Maliq and D'Essentials

This band has been touted as the next big thing in Indonesia music scene. The first time I heard about these guys was in Java Jazz Festival (ohh... my wet dream), I was going to come in and watch them but it was really overcrowded and I only kind of listen their music from the outside, I thought they were playing some BNH tune and it was solid. I didn't stay for very long up there coz you know there's a lot of great foreign acts going on in the other room (it was Jeff Lorber if im not mistaken) and I thought I can check this band out later when they play at some cafe or something.

They actually don't have a fixed place where they play every week now, they used to play in Four Seasons Hotel once a week, but I called the Hotel up and they told me they now have Idang Rasyidi instead, talking about changing the segment big time huh :P. Heard that they were going to play at NYC but I couldnt gather the DAU gang to go up there, so it didnt work out. Heard from MS that they're goin to play in FKG UI's event in Newscafe Kemang. The timing is very good for me too, sunday night. I wouldn't have a problem arranging my schedule and stuff and it should not be too hard to ask people like DY, MT, LL, IN out. Well I forgot to invite DY and AD. I ended up going with my sis and IN. IP and MS was going to come to but decided not too because of fatigue....ahhhhhh MS gimaneee si lu, yg ngasi tau mala ga pegi :P

After getting lost around Buncit finding IN's place because of his freakin' "endeavour". We arrived at the venue at 10:30 PM. There's a lot of other events goin on but we didn't really care too much about those. I don't really know Maliq's tune from their debut album. I've heard of the tracks but some of them are kind of forgettable and sounds identical at times, my personal favorite is "Blow My Mind" due to its nice acid jazz arrangement and the great potential to be played in a live venue.

Maliq themselves get started at around 10:45 PM with an english language tunes with a nice smell of acid jazz going on...whoa...the guitarist got a chance to scat a bit in this tune too, not too bad, he's no Al Jarreau but it's still pretty good indeed. After another good acid jazz tunes, they started to play the tunes from their debut album, the crowd is getting excited, not me the music snob though :D. Angga the vocalist seemed to be pretty good in getting the crowd involved as he brought 2 girls at separate times onstage to dance and sing a bit to the tunes they're playing. It's pretty funny when the girl was asked to sing, she didn't remember the lyrics... ahhaha... gimanaaa se lo ngaku2nya fans Maliq :P. In the midst of a bunch of R&B tunes, they played my fave tune "Blow My Mind", and it's even better than the studio version, they seemed to use different female vocalist, this one's very good. It's always a turn on for me, a girl who has a great voice....dang (reminiscing the days when I was hitting on the "singer" ;)).

After "Blow My Mind" and another tune , they played their first single "Terdiam", and of course the moderately full crowd was fired up. Angga didn't need to sing, he was too lazy to sing :D :D, so he decided to ask the crowd to sing this one.....no problemo. After playing their second single, they finished up with "September", one of the ultimate cafe song I guess....I wonder if I have done anything essential at the 21st night of September ehheheheh.

Overall, Maliq n D'Essentials is a great cafe band and deserve to have an album. The sound and acoustic in Newscafe unfortunately was not that great. There's seemed to be something wrong with the mic as it was a little sember. The keyboard was also a bit drowned by the sound of bass and guitar...the bassist was pretty good too, and cool just like how a bassist suppose to act...The guitarist has a good voice too, and has a very kental sound of acid jazz. The female vocalist deserve her own kudos too...she can sing by herself if she want it to. I would watch them again in a heartbeat, especially if they play in a jazz event (as they would play more jazzy stuff), and for 35k rups it's well worth the money ($3.50 for a good quality live music!).

LISTENING TO: Maliq and D'Essentials - Blow My Mind