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

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  in Reports
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Future Music Festival Asia 2013 (Day 2)
It’s harder to summarise the entirety of the second day when it spanned 4 stages, JUICE, as it turned out, wasn’t as omnipresent as we’d like to believe. So here’s a microcosm of what went down as viewed through one writer’s attempt at experiencing all the stages – sans Red Bull Hangar, because we were silly enough to miss it on festival grounds.

Arriving after 4pm, we wandered FMFA’s empty grounds and observed the aftermath of the night before. Asahi cans were still strewn everywhere, reminding us of the insanity that was ASOT600. As festival goers began to come in droves, we chose to plant our feet near the Flamingo stage in anticipation of the first band to begin the festival; Kyoto Protocol. You’d be wrong if you thought that people were there because they were waiting for The Temper Trap, based on the crowd’s reaction and our own, Kyoto kicked some serious a$s!

Playing their expected favourites, Fuad called up 2 cat ladies on stage during ‘Pussycat’. Gimmicky, but nevertheless a gimmick that we’d like to see more (we are easy to please). He also demanded that we play with the band’s balls before launching disappointingly non-testicular beach balls to the audience, delighting everyone who ever had fantasies of smacking Fuad’s balls. The band closed their set with their new single ‘KL, I Love You’.

We moved on to the Gnome stage to catch hip hop legends De La Soul, which transported us to the daisy age. Punters, mostly tourists who looked appropriately hippie in lieu of hipster, were grooving to De La’s medley of tracks off their 2 classic albums 3 Feet High & Rising and De La Soul is Dead. Now, De La ain’t one of those bands who were currently regulated to just performing their old hits to an older crowd, these guys had been consistent. Performing ‘Rock Co.Kane Flow’ off their ‘00s release The Grind Date twice, we were reminded that unlike Naughty by Nature, De La had always had a consistent relevance in the game.

As we descended downhill to the Warrior’s Dance Arena, Arabyrd and H3 were busy getting the people there hyped. They worked the crowd like it was a capacity audience, regardless of the amount of bass heads there. Taking our time to play concert anthropologist, we saw a decidedly different sort of crowd than the night before. With most dressed in print shirts, pocket tees, ironic statement t-shirts, and Native American headgears, they were more likely to hang out at Publika than an illegal house party in Duta Vista, which was the perfect crowd for a band like The Temper Trap.

Disclaimer; we caught The Temper Trap at the inaugural Laneway Festival in Singapore, that lowered our expectations somewhat. But lo and behold, the band improved their live performance tremendously as they delivered some of the best moments of FMFA ’13. And despite how certain bands refuse to play fan favourites due to fear of being defined by them, The Temper Trap ended their set with a memorable rendition of ‘Sweet Disposition’ to the delight of many.

Choosing to stick with Flamingo, we stayed for Rita Ora’s performance for some good ol’ partying and bullsh!tting. Being a huge fan of Biggie, Rita paid tribute to big poppa by playing a medley of some of his biggest tunes. At one point she asked the crowd if they knew him, to which we suspected the crowd lied, because they didn’t seem to know Biggie Smalls (the cheers weren’t loud enough we thought). Nevertheless, that didn’t stop them from enjoying the set. As we got ourselves lost in the mass of people, we caught up with our homies from The-Wknd and ended up backstage and the media pit during PSY’s performance. There never was a better view of thousands of punters riding imaginary horses to ‘Gangnam Style’. Speaking of which, sad news for meme loyalists, the rotund Korean star announced that Malaysia was the last time he’d perform the song.

Feeling like we were missing out on other performances, we left Flamingo for one of the smaller installations; LapSap’s Pool Party. +2dB played their sombre set just in time for us to check the place out. With almost no one jumping into the dumpster pool, we felt like it was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Little did we know that during this time, Naughty by Nature was already at the Gnome stage pumping the crowd full of hip hop heads. Thankfully they were loud enough during ‘Hip Hop Hooray’ to catch our attention.

fun. had the loudest sing along sesh during ‘We Are Young’, and just as JUICE predicted, listeners will never get bored of the song especially in such a setting. By this time Feed Me was on the deck at the Warrior’s Dance Arena (unfortunately sans Teeth), giving a surprisingly bro set. Kill the Noise took over and lessened the brostep by a few notches. We decided we had enough bros by then though and went back to Flamingo for They Will Kill Us All. Opening for Bloc Party, TWKUA suffered from a few technical difficulties. Yet we can’t help but be unaffected by the sound as we sung along to all the tracks off their debut; ‘Great Glass City’ and ‘Sirens’ were particularly made for a festival setting. Edwin took the opportunity to dedicate ‘Sons of the Fearless’ to Malaysia’s fallen heroes in Lahad Datu.

Choosing to end the night with a bang, we headed straight back to the Warrior’s Dance Arena for The Prodigy. Performing the entirety of their oeuvre of hits live (from ‘Breathe’ to ‘Firestarter’), guitar, drums, MPCs, and all, the band showed that a dance group could incite a mosh pit bigger than any hardcore band ever wished. To quote a friend of JUICE, Keith Flint was the Mick Jagger of breakbeats, and to be hyperbolic ourselves, Maxim Reality was the Barney Greenway of big beats.

Remembering Bloc Party was playing at the same time, we rushed to Flamingo just in time for ‘Helicopter’. As the laser lights pierced the night, Kele sung the last line of the track “… it’s not enough,” we can’t help but relate to that sentiment. The future was then, but we wanted it to last forever. Good one Livescape Asia and Future Entertainment.

A State of Trance 600: The Expedition World Tour & Future Music Festival Asia ’13 went down on 15 and 16 March ’13 respectively. It was the best festival experience we had locally.