What Went Down: Future Music Festival Asia ’13 @ Sepang International Circuit

What Went Down: Future Music Festival Asia ’13 @ Sepang International Circuit from JUICE Magazine on Vimeo.

JUICE knew Future Music Festival Asia could only improve upon their first attempt last year. Sure enough, what Livescape Asia and collaborators achieved with this year’s edition was a prime exemplar of organisers who learnt from past misgivings and made them right. Better still, the improvement wasn’t just from the organisation side of it – FMFA ’13 proved that Malaysians finally had the fortitude to endure a large-scale event that spanned 2 days. Psychic high five to everyone who attended both days! Best, approximately 60,000+ people – locally, regionally, and internationally – attended the festival over the period of 2 days. The future of music festival in Asia is indeed now.

Then there were a bunch of things that were obvious from the onset; 1) FMFA ‘13’s layout was a major overhaul, no longer do you need to traverse long distances in between the lower and upper stages, the wooden path going uphill made traipsing festival grounds easier and shorter in length. 2) All stages had fair amount of audience members, not one act had to endure a nonexistent crowd. 3) With a more manageable number of acts, FMFA ’13 made the right choice of not trying to fit in too many regional and local acts for the sake of representation, only the best were chosen. 4) They adapted to our (the locals) internal clock and our weather by opening their doors only at 4pm in lieu of the fest standard that is 12pm (or earlier), which is when the heat is at its sunburning peak.

On a less obvious level, FMFA attracted the right crowd. Local acts Kyoto Protocol had a real audience who was reactive to Fuad’s banter despite being the first band to perform on the 2nd day. Punters looked their festival best, decked in headgears and weather appropriate attire… well except for that leather-clad gang who looked like they escaped an early ‘90s depiction of the ‘00s. Then there was that intangible feeling that everyone was there to have fun, people were a hell lot more into the show this time around.