Efek Rumah Kaca at Ngompol EX

Lets talk about music concert. Lots of one ive been going to.

The best ones i can recall is Deftones live in Kuala Lumpur 2010, i was moshing my ass out inside the unfinished club building full with angry-sweaty metalheads. For 200 plus ringgit concert, sound quality was awful and the venue is just not right.  This was obvious when the opening band performed . But when Deftones starts reving the guitar, crowd were going mental . All in my head was “Fuck, its Engine number fucking 9, imma throw my body in the moshpit”. Sound quality? what sound quality ?

Great concert works like that, the band will screw with your state of mind and bring the songs emotion out of you. I was perfectly happy in the concert but i just couldnt help the urge to punch somebody in the face when Deftones performed. Yesterday, i had the same experience. Not with Deftones, but with Efek Rumah Kaca (ERK). Not anger but the helpless gloom and infinite sadness chilling to my spine.

ERK was performing in Ngompol (Ngomoming Politik) at EX, a political awareness events founded and hosted by Pandji Pragiwaksono and friends.

If you know tv show Provocative Proactive in MetroTV, its kinda like that but offline. After the show was cancelled, Pandji took the movement of political education to the youth out of the tube and straight into the mall. Consisting of talk show, stand up comedy and music performance, ngompol held monthly at EX Plaza Thamrin. As a regular atendees, i couldnt recommend you more. Entertaining, funny and you go home with something to think about.

Lets get back to ERK. I can say right now in Indonesia, there no one quite like them. They sound just like Radiohead, with falsetto vocals and howling guitar sounds. But thats not the real quality of ERK, its the lyric and the message which sets them apart. Missing activist , tribute to Munir and social critics of urbanization are several themes of ERK songs.

Yesterday, ERK calmly starts the performance with Banyak Asap Disana.  A social critics about mass urbanization. Enough with the warm up, the band really sets the tones of the show when Di Udara comes into  play. Check the snippet of the lyric :

Aku bisa tenggelam di lautan – I can get drowned in the oceans
Aku bisa diracun di udara – I can get poisoned in the air
Aku bisa ditembak, di trotoar jalan – i can get shot on the side of the streets

Tapi aku tak pernah mati, tak akan berhenti –  But i will never die, i will never stop

Chills down my spine, a mysterious gloom just slips from the speaker into my brain. ERK jinx the audience into bitterly and sadness. Its so strange because i was in the mall, Starbucks and XXI was around me. Its just not the place to be sad, but ERK just threw the audience into another place.

Its just getting better when they do Hilang, a song about kidnapped Indonesian activist circa 1997-1998. The falsetto and guitar sound intertwined with the name saying of the activist along with the missing date its just pure heart slicing.

By the end of the show, i am a fans. They brought their lyrics to come alive and haunt the audience, cant help it. When i arrive home i had to take my dose of Big Bang theory just to feel slight happiness again, fuck yes i was sad.

Heres the video of Hilang below, check it out.

Efek Rumah Kaca, thats some Indonesian music i can be proud of. You should all too.