Slank

When I have to move to Germany, I know I’ll miss some of my favorite things from Indonesia like the foods or some activities that I usually do. One of them is watching Slank concert. Slank is my favorite cult rock band from Indonesia. I sometime followed their tour to other cities in Indonesia. And for sure, I never thought that I could see them live in Germany!!!

It’s all started about 1.5-2 months ago. I got information that Slank is invited to have concerts in Holland for an annual Indonesia festival in May. After hearing this, I start to provoke Indonesian students in Bremen to arrange Slank concert in Germany. Fortunately, there’s one guy who commit to do it. (How’s that for a provocateur work?! Nice, isn’t it?!)

So there it is. Slank will have a concert in Hamburg Germany on May 30th 2008. Hamburg is chosen because it’s easier to access from other cities rather than Bremen. For watching the concert, I plan to go with Simon, my tandem partner in learning German language. He joined an exchange program to Indonesia, so he knows about Slank. And since the concert is in Hamburg and the last train to Bremen is on 11PM, so we have to spend a night there. (The concert starts at 10PM). So, Simon asks his friend there, Jan, to go along in order to be able to stay at his place. His friend agrees. So I buy 3 tickets for us.

But then, there’s another friend of Simon, Sonia, who also wants to come along. But the 300 tickets available are sold out already. So the chance for her to watch it, is not so promising. But we just go and see whether it’ll work or not.

Me and Simon start from Bremen at 18.28 by train. We arrive around 1 hour later and then go to Sonia’s place that happens to be near the venue. The venue is called ‘Indra Café’. In this place, The Beatles has performed for the first time and the place where Sonia lives is opposite to the place where The Beatles was lived.
Soon we start from her place. It’s only 3 minutes walk to the café place. There, we see many people queuing to go in. I ask my friend, who also organizes the concert, for additional ticket. She said that extra ticket will be decided later after all the audiences come in. If the capacity is not full, then they will sell more ticket but in higher price. The normal ticket is €15 while the extra will cost €17. Sonia agrees, so we just wait.

When we are waiting, then I see Massto, the brother of Slank drummer and also the band tour manager. Spontaneously, I come to him and greet him as we haven’t seen each other for a long time. After saying hi and a bit chit chat, I ask him for extra ticket. When he knows the problem, he advices me to give my ticket to Sonia, while I can go through backstage with him!!! Oh My God….!!! That’s soooo cool!!! So it pays to become a fan;)

So that’s it. Problem solved and I go to backstage. There, I am warmly welcomed by Bunda, the mother of the drummer who also the band manager, and the whole gang. I am so touched. It feels like I met my family. I feel surprised that Bimbim (drummer), Kaka (vocal), and Ivan (bassist) still remember me. These three are somehow the closest ones to me from the whole five members of the band.

After sometime, then Ivan wondering whether I can hold his handycam and record the show. At first, I am not so sure because I don’t think I could make a good video while jumping around and singing loudly during concert. But Ivan persuades me, so then I get an idea to give the task to Simon. Beside, he is tall so basically he can shoot the video without getting interrupted by people heads. And apparently, my decision is right. Simon is so proud to do his task. He even kinda showing off it to other audiences…! ;)

The show is opened by Sandy Sandhoro, an Indonesian guy who becomes a finalist of singing competition in one of the German TV stations. And in around 10PM, Slank takes over the stage! People are just screaming hysterically to welcome them. It’s so so insane!!!

I really enjoy the whole show because everybody is just sing along loudly, screaming, jumping, moshing. Non stop! It’s so crazy, everybody ends up in heavy sweating as the café is a closed air one. Later on, Kaka admits that the Hamburg concert is the most awesome one during their current European tour! And what I love the most is no fighting or even riot; and no harassment! That’s very important because in Indonesia, guys will take advantage in concert situation to touch girls. But here, no. Not at all. Once, I ask Jan to carry me on his shoulder in order to get a clear picture. When I try to climb him, there’s a guy who helped me without touching me in unnecessary places. It’s just awesome. I wonder when I could get the same attitude in Indonesia. These guys are also Indonesian but apparently they don’t go to the same concert as me.

After the concert, I go to backstage again to return Ivan’s handycam with Simon and Jan. Sonia goes home straight away as she wants to prepare the mattresses for me and Simon. I introduced Simon and Jan to the band. Ivan is so satisfied with Simon’s work. We hang out with the band until around 2AM. After some chats, Jan separates himself from us to go home while me and Simon go to Sonia’s. Simon can’t stop talking about the whole night, even in the next day he still talk about it. I guess he won’t stop it for the next 10 days…

I come back to Bremen in Saturday noon, feeling blessed. It’s a perfect weather, perfect band, perfect atmosphere, and perfect satisfaction. Slank rocks!

For videos, please visit http://www.youtube.com/user/seafoodgirl