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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The Eiffel Tower was built in Indonesia too!

Truth is stranger than fiction ~ Mark Twain

Well I’ll be damned: a bamboo replica of the Eiffel Tower!


Eiffel Tower in Indonesia

Whilst not quite as grand as Central Java’s world famous religious temples Borobudur or Prambanan, this Indonesian version of the Eiffel Tower is still very impressive in my opinion and, reaching an impressive height of 40-50 feet, must have taken quite an effort to construct. As was so often the way in the old colonial days, the tower was built in honor of someone: in this particular case for the coronation of Princess Wilhelmina who took the throne of the Netherlands at the spritely young age of 10 in 1898.

So where was the tower built? In Tasikmalaya of all places – a pretty much nondescript town in West Java not known for too much really except its large number of pesantren (Islamic religious schools) and umbrella making industry.

Quite what the locals made of it is anyone’s guess of course (bamboo isn't as durable as iron!), but I’m sure if they had smartphones at the time they would have been lining up to take the ubiquitous selfie!

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