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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Ways to beat the traffic and complete arrogance

When a job’s worth doing, it’s not worth doing well. That’s the approach the Jakarta local council is taking in constructing a network of dedicated “bus lanes” in the capital.

First off, they can’t even be bothered to widen the roads. Nah - that would be far too much effort. Yet, at the same time, they have gone to the trouble of elevating the latest bus lane that runs along Jalan Gatot Subroto. But why? Doing this doesn’t serve any purpose whatsoever. And to run heavy buses on six inch thick concrete is sheer stupidity of course – it won’t be long before that concrete starts to crumble (especially after a few months of heavy rain).

So what is the council achieving apart from dramatically pushing up the costs? Ah – but there you have it. Dramatically pushing up the costs. That is the purpose according to someone I know whose brother is a contractor. And after the Rp1.5 billion bus way shelters, he reckons the elevated concrete bus way is gonna be another nice little earner…

But there are ways to beat the traffic of course. You just need a few motorcycle outriders, a shiny new Volvo and the right connections. That’s all.

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