The Battles @ kL

The Battles gig happened last thursday (19/03/09) at Orange, KL! The turn out was far better than expected for indie event team, SoundScape. All credits to SoundScape for bringing previous post-rock/math-rock bands like Toe, Mono and Mogwai to the usually mainstream pop-oriented concerts we get here in the cunt of Asia.

Opening the night at around 9pm was local act Killeur Calculateur (another case of dyslexia common to Malaysian rock outfits). I was looking forward to see this band again because they were great fun to watch in previous (smaller) gigs. I personally appreciate their energry and their esteem sense of presentation. This energy-driven quartet lashed out styles reminiscent of Fugazi, At-the-Drive-In, and other Action-Rock/Neo-Punk bands. A single distinction that separates this band from their American-UK counterparts is that our homeboys are still learning to piece together the parts and riffs they've learned from their musical predecessors. Each song seem to be simply made up of two to three short parts, mostly done in the same beat/count, added with the singular tone of the vocals resulted into a drooning 45-min set.

To makes matters worse, the event team decided to hire a deaf sound man for the night. Another common problem of gigs in Malaysia is the audio setup for live bands. Partly due to dance era of yesteryear, most venues/clubs here have sound systems only adequate for DJ sets. Lots of good performance failed simply because of the audio set-up provided at the venue (e.g Architecture in Helsinki @ Zouk, KL). And The Battles that night will be another classic example. I wonder how many of these bands brought their own sound systems+audio engineer?

The Battles: sucked. boring and monotonous. and the price was Rm108! i am not complaining of the price, because it Is difficult to bring bands like these that aren't heavily funded by major beer/cigarette companies. But is it not possible to at least provide a decent sound system for a live-act? And don't tell me that I was not standing in the right place, its an small enclosed area, how weak are your amps?! For a band that emphasizes on sound texture and quality, the set-up sounded as though it was more for Dj-team Twilight Action Girl, who played in between the two live-sets. The band did look like they did gave it their best. John Stanier sure loooks older from The Helmet days. All dressed up in khaki bermudas and a buttoned up polo-tee, he looked like he's ready to hit the Beach Club after the gig.

And Rm20 for a bottle of Tiger beer!?! These venues should be making the same amount on drinks and rental!

-TakBernama-