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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Sydney 2000

"Let's all meet up in the year 2000.
Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown?
Be there, two o'clock, by the fountain down the road.
I never knew that you'd get married.
I would be living down here on my own.
On that damp and lonely Thursday years ago." 
~ Pulp, Disco 2000

Usually we follow our dreams. “Look forward toward a brighter future and forget the past!” Or so goes the conventional wisdom! After all, what has already happened is now history and there is nothing we can do to change it. 

But while this is true, it doesn’t mean that we should never look back. Yes, of course, some of the things we revisit will surprise us. Other things may even shock and disgust us. Yet that is the price we must be willing to pay in order to roll back the years. 

And make no mistake: a visit to Sydney 2000 in Jakarta’s bustling Chinatown is a journey into the past. Back to the dying embers of the second millennia when Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympic Games and a time when Y2K paranoia reached fever pitch. The year in which Leeds United finished third in the premiershits and my team Wimbledon were relegated.

Sydney 2000

But that was then and this is now. And Sydney 2000, with the best years well behind her, is still, by some miracle, open for business! Looks can often be deceiving it is true, but in this particular case the venue’s thoroughly shabby and ramshackle appearance provide a good indication of what to expect: a dark, degenerate and very loud club where communication is next to impossible (unless, of course, your ESP skills are up to scratch). 

But some things are best left unsaid and judging by what goes on here - the furtive movements of hands into pockets and the spaced-out expressions on the sexy-looking girls who move like vipers in a liar, that is perhaps just as well.

Raw as sushi but dirty as Diana, a visit to Sydney 2000 really is a visit back in time. 2000? Prince, can you play that song just one more time?

Sydney 2000 
Jl Hayam Wuruk Pert Glodok Jaya Lt 9
Jakarta
Telp (021) 625 0686

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