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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Fuzzy Wuzzy origins

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he? 

A very memorable line of children’s nursery rhyme verse, but years later, having taught it to my daughter, it’s occurred to me that I don’t even realize what it means! Not only that but what are its origins? And could it even be racist? Well after a cursory check on the net it looks like my concerns appear to be justified! 

Because the origin of the verse can be traced back to the 19th century when British colonial soldiers used it to describe members of an East African nomadic tribe called the Hadendoa. The term caught on and was later used to denote tribal peoples in places like Papua New Guinea and Australia. 
 
Legendary British poet Rudyard Kipling – who wrote The Jungle Book in 1894 – even penned a short poem called 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' in 1918, paying tribute to the fighting abilities of this gutsy African tribe: 

We've fought with many men acrost the seas, An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not: The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot. 

Yep, the British soldiers must have been shocked by the flamboyant and unusual appearance of the “fuzzy Wuzzy” warriors. 

But then again, did they ever think to consider what the “Fuzzy Wuzzy” thought of THEM?

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