The Rainforest World Music Festival is one event Kuching folks always look forward to.
Every year, thousands of music lovers from all over Malaysia as well as other parts of the world fly in to our normally quiet little town of Kuching to celebrate good music and turn the place upside down.
The festival has grown extremely popular over the years, attracting attention from both local and international media, to a phenomenal scale that even local residents here are surprised at.
I always like the Rainforest World Music Festival.
This ain’t your typical run-of-the-mill rock concert. One of the most interesting aspects of the music fest is that the performers always bring along strange and peculiar musical instruments from their countries that no one here has ever seen, and along with that music that sounds totally different.
We’re talking about drums that look like handbags.
Guitars that look like coffins.
And pipes that look like they are made out from the TV antenna at my house.
The festival is also the only time throughout the entire year that I can play host to my friends from KL.
Angelina Jolie’s half-sister from KL, Christy Jolie-Yeoh.
Instead of always asking them to layan me whenever I’m in KL, this one of the rare times I can repay my favours and show them the best Kuching has got to offer.
Charmayne the chipmunk had too much sio bee to eat.
My experience with the Rainforest World Music Festival this year is different from the previous two years that I attended.
After finding out that my coverage of the festival for the past two years on kennysia.com has got quite a bit of attention (my blog entries was only second on Google after their official website), I e-mailed the organisers asking if they could put me on their media list.
I wasn’t putting in much hope since kennysia.com isn’t exactly a “real” publication like a newspaper or magazine anyway, but I figured it was worth a try. Hey, after all they did put through some obscure publications with a circulation so small no one has even seen it in newstands.
Behold, the power of blogs!
Surprisingly, not only did the chief of the Sarawak Tourism Board herself granted me media access to the festival, she hinted also that she might wanna further collaborate with me in the near future. How cool is that?
Holy crap, I always wanted to take that political-minister-hitting-on-the-all-important-gong photo and put it as front page headline news, like how newspapers here always do.
So this is the first time I attended the Rainforest World Music Festival not just as an audience, but as part of the media.
I must say, we get treated pretty well as the media. Among other perks, not only are we given free access to all three days of the festival, we are also allowed up close and personal to the stage so we could take really good photos.
Not that close, Joyce
Here are my Top 6 Moments of the Rainforest World Music Festival.
#6. Meeting Channel [V] VJ Marion Caunter
18 months after I spoofed her Osim uZap ad, I finally get to ask her if she’s upset by it.
Her reply: “No way, I thought it was damn hilarious!”
Thanks Marion. I can finally sleep well at night.
#5. The Black Umfolsi
What’s there not to like about these guys?
All the way from Zimbabwe, this band is what African music is all about. Just look at the amount of fur they wear on stage.
“I can see things sideways”
I don’t know what those white-coloured furry things they wore on their arms and legs are, but I think they might be African Polar Bears.
Here’s a video of them teaching the crowd how to do African Aerobics.
So delightful, so catchy, so happifying. The Black Umfolsi band is like the African-version of Mika.
#4. The Throat-Singers From Tuva, Russia
These guys here look like your typical granddad on a rocking chair, but as soon as they open their mouth they can easily blow your panties off big time.
I sing like that too when I was trying to take a crap
“Throat-Singing” is an art originating from the Russian-Mongolia border.
They sound a bit like what would happen when Darth Vader did karaoke in Mongolian. But when the guys from Huun Huur Tu paired it with their traditional instruments and a DJ spinning in a background, the result was absolutely mind-blowing.
The crowd loves these guys.
Who would’ve thought a couple of oldies have the ability rock the thousands of revellers hot on the dance floor?
#3. Hot Bodies At The Rainforest Fest
For the guys, there are sizzling hot babes.
Babes.
Babes.
Babes.
Babes.
The girls there ain’t missing out either. There were plenty of eye candy for their viewing pleasure.
In fact there were so many sweaty smelly half-naked guys at the festival, it was almost like the movie 300.
King Leonidas wants to PARTAYYYY.
#2 Nicole Tan’s Antics
Nicole was really drama throughout the entire three days of the event.
On the first night of the festival, she met and had this HUGE crush on the violinist of the Scottish band Shooglenifty.
Honestly, I don’t know what is so special about grandpa.
What does he have that I don’t?
I mean, he looked like some homeless guy I would rescue from the streets.
Nicole Tan’s boyfriend. Got a dollah?
On the third night of the festival, we encountered a vendor selling glowsticks.
I bought two each for ourselves. But that girl became so fascinated by those glowsticks she disappeared from our group. We couldn’t even reach her on the phone.
Then some half an hour later, Nicole finally returned to us.
With her whole body all covered in those darn glowsticks.
Apparently, she got bored from all the musical performances on stage she decided to help the glowstick vendor sell his wares.
With a hot chick assisting him, that lucky bugger sold out all his glowsticks in half an hour.
Before long, Shooglenifty appeared on stage again.
Our part-time-glow-stick seller screamed so loud, Grandpa must’ve pissed in his pants.
#1 The Hottest Band From The Festival
Without a doubt, the number one hottest band from the festival goes to our very own Aseana Percussion Unit.
Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, this colourful band specialises in drums. They’ll hit on anything and everything, including their fellow band member’s head.
One of the most popular member of the band was this dreadlocked Chinese guy Justin Lim.
The ladies in the crowd absolutely love him. And the bugger knows it!
It was like, he beat the drum just once, the ladies all gasped in ecstacy.
Every time he beat the drum, their panties dropped a little bit. The faster he beat, the further their panties drop.
By the time he’s finished his super-ultra-mega-fast drum solo, he would’ve left the ladies all sweaty and breathless and pregnant with his baby.
The Aseana Percussion Unit is simply amazing lah.
These guys are so passionate about music, they don’t just play their drums.
They freaking EAT them.
Blog Plug of the Day: OverheardInMalaysia.com, for your dose of absurd but stupidly hilarious quotes heard around Malaysia, for Malaysians, by some really crazy Malaysians.