BMTH live in Jakarta 2024

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This time around Ravel gets it right and BMTH (Bring Me The Horizon) are headlining the Nexfest festival in Jakarta which also features Babymetal. In this format there is no seating - which makes for a much more intimate experience - although you do have to arrive really early if you want to pick a spot right up close to the stage.  We arrived about six hours before BMTH were scheduled to start their performance and bought plenty of drinks to stay hydrated in the tropical afternoon heat (mind you, some of those were Iceland vodka mix!) This was a gig I had long been looking forward to - especially after the debacle last year. Not everyone likes BMTH of course. For deathcore fans the band sold out. For metal heads the band is not purist enough. And for the wider mainstream audience, the band is too heavy. You can't please everyone of course but there are few bands in the rock world which can match the sheer emotional velocity of BMTH. To bring metal and even aspects of metalcore t...

Pizza Hut, Senen

Like all living things, cities change; some more so than others. In Jakarta's case, the pace of change is so frenetic that parts of the city are completely unrecognizable after only fifty years or so. It's difficult to know where it will all end and whether we are headed toward a dystopian nightmare of human folly, or, alternatively, something a little more benign (but probably the former).

The Senen district in central Jakarta is one of those interesting parts of the city where a lot of the old stuff is still in evidence. A sleazy rat infested cinema still shows soft porn movies and Jakarta's first market, Pasar Senen (Monday Market) - so named as it was originally only open on Mondays each week when it began operating back in 1735 - is as tatty as a dilapidated gypsy camp.

Not long ago and the area where the monstrous Plaza Atrium now stands used to look like this:



Interestingly though, some bright spark had the nouse to save the particularly interesting old Dutch building you can see in this picture and it was renovated to become one of the most stylish of fast food restaurants that you are ever likely to find.


Pizza Hut, Senen

Who knows what went on here before but now it's a Goddamn Pizza Hut restaurant!

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