Future perfect tense
After the maiden Future Music Festival Asia, big can only get better.
SOMETIMES, it’s the rolling start that matters. Not fireworks, followed by a fizzle-out. That was necessarily the case with the inaugural Future Music Festival Asia, which made an impressive statement by attracting nearly 20,000 music fans to the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday.
“It’s a long-term venture. We will be with Kuala Lumpur for five years. We’re going to start it carefully and build the festival organically, like we’ve done in Australia,” Brett Robinson, Future Entertainment director, was quoted as saying in an interview with Australian music industry website The Music Network earlier this month.
The long-term venture in question is the Future Music Festival Asia (FMFA), which picked Kuala Lumpur as its sole Asian stop outside the festival’s five-city Australian dates.
The dance music event, which made its debut in Sydney in 2006, now ranks as one of the major Australian music festival destinations. If anything, it was a bold step to bring the FMFA to Kuala Lumpur, which hasn’t exactly been the hotbed for outdoor music festivals in this region.
Despite the endorsement of Tourism Malaysia, it was wise for the Australian-based festival organisers to temper expectations here – making sure the FMFA had a credible e introduction with a line-up of 22 international acts and a sizeable contingent of regional and homegrown names thrown into the hat.
Even if the festival’s Australian headliners s (New Order, Swedish House Mafia, Paul van n Dyk, Fatboy Slim, Skrillex, Aphex Twin) were re not on the plane to Kuala Lumpur, there was s more than enough in the line-up to generate e a buzz in the region with FMFA’S debut.
Obviously, you definitely needed good music on stage and a healthy crowd vibe to overcome the “international festival” pricing when it came to beverages (a can of beer r at RM15, mineral water at RM5) and food (Sarawak laksa at RM15). A small price to pay ay for a big day of partying, perhaps?
Outside the music spread, there was loads of aimless wandering fun on the festival checklist with food tents, a bazaar strip, a giant inflatable flamingo, a Ferris wheel, street art (a BMW Mini spray-painted by local artist Shika) and cardboard loungers in the equation. Not to mention the joy of adequate portable toilets. Yes, the partying was set to commence.
For the festival-starved masses here, the FMFA fold-out programme last Saturday didn’t look all too bad – a deejay set by British electronica duo The Chemical Brothers to prop up the night was a result, while mainstream rapper Flo Rida, hip hop legend Grandmaster Flash, indie outfit The Wombats, to British urban music favourites Tinie Tempah and Chase & Status were precisely the sort of acts to attract a crossover crowd.
Under the scorching heat in Sepang stood three stages and a giant headlining tent (Flamingo, Las Venus, Gnome and the Future Music tent) awaiting the masses for a 12-hour music marathon. The scale of the festival was manageable with the right distance between performing spaces. Not too far, not too near. However, there were still no trees for shade and the oppressive weather was one of the key reasons for a thin crowd when FMFA kicked off at 2.30pm on Saturday.
The Sepang International Circuit can look spectacular and special at night (with the nearby airport runway lights and planes flying overhead) but in the daytime heat, it is nothing short of hard work to map out the venue and pick out your favourite stages.
Early-bird acts like Kyoto Protocol, Free Deserters, They Will Kill Us All, Mini Compo, Budculture and Bittersweet were just some of the homegrown highlights given the unenviable task of dripping buckets to bring the festival to life. Rappers Joe Flizzow and Sonaone were also in fine form, delivering a feisty rock-based set with two deejays and a fourpiece band behind them.
Despite spirited sets at various stages, they could all have done with a little more home support.
Malaysians will always be late-comers to any party. That adage remained true at FMFA.
Party plan
On paper, the FMFA was loaded with electronic-minded acts, deejays, retro disco acts, electro pop darlings, dubstep delights and the odd indie treat.
However, the first big puller at the festival belonged to rapper Flo Rida, who brought on the radio hits and made the masses pay attention to his every move on stage. The man had true stage presence and the biceps to rock the gym-toned look. As an exclusive addition to the FMFA line-up, Flo Rida, who flew in from Los Angeles, was an obliging entertainer as he teased and thrilled the ladies during his “teadance” shift at 5.15pm at the main tent.
Of course, Flo Rida wasn’t the main reason why FMFA was such a hyped-up event. It was the niche acts on the bill that got the region’s trendiest in a tizzy. The Flamingo stage, which many regarded as a connoisseur’s stage, was an interesting place to be seen at FMFA.
The audience, despite the modest numbers, looked like committed music fans who came with a mission to catch their favourite obscure dance act or the festival’s sole Rock and Roll Hall of Famer – Grandmaster Flash turning in a memorable shift.
The 54-year-old Grandmaster Flash needed no introduction. His vintage turntable days are long gone with a laptop and vinyl software now being an integral part of his set. But Grandmaster, to his credit, knew how to rock the mic as he got the masses locked in an old school groove.
“So much music, so little time!” he said on stage as he ran through a rush hour set filled with classics from KRS One, Run DMC, Jackson 5 and Nirvana.
In contrast to Grandmaster Flash’s showmanship was New York-based Holy Ghost! The sullen faced duo from Holy Ghost! - Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser – put on a deejay set that reflected a moodier facade of 1980s electronic music and kept the chin-stroking crowd on their feet.
Later, on the same stage, came the flamboyant Toronto, Canada-based retro house act Azari & III, which provided some uplifting moments at FMFA. The group’s two male vocalists Fritz Helder and Cedric, both barechested by the end of the set, were a dynamic combination with their dance moves and soulful grooves dropped from the heavens by the Grace Jones mothership.
Classic house was also central to Hercules & Love Affairs’ set, with the group hitting its stride with new material. Unfortunately, it had to cut its set short with one of its members taking ill on stage.
As with most festivals that matter, it was a blur of music once the business end of the festival arrived. Time seemed to head into overdrive after the FMFA’S short dinner break with the Sneaky Sound System duo – Connie Mitchell and Black Angus – in electrifying form. Just how the groovy Mitchell could work her dance steps for an hour with those orange stilettoes remains a trade secret.
The 3,000-strong crowd at the Las Venus stage were all out for this beloved Australian electro pop duo. But take nothing away from the fast and frantic Chase & Status (complete with rhymes and overhead cymbals), the impossibly hip local duo Blink & Goldfish (who held their own on the big stage) and the unsung indie heroics of The Wombats that swung a 12-song, 60-minute set at 1am – possibly the latest anybody here has watched a live band on stage in recent memory! Right from the hits Techno Fan to Let’s Dance To Joy Division and beyond, The Wombats hit home with its melodic charm and inspired ironies.
The night, obviously, belonged to the Chemical Brothers, which was on its first visit to Kuala Lumpur. Never mind that it was only a deejay set by Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands, the lasting memories of the first FMFA will be the 10,000 people jammed into the headlining tent.
The music might have been dark and viscerally unsettling, at times bordering on trippy acid house and the outer edges of psychedelia, but the Chemicals maintained a solid assault on the senses.
It was the sound of a duo exploring far-out sonic topographies – a full two-and-a-half hour blast.
Now we know what “In Space Everyone Can Hear You Party” meant in the FMFA programme booklet.