Enjoying a Reggae Concert at a Charity Case Event

By Vikra Alizanovic

Just last Saturday night, me and family decided to go out to town. There was an event happening in the Proclamation Statue Park, in central Jakarta. The event consist of sundanese traditional act, called ‘Calung Sunda’, which commence at 19.00 o’clock, and we have almost no interest in watching at all. I think, almost all of the people who came there only come to watch the show after the Calung. There’s a reggae concert, by Tony Q. Rastafara, who is quite well-known around the rastaman(it’s what they call people who enjoys reggae music, and commonly, rastaman are peoples who are oppressed and in a poor community). Tony Q’s songs are usually always talks about human rights, love, freedom, peace, etc. That is why he would be invited to such event.
When we arrived there, the Calung is still commencing. We take the time to look around at the conventional stands. At the first stand there was a miniature statue of the victims of ‘Lumpur Lapindo’ made from the actual mud from ‘Lumpur Lapindo’. Sadly, it wasn’t for sale, because it was poisonous.
The second stand was called the Green House. Next to it, it sells productive plants, or eatable plants, like pepper, cabbage, cucumber, etc. Inside, it sells a lot of spices from all over Indonesia. It also sells drinks made from a spices called ‘secang’ and ginger. It tastes almost like ginger ale, only, they didn’t add sugars to it. The taste was a little bit spicy, sweet, and warming.
Finally at 20.30 ‘clock, the real show starts. At first, they didn’t bring out Tony Q just yet. First, they bring out this guy called ‘Mbah Surip Van Der Saar’. Probably just a nickname. He sings all this funny songs spontaneously. He is covering for Tony Q while Tony is tuning his guitar backstage.
Then, after waiting for a while, Tony Q is finally out. Most of the crowds were standing up and most of them stand right in front of the stage and dance. We stayed back, because it might get dangerous. We just dance slowly in the back,but we really enjoyed it. The songs were after all really nice. It really spoke. I really enjoyed it. We all enjoyed it, except for my sister. While a live concert is going on, she just sat there and play a game on her phone. She’s the only one that’s really bummed out. I hate for bein’ like that.
We stayed for only a couple of songs, then we head out. We go look for dinner. We go to Blok M, and have dinner at Grilled Chicken Ganthari. It was really lively. It was a great night.