When we went to the place around 10 pm, we were welcomed by a nice party atmosphere, and cool lightning as well as visual effects from the stage, as Dj Dipha and Dj Mahesa Utara playing their house – electro – rock alternative mash ups songs. The crowd which mostly range of adolescent to young executive, couldn’t ask for more even random midweek dance party. As we have been expected before, Aoki has succeed burning the dance floor that night with his attractive skills of mixing songs, and hits such as “Wake Up Call”, ”No Beef”, “Earthquakey People”, “Warp 1.9″, even “Come With Me” a collaboration song with Rivers Cuomo, and of course the song everyone knew “Pursuit of Happiness” his collaboration with Kid Cudi, which also the soundtrack of Project X.

Apperently the show won’t stop until the Dj said so. Not enough twisting our body and heads, Aoki decided to do crazy stunt by doing free jump to the crowd from the stage, and after some songs, he LITERALLY “caked” the crowd by throwing a big sponge cake to the crowd, not once but couple times! As the time goes by and the crowd went wild, Aoki started to freshen up the crowd with champagne. Not long after playing his songs, which some of them were collaboration with Indonesian DJ Angger Dimas, Aoki ended the party with couple encores and tired happy faces from the crowd which we believed didn’t realised that they really have to go to campus or working in several hours! Again, Urbanite Asia has proven themselves to be one of the best party maker in Indonesia.

Photos by Emonemomen

Steve Aoki will be returning to Jakarta this february after he last visit to our lovely town in 2010.

If you are still confused about him, well we have no idea why that stays in you but here’s about his musical career :

In May 2006, Aoki became a board member for MC5 bassist Michael Davis’ Music Is Revolution Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides music education support within public schools.
Aoki’s debut mix album, Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles was released in January 2008. He also had an Essential Mix that aired on BBC Radio 1 on August 2, 2008.

Aoki’s latest solo album, “Wonderland” was released January 2012 and features guest vocalists and musicians LMFAO, Kid Cudi, Travis Barker, will.i.am aka Zuper Blahq, Wynter Gordon, Rivers Cuomo, Lil Jon, Chiddy Bang, Lovefoxxx of CSS, Big John Duncan former guitarist of the punk band The Exploited, and others.

Aoki has also been busy in the studio collaborating with other fellow producer friends and thus far has released singles with The Bloody Beetroots, Armand Van Helden of Duck Sauce, Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Tai, Sidney Samson, Tiesto. In his interviews, Twitter feed or from his YouTube channel, he has shown teasers or has discussed doing future collaborations with Diplo, Knife Party, Datsik, Chris Lake, Rune, Iggy Azalea, Angger Dimas, and Dirtyphonics.
He has remixed many artists and bands, including Jackson 5, Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Mike Posner, Girls Generation, All American Rejects, Refused, The Killers, Bassnectar, Lenny Kravitz, Bloc Party, Snoop Dogg, Robin Thicke, S.P.A., Kid Cudi, Fërnando Oviedo, Chester French and Peaches.

He remixed the track “When The Wind Blows” that features on the UK edition of The All-American Rejects’ 2008 album When The World Comes Down.

On November 10, 2009 he released a remix for Drake’s song “Forever“. The song features Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem. The track made it to the top of Hype Machine’s chart in December 2009.
Through relentless touring he gained huge support from colleges. Performing an average of 250 shows a year, he has recently started touring with production via bus tours like the spring 2012 Deadmeat Tour he headlined over 55 cities in 60 dates across the United States and Canada. Many of the artists Aoki collaborates with also make appearances on tour with him. He has also played lesser-travelled regions — in 2009 he played a show in Beijing, China with Diplo at a night organised by promoters Split Works.

In March 2010 Aoki released “I’m In The House“, a collaboration with Zuper Blahq—alter-ego of The Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am. The song charted at #29 in the UK Singles Chart in its first week of release.
Producer-songwriter Lucas Secon confirmed in a May 2010 interview with HitQuarters that he and Rivers Cuomo had recently worked with Aoki on a single.

That is one hell of a prologue! So, If you’re a fan of Steve Aoki, make sure you won’t miss his show in Jakarta! See you there and let’s get hammered by his tunes!

Lippo Mall Kemang and Urbanite Asia presents:
STEVE AOKI
At Avenue Of The Stars
Wednesday, February 27th 2013
with Dipha Barus and Mahesa Utara
Ticket price: IDR 300.000 (excluding tax)
Tickets available at Portico Senayan City and www.KiosTix.com

Kios Tix

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)

Named as one of Indonesia’s most accounted Music Festivals, It all started out in 2006 to accommodate the over crowding at the infamous Embassy Club in Senayan Area in Jakarta, Embassy Playground Festival was carefully designed as an exciting multi-genre music festival. The first inception already saw nearly 6.000 people through the gates, and had reached an average of 15,000 through its last 3. Now in its 5^th year, Playground teams up with Dimensions, to present you Dimensions Playground Festival that will see the festival at two major cities in Indonesia, both Jakarta and Bali.

As to maintain the variety of line-ups, this year’s Dimensions Playground covers a broad spectrum of musical genres in our three widespread arena Embassy Stage, Wonderbar Forest Soundsystem and The Silent Concert area plus visual enhancements for multi-sensorial festival experience. We are giving you a bit of everything this year. Whatever you have in mind, we’re genre bending here, we’re crossing boundaries of a carefully crafted boutique music festival to cater all you music heads.

Let’s kick off with GORILLAZ SOUND SYSTEM that presents to audience the heart and brain of Gorillaz multimedia set, Gorillaz Sound System will give their performance for both cities Jakarta and Bali in the main area. And as we breakthrough boundaries of dancing in our Embassy Playground 2008 with The Silent Disco, we tailor-made ourselves the experience of ‘no noise’ concert plus many added improvements this year with our very own THE SILENT CONCERT area which will feature 2 DJs and 1 Band in 3 different stage right in front of you at any given time, which allows audience to choose from 3 selectable channels of the music they can choose from the headphones which will be given in the area. We have custom made 1.000 pieces of high-quality wireless headphones to wow the audiences just for this, and the Switch headphones are owned by Urbanite Asia.

A specialized visual mapping of urban cityscape is also one of our highlights for this area, where you will witness fantastic video mapping delivered at the Silent Concert stage in conjunction with Kompas Urbana. Some of the artists confirmed to perform in the area are ALEXA and AGRIKULTURE who will be playing very inspiring different sets than ones you see anywhere else for the first time, tailored specifically for Dimensions Playground Market. They will be joined by the likes of Anton Wirjono, Winky, DJ Cream, Innoceroze, Akira a.k.a. Astronaughty, Winky, Dipha (Live Set), DJ Cream, Bone, Jerome, Tosynth, Crip, Downey & Sixteen for the Silent Concert area.

Our own WONDERBAR FOREST SOUNDSYSTEM will see different varieties of line-ups which also includes numerous different excitements as we design the venue carefully to match our psychedelic forest concept, where DJ’s like Anton Wirjono, Jakarta Techno Militia team, Danny Howells, Marc Roberts and Tosynth will also be joined by live band acts from SAINT ETIENNE who will perform a very special sunset performance, SIR DANDY and the nation’s most aspiring rock and roll act, BRNDLS also known as The Brandals.

To add to the exciting line-up is KELIS will headline our EMBASSY MAIN STAGE alongside GORILLAZ SOUND SYSTEM and with our own local heroes, Downey & Crip as the sound of DOMAIN and of course, Mahesa Utara who will close the set at our main area. Let’s not stop there!, with our most massive production to date, we’ve specially invited over Modular Recordings ‘golden darlings’, VAN SHE for an exclusive full band set for the first time ever in Indonesia!

A little bit of everything from our local heroes! Bali sees an even bigger local names such as Yoga Yin, Kasymin, Dion, Putra Collins, Alex Joy, Robotrocks, Gary Bemore, Anastasia, Robotrocks, Electrofux, Mikey Moran, James Hendrik, Eric Larson, Kent Kryptonite, Adit Putra, Stan, Schizo and the very special performance from the guy who introduced tech house to the world, JAMES ZABIELA, GEORGE FITZGERALD and MARC ROBERTS who is known as the founder of Snowbombing Music Festival in Austria. This multi faceted music festival will showcase more musical genre for your dancing aura at the ever-gleaming beauty of Garuda Wisnu Kencana Complex on the 9^th of May 2012 with 2 massive areas that are specially designed with LED Lights, Visual Mappings, Laser Graffiti and so much more.

As Indonesia’s forefront boutique music festival, our brand has established a name of its own that presented different kind of experience of going to music festivals. We’ve designed our own true playground arena that will feature Ferris wheel, Seesaw, Merry-Go-Round, Laser Graffiti, Swing Tire and so much more. Apart from that, take part also in our very own exclusive   Hammer fall and Bull Riding game from our proud brew sponsor STARK BEER garden area where we will design it to the full comfort of our festivalgoers. And if you are an avid Whiskey fan, we have a very special Jack Daniels lounge that is served by their finest mixologists to cater to your drinking desire. We will also have a special signing booth tent from Kompas Urbana, where you will have the chance of taking photos and getting signatures from your favorite DIMENSIONS PLAYGROUND artists. And if those are not enough, we will also cater to your resting need where you can pamper yourself in our specialized F&B/Pampering area where you will find Viro Booth (our official mineral water), Smirnoff Booth and Area Living Room where you can rest and relax.

For it’s 5^th inception, Dimensions Playground will be on the Saturday, 5^th of May 2012 starting at 5pm, that’s right (5/5/5/5/5) at Tennis Park Senayan in Jakarta, and Bali at the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) on 9^th of May 2012.

Your early-bird tickets are now available at Portico Senayan City Jakarta and Brewers Denpasar and Legian starting at Rp. 360.000 or online at www.embassyplayground.com/dimensions , you can also buy on the spot for Rp. 420.000.

For live info feed, follow our twitter accounts @Playground_5th, @UrbaniteAsia & @embassytheclub or join our facebook page www.facebook.com/playgroundfestival

]]> http://www.svanapaper.com/playground-5th-is-back-this-555/feed/ 0 http://www.svanapaper.com/and-ended-at-fairground-in-jakarta/ http://www.svanapaper.com/and-ended-at-fairground-in-jakarta/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:22:41 +0000 Alcander Alonzo http://www.svanapaper.com/?p=1888 Could not make it to Jakarta on their last tour in 2011, Friendly Fires finally..]]>

Could not make it to Jakarta on their last tour in 2011, Friendly Fires finally gave a big check to us last night (17/03). The annual event that is held by Rated-A Avolution, Beatfest, also in a colaboration of three promoters Urbanite Asia, Berlian Entertainment, and Hybrid Entertainment put their effort as one to bring Friendly Fires and The Magician for headlining the night.

Unlike those typical Saturday nights, this Saturday was totally (and probably) one of the nights that many people have been waiting for.  As one of the most anticipated concerts in 2012, we could see a long queue at the entrance gate. People came early eventho Friendly Fires were going to be on stage at 11 PM, seemed like they really rooted and were curious to experience a massive performance by them.  As we entered the venue, we could feel a different atmosphere or let’s say an atmosphere that you always have when you entered Beatfest. We were welcomed by some of art and fashion exhibition that represents an urban culture.

Back to the track, Roman Foot Soldiers(RFS) hit the stage at 8.10 PM. In charge as a starter, they boost the crowd with their first song, “Streets Without Signs” , then followed by “The Canal” and “Higher Peak”. We didn’t need to put our ear to the ground to know how famous they are now, because we could easily hear some people sing along to their songs. The band that have been trusted to open many gigs, such as Nylon Music Festival 2011, The People’s Party 2012 and LoveGarage 2012, were praised for their electro rock music. And not forget to mention, they became a Santa Claus on the St.Patty day because they spared some of their EPs tittled “Kitsilano” to the crowd.

 

To boil some blood, after RFS’ performance, now the crowd is served with an alternative disco show by The Magician. If you are familiar with some of dance tracks , you might recognize The Magician, Stephen Fasano, he was a co-pilot in Aeroplane (now only consisting of Vito De Luca). There is no doubt that The Magician would change Fairgrounds into a dancefloor. Spinned some of his remixes, he did hypnotize the crowd to keep dancing and not saving their energy, because we were not close to the big show!. Furthermore, when he played his infamous remix, Follow Rivers by Lykke Li, he turned down the volume of his machine and asked the crowd to sing the chorus part, and then you know the rest, We danced till drop.

Having more than an hour of a sudden disco, the lights were dimmed. People started screaming Friendly Fires and Ed Macfarlen, but nope, it was not Friendly Fires already, we believe that something worth seeing is worth waiting. It was actually a visual mapping show starring Anton Wirjono’s holograph. So, Anton Wirjono’s holograph appeared on the stage and dj-ed. And then, there were like ten men (these were not a holograph) walked on the stage wearing a white t-shirt. The cool thing is about to happen, their t-shirt was projected with a sort of visual mapping and it went for about three minutes.

After getting an electro rock and an alternative disco performance, plus a radical visual mapping show. Now they real party has begun, Friendly Fires were finally on stage!. Ed Macfarlane with his dapper style (We bet if the concert was held in an outdoor venue and in the afternoon, he must be wearing his Hawaiian’s pattern shirt) landed on stage with the other two members of the band, Edd Gibson and Jack Savidge, and also followed by some of their additional musicians. Performing Lovesick as the first song, Ed constantly danced like crazy (as what NME said, people have to watch Ed Macfarlane’s dancing for once in their life) to get us all dance “horny”. The band who also nominated for Mercury Music Prize in 2009, blasted our eardrums in the next two songs, “Jump In The Pool” and “Running Away”. Ed Macfarlane made the whole Fairgrounds pumped with his signature relentlessly energetic moves. Eventho Ed was having a cold, In the song “Blue Cassette”, he shown his amazing vocal skill. His stunning voice brought resonance to songs like “Chimes”, “Show Me lights”, and “Live Those Days Tonight”. The eleventh song, “Pala”, soothed the crowd with a sound of chirping bird and a cosmic synth. Have bombarded the crowd with more than eleven songs, Friendly Fires played their latest single, “Hurting”, and also known as Ed’s favourite track from album Pala. Continued with “Pull Me Back To Earth” and then the craziness peaked to “Paris” which is their first single that achieved “Single of The Week” in The Guardian Newspaper, NME Magazine, and also on BBC 1 Radio Show.  After a few minutes of cheering for an encore, they wandered back to the stage and played “Hawaiian Air”, we could feel a polynesian tunes and grooves from the instrument, and we kind of expected that there would be some Hawaiian Dancers like we saw in Reading Festival 2011 (but it seems the last time that they are using them is at O2 Brixton, London). To wrap their kick ass performance, they played “Kiss Of Life” and gave a rejoicing closure of the show.

Overall, there wasn’t any greater way to start the night with Friendly Fires. From the first note of the tunes to the first dancing hips, the crowd was just as into it as a deadly energetic Ed Macfarlane. Watching Ed as he danced while singing at the top of his lungs was a uber highlight of the evening. Could catch Ed’s signature shake-your-ass moves with bare eyes is the moment and a rare privilege that you could not find from any other frontmen. Finishing the sixteenth songs with a jaw dropping performance felt like a job well done. After a show in Jakarta, Friendly Fires will continue their task to shake some hips on 4th-5th May in Spain and they also will be headlining for Lovebox Festival in London on 16th June. So, who has learned some new moves? (Alcander Alonzo/Dorothy T.)

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