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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RIP: Ali Sadikin

Former Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin sadly passed away on Monday. 


 But despite his toughness he was always much respected. Not just for “allowing” Golkar to lose an election in Jakarta but also for his pragmatism in dealing with urban problems. His most controversial policy was to legalize gambling – a move which raised around 20 billion rupiah a year for the municipality. 

This was a sizable sum of money back in the 70s and was used for such immoral purposes as building roads, health clinics and schools. 

But the pious won the day, and it wasn’t long before gambling was made illegal again. But 20 billion rupiah is peanuts today of course, and a mere drop in the Sunda Straits compared to the massive US$4.4 billion casino development currently underway in Singapore that is intended to “attract Asia's rich and famous”. 

It’s the same old story of course – the Singaporeans seeing a tremendous opportunity that its large neighbor has decided to pass by. 

And the Singaporeans should do well – by 2011 the regulated gambling market is expected to reach a phenomenal US$30 billion. 

And none of it for Indonesia. 

But there is unregulated gambling of course. And that’s big business in Indonesia. In fact, trading on the Jakarta Stock Exchange dried up during the football World Cup finals in 2006, as punters preferred to bet on the football games instead. And things may be no different tonight. Chelsea at 2 to 1 to lift the cup? Sounds like good odds to me!

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