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...
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Role reversal

A few years back everyone dumped the rupiah. It sank like whale faeces to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. On a few crazy occasions it even went to 17,000/USD. Ridiculous queues at foreign banks like Standard Chartered as rich Indonesians put all their money into dollar accounts that pay virtually no interest.

But today, the rupiah is king – in Indonesia at least. No one likes the dollar anymore. If things continue the British pound will soon be worth US$2.

There’s a moral behind all this of course. And it’s very simple. When things get really bad, they probably won’t get worse. Cos when you’re at the bottom, the only way is up. And, conversely, when you’re at the top the only way is down…

 Even so, money is money. Maria Eva wanted Rp5 billion, but would have accepted dollars of course. The difference is that with dollars you only need one briefcase to take the money to the bank. With the rupiah you need a van.

 But Maria has got no class and doesn’t rank as one of my top Indonesian celebrities for 2006.

 Don’t like classy chicks? Well, there’s always the ayam kampung…

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