starting out in our career. One day there might come a time when we’ll have released a huge output that people can draw lines between and look for similarities.” For now, though, we can just enjoy the warmth of The English Riviera, the latest instalment in Metronomy’s epic journey into pop’s heartlands.

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB (UK)

No, it’s not a club for bicycle lover or something like that. And no, they’re not from Bombay either. Name is taken from a chain restaurant in London and we’re sure they get this “why do you name your band Bombay Bicycle Club” kind of question a lot. Aside from their unique taste in naming something, Bombay Bicycle Club currently find themselves in the very common position of being liked and respected. Their third album, A Different Kind of Fix (released on August 2011), feels like a confident effort to mix Animal Collective and Talking Heads. The band ,whose second album Flaws granted with Ivor Novello awards for Best Album of 2010, showered us with a giddy enthusiasm and sunshine with their music. As BBC would call it, their music is “very indie and very fey…in a good way”.

THE NAKED AND FAMOUS (NZ)

The Naked And Famous formed in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2008 and consist of Aaron Short (keyboards, vocals), Alisa Xayalith (vocals, keyboards), David Beadle (bass, keyboards, vocals), Jesse Wood (drums), Thom Powers (vocals, guitar). After releasing two critically acclaimed EPs, the group exploded onto the world stage after their self-released single “Young Blood” debuted at number one in their home country in May 2010 and saw them quickly signed by UK label Fiction Records.

The group’s masterfully melodic blend of rock and electronic elements fronted by the boy-girl vocals of Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith has made them a festival hit around the world in 2011 and their album Passive Me Aggressive You a critical favourite on its way to already selling over quarter of a million copies.

The self-produced Passive Me Aggressive You received glowing four star reviews in Uncut and Mojo and many other publications. NME’s 8/10 review called it a ‘glorious melting pot of pop perfection’, saying that the band’s ‘passive melodicism and aggressive innovation clash in a dazzling blaze of psych/sonic fireworks’.

TNAF’s festival triumphs include Big Day Out, South By Southwest, Lollapolooza, Fuji Rock in Japan, The Great Escape, Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and Latitude in the UK, and Germany’s Rock Am Ring.

The delirious hit “Young Blood” is now a Platinum selling single in New Zealand and is Gold in Australia. It earned the group their first major award, the NZ APRA Silver Scroll in 2010, and they followed that with collecting the Philip Hall Radar Award at the Shockwaves NME awards in London in February. Previous winners of this fresh talent statue from NME have been Drums, Glasvegas and The Big Pink.

THE JEZABELS (AUS)

Revelation is part of The Jezabels’ art. Three EPs have led us this far. The Man Is Dead. She’s So Hard. Dark Storm. Strange jewels dropped along their winding path to who knows where, each more lustrous than the last.

Did you see how they caught the light? Hurt Me broke the US charts, made iTunes’ single of the week. Easy To Love and Mace Spray were indie radio staples; Dark Storm an iTunes #1. AIR and APRA nominations were lavished for records and songwriting.

Meanwhile in the live arena, maybe you’ve been shaken by The Jezabels’ cocktail of power and eleganceat one of their sold out headline shows around the world, or at any number of festivals that left critics gasping, from Oz inkies to UK glossies to Austin’s SXSW:

“Commanding…epic…brilliant…menacing…purring, roaring, soaring… intellectual ferocity…pyromaniac intensity…imagination and emotional rawness…thundering…threatening…exuberant rock’n'roll swagger…”

So much for peeking through the keyhole. With Prisoner, their debut album, The Jezabels are released at last.

“We love a bit of drama,” firebrand singer Hayley Mary makes clear from the outset. “The EP trilogy was practical as well as conceptual on our part. It helped shaped us internally, as well as how we were perceived.

Prisoner is a panoramic study of tension and emancipation, from the echoing stone cathedral of the title track to the sun-blasted morning of the first single, Endless Summer; from the cloistered atmospherics of the instrumental interlude, Austerlitz, to the chiming and climbing pop of Deep Wide Ocean and the quiet reflecting pool of Peace of Mind.

Perhaps related is the fact that The Jezabels have chosen to remain an independent entity for their debut album — in spite of a virtual stampede of label interests. World be warned. Prisoner is loose.

Ticket Price
Pre-sale tickets 350k (Dec 20^th-Jan 8^th) Normal tickets 390k (Jan 9^th- Jan 13^th)
For further info go to their website or simply follow @Soundshineevent