Joyland Fest Part 2

Okay so this is a continuation of my post regarding my experience at Joyland Festival in Jakarta!

I think this is one of the best, or probably the best music festival I went to and this is for the following reasons:

#1 Plenty of Open Spaces
There are a lot of open spaces in the festival grounds and it feels very open and "free" to walk and roam around the ground. And I'm not sure if it's due to the pandemic but I realise people are also keeping distance in the audience crowd. Okay not exactly 1 metre apart but I just feel I have more space in between the crowds, as compared to previous music festivals heh. So kudos Joyland team!

#2 Designated Smoking Area

I have nothing against smokers and I'm super used to cigarette smoke. But it's really nice to have a a designated smoking area and the air around the festival grounds feel much cleaner heh. Although I think by day 3, people just break the rule and smoke in the audience crowd hah. No biggies though.

#3 Free Water Refill!

To me this is the most brilliant idea - free water refill! They encourage us to bring our own bottles and they provide water refill stations, which the crew diligently fill every time it's empty. Say goodbye to expensive water and also plastic waste. I just brought my own bottle and refill them.

These are the reasons why I love this music festival! Hah. Well some of the downsides are... There's not much covered spaces. So when it rained, everyone was scrambling to find any available covered area hah. But I guess this is the risk we have for organising an open event. And like any other music festivals there seems to be a bit of a difficulty in soundproofing. In some set times, I could hear the performance of the other band on the other stage. But once again, we can't really avoid this.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next Joyland Fest! 

So Long, Tanglin

So long, Tanglin. TSS circa 2009
1964 - 2022

Today is the 13th of November. Thanks to Facebook, I just realised that 13 years ago, on this date, it was my last official day as a student in Tanglin Secondary School (AKA my O Level Chemistry Paper 1 haha). Fast forward 13 years later, little did we know that it'll be TSS last official year as a school. 

So starting from next year, TSS will merge with New Town Secondary School. And NTSS will get to keep its name (why!?!?, No offence). It's kinda sad knowing that there'll no longer be Tanglin Secondary School. I never expected this day to come this quick. Heck, I didn't even expect the school will ever close down heh. Yes perhaps we will merge (like we did, with Clementi Woods) but we will keep our name. I seriously don't know why such historical names are not uphold.

But who am I to have a say.

Anyway so yeah I feel rather sad. On Friday there was a last homecoming concert back in TSS and some of my friends went for it. I felt really sentimental seeing their IG stories and decided to dig up some old photos. I came across this photo which I took 13 years ago! So ancient haha.

This photo was taken during French Leave. The 2 week period where we get to study on our own and also to have consultations with our teachers. I am someone who couldn't study at home. I mean with so many distractions in my room (there's the TV, my piano and my PC beside my table heh), I dragged myself to school everyday to study at the school's library almost everyday! 

Wow come to think of it I was so hardworking back then haha.

I had this ritual back then where I would go down to the canteen to have a break at 3 PM ish. I would get myself Pokka's Oolong tea from the vending machine. Back then, at this timing, the school was rather empty already. So it feels good to walk around an empty school. And on that day in October 2009, I went around the school to take some photos of the empty school. 

I never knew that day will be kinda significant now. I am going to miss the school. I would never trade those 4 years with anything else. That 4 years have shaped me to become who I am today, and they've gifted me with friendships that some, I know will last a lifetime (you know who you are!). 

I wish I have the chance to go back to TSS one more time. But well I don't think it's possible now. Whatever the case is, I'm still relieved that I still have all these memories to reminisce with my friends.

Oh well, thank you Tanglin for the memories. For the knowledge, for the lessons, for the friendships and for everything else that made m 4 of my 11 years in Singapore an amazing one. 

Joyland Festival Day 3

Minggu yang indah bersama White Shoes and The Couples Company!

Alright moving on to day 3! Last day of the festival, also the day that happened so quick.

The festival begins with me reuniting once again with White Shoes and The Couples Company! Finally catching them live again after.... 7 Years. Yup, I last saw them in 2015 during their concert at Cikini. I always love watching them perform. They're a joy to watch, and this time round I finally get to experience their new album "2020" live! Well part of it. But still lovely. Hari Minggu yang indah bersama White Shoes and The Couples Company!

Next up is Phum Viphurit. I had a long gap between WSATCC and PV, so I went to see a few bands in between. There's The Panturas who's super good live omg I love their energy haha. I also went to see Isyana Sarasvati but the stage ground was full! I just caught her on the side heh.

Hello Phum!

Phum Viphurit is someone I've been wanting to see live for years. Ever since I discovered him in 2015 basically. He did tour in 2019 I think but I had something on that day and I couldn't make it. Bummer! But no worries I finally caught him live now and he's amazing :') He sounds so damn good live. And there's this... I don't know how to say. Friendly aura that he's emitting when he's performing. Like I feel so "light" and cheerful when I saw him live haha. 

Also damn, when he played "Hello Anxiety" and everyone was singing and dancing to the chorus, I thought it was one of the best moments of the festival. It feels so cathartic. To see everyone around you singing and dancing to "Heaven knows we're lost, the sun still shines, so we'll be fine".

So good to see PREP again :')

And last but definitely not least, it's time for PREP! They're the band I look forward the most to in the festival haha cause I've been wanting to hear their new music live! And boy it's so worth the wait. After 2 online concerts and many vinyl spins later, here I am watching them live. I've been seeing their posts during their US and Korea tour earlier this year wondering when it'll be my turn. And yup, it's my turn mwahaha. And it's so good to finally see them again after 2.5 years!

PREP was the last gig I went to before the pandemic hit. Then COVID came, and we're in isolation, and they released their debut self-titled album back in October 2020. Their song "Years Don't Lie" has been accompanying me throughout these 2 years. The lyrics "All those hidden hopes and horoscopes putting us right here tonight" is so blissfully comforting somehow. In those days where life just confuses the hell out of you hah. So thank you PREP for coming to Jakarta. So great to see y'all again! 

Okay so, PREP wasn't the last band I wanted to see. I wanted to catch Hindia, also another band I've been wanting to see live. But.... Being a responsible adult means I had to sacrifice hahaha. I still have work to do and Monday is ahead of me. I decided to call it a night. Also fun fact, I went back home with my flower delivery van hahaha. We had delivery on Sunday as usual and I hitched the ride home.

Alright that's all for Joyland Festival 2022! It was probably the best weekend I had in a long long time. Since my trip to Singapore back in May heh. It feels so good to return to the music scene again. Although like I said in my previous post, I do realise that my life is no longer the same as before. 

But still, my heart is beaming with gratitude. 

Thank you and congratulations Joyland Festival for the fantastic and amazing music festival! I definitely look forward to your next one in 2023. I'm going to write another post about the festival so wait for that. Okay folks, that's all for now. till the next music festival!

Joyland Festival Day 1 & 2

Hello hello, so since it's been a week since Joyland Festival, let me blog about my experience in this super awesome music festival! Probably the best I've ever been to.

I will combine day one and two here as day one was very short (you'll know why below).

So after 2.5 years of online concerts and livestreams, I've decided to do a "Revenge Music Festival". You know some people did "Revenge Traveling" after pandemic border controls were eased. For me I decided to go to a music festival for 3 days HAHAHA. Which is super worth it. But probably not gonna do it again. Will talk about this in another separate post mwahaha.

Anyway so I went to Jakarta on Friday the 4th of November. Years and Years was playing at 3 PM so I decided to go to my hotel first to check in. I stayed at Century Park Hotel near the festival ground (GBK Softball stadium). It is super near, highly recommended if you're watching a concert. It's like a 5 minute walk to the venue (depending on area, mine was right in front of the hotel hah).

Yaaaas Olly!

I went in at like 2 PM and I ended up waiting for a while longer (didn't know it's super near hah). I'm so so happy to finally catch Y&Y! After a 7 year wait oh my gosh. I think they're supposed to tour in 2019 but their ASEAN tour was also cancelled back then. It's so good to see Olly live eeep! And great to see Mikey joining in the tour too, and Paris as well on the drums. Olly is such a great performer!

Full Squad.

He's just really like... So in the element on stage. Well I guess perks of waiting for so long is that I'm able to hear (sort of) 3-albums worth of music haha. Thank you for playing many songs from each album! It's so great to finally hear them live. I had such a great time dancing and singing to your songs. It was truly a great way to open the music festival and to break my hiatus from the scene haha. We love you Olly! Hope to see you again soon in Jakarta <3

Okay so my plan was to actually stay and catch Project Pop at 6:30 PM. After Y&Y set (about 4 PM ish) it started to rain. At first it was drizzle, then it got heavier and heavier. And since I have 2.5 hours to wait I decided to just sit at under a sheltered bench. The rain was weird, it was like raining, off, raining off and so on. By 5:30 PM the rain got lighter. So I had hopes to catch PP drier hah. But by 6 PM the rain got heavy again. At around 6:15 PM it got slightly lighter. 

Omw back to the hotel, in the rain

That's when I was like okay I think I'm gonna head back to my hotel and give PP a miss. The rain was not as heavy as before so I braved myself and walked back to my hotel with my raincoat. Just as I reached my room. Wow, there was a thunderstorm heh. The rain got really heavy and there were thunders as well. And with a rotten luck and blessing in disguise, PP's performance got cancelled. I saw this on IG. Even though I saw them doing soundcheck earlier! It's sad, cause I saw some people tweeting that they were looking forward to PP (me too!).

I fell asleep on my bed as I only had like... 4 hours of sleep last night. I woke up at about 11 PM but I'm thankful that the rain stopped and I could hear the festival continuing on. 

Day 2 was an exciting one was I finally had the chance to catch Kunto Aji (AKA Mas Kun)! And also Batavia Collective, which is a band I recently discovered a few months back. Also excited to catch Scaller again. Before the festival I went to walk around the hotel area but it was raining in the afternoon. Okay another separate post for this haha.

Hello Mas Kun!

I went to the festival at around 4 PM as Mas Kun was playing at 4:30 PM. I've been wanting to catch him for so long but never had the chance to. So happy that I get to catch Mantra Mantra Live! I love how he begins his set by asking us to go into... A Meditative state? So like let go whatever is bothering you. And when they return to you just let it go again. He's truly a performer. I love his energy and I love his candidness during his set. Grateful to finally catch him live! 

Batavia Collective ft Barry Likumahuwa!

Next act was Batavia Collective. There was a huge gap between the set so I walked around the festival ground again. Thankfully no rain this time hah. Batavia Collective was amazing. They're so damn tight. There's also a surprise when Barry Likumahuwa, who's one of Indonesia's Bass gods hah, joins them during Propulsion. He's so amazing!! And I wish BC's set was longer to be honest. I look forward to hearing more new music though! The songs that played were so good.

In between BC and Scaller there was a stand up comedy stage and I went to see it. Had a really good laugh and it really made the whole atmosphere lighter and just nice.

Scaller!

Scaller is just energetic as usual. I love their energy and their performance! I caught them for the first time in WTF 2017. They recently released a new album and I'm glad to be able to hear their new songs live. But I think my favourite from them is their song "The Youth". I feel like the song is a "Cathartic Rebellion". It just makes me want to dance and jump and scream and shout haha.

I wanted to actually catch Tulus late at night at 10:20 PM. I went to stroll and sit around the festival ground after Scaller. I even went to see the Hype of JKT48 (their fans are amazing!). And I also went to see Sales, a new band that I haven't listened to (nice chill sounds!). But guess what, by the end of their set... Which is an hour before Tulus' set, I decided to go back hah. I was just feeling really tired somehow. And I know tomorrow's gonna be a long day. So yeah.

Went back to my hotel, change my clothes, finished up work (yes I brought my laptop lol). Fell asleep again, showered, and went back to sleep. That's all for day 2!

See you tomorrow for Day 3.

I'm Back

PREP live at Joyland Festival, Jakarta

Hello hello everyone. No I'm not back in this blog, I mean yes I am but... I just got back from...

My First Music Festival After 2.5 Years!!!

Yup I went to Joyland Festival last weekend. and I really had a great time there! It is also my first time attending a 3-day Music Festival and I'm sorry but I realised I'm no longer young and I don't think I'll ever do it again. Attending a 3 day music festival that is. I was just so tired by the end of it haha. And I ended up calling the night early even though it is still young. Well I guess age is catching up on me.

Anyway I'm going to talk about each day on a separate post.

Those 3 days of music have really made me think and reflect actually. I think about the past 2.5 years. About the things that were taken away from us. What are you grateful for?

I've spent the past 2.5 years watching online concerts, livestreams and chats from the artists and bands. I am very thankful that the music community has stick by in the past 2.5 years by attending these online concerts and chats and so on. To have this feeling of communion returned to us is really a great feeling that I'm so thankful to experience again. And I hope I can attend more soon.

I managed to catch many of my favourite artists and bands at Joyland, some for the first time. And I'm very happy to be able to do this in these 3 days! And I even got reunited with one of my favourite bands: PREP! Alright more of this in the next coming posts.

Alright I guess that's all from me now. Just a short, lively and lovely update from me. See you!