Wednesday, November 5, 2008

SLANK CONCERT!

SLANK concert @ Columbus was awesome. It was a part of INDIGO - an annual celebration for Indonesian students in Columbus, OH. Ticket price was decent, $20 (or $25 at the door), you get plenty of Indonesian food, tons of drinks, a performance by Columbus band and of course, SLANK!



I was in charge of setting up the sound system. We rented our house and monitor equipment as well as some backline equipments. SLANK & crew brought their own guitar amp head - a Marshall JCM 2000 and their own Bass head - AMPEG. Bimbim is endorsed by PREMIER drum - but since we could not find a PREMIER kit locally, we compromised and use another brand - and instead of renting, we borrowed one - from ME! So YES, it was my drum kit that was used during the concert by SLANK! One of their guitarist, Ridho could not make it - somehow he could not get a visa by US embassy.

Between 1pm until 4pm, there was a lot going on. The food came in and there were several people arranging them, putting them into boxes, putting all the drinks in cooler to chill, etc. We prepared around 400 boxes of Indonesian meal - that is a lot of boxing! Our food is sponsored by an Indonesian restaurant in Columbus called TASTE OF BALI. They are located @ Carriage Place on Bethel Rd, next to the dollar theater. I tasted the food - it was awesome!

Preparing ourfood:


We picked up our drum kit from my house around 10am and went straight to SLANK's hotel. We met with SLANK's crews - Dado & Wahyu as well as Sonny - their sound engineer. We arrived at the concert hall @ Ohio Expo Center - Rhodes Hall by 11am and the FoH & monitor equipments are already arriving and being setup by our rental company. SLANK at this point stayed behind @ hotel and they were going to meet several friends in the soccer tournament.

We proceeded in setting up our equipment and by noon-ish, we are all set. We went to lunch, stopped by a guitar shop to get several guitar stands, and went back to the concert hall to do sound check. After an hour or so sound check - we are ready to ROCK!!!

SLANK's crews:


At 4pm-ish, our opening band showed up for sound check. They are doing 4 songs. SLANK was kind enough to let the opening band borrowed their equipment (guitar head & bass head & snare drum). These guy never sounded that good before - primarily because of the quality of the sound system equipment and the sound engineer we hired.

All of our crews are on location right now, arranging furniture, preparing tickets, finalizing food preps, etc. The door opens @ 5:30pm and opening band to get on the stage @ 7pm.

Our MCs - Bebe & Aree:


Openning band - Columbus band:


SLANK in the waiting room:


Jon & Helen:


After the concert, SLANK's crews and I cleaned up the stage, as well as the backline and FoH & monitor rental crews. SLANK was in their waiting room with fans taking pictures, singing autograph, etc. At around 10:30pm, everything was done, and we drove back to SLANK's hotel. I helped SLANK's crews packed their equipments for their next flight to NY. Sonny gave me a used snare and I got SLANK's autographs on it. We went to Raising Cane's for late late supper, had a great talk with Ivan outside, and rolled home @ around midnight.

Long live SLANK & SLANKERS!

1 comment:

Helen Santoso said...

don't forget, you got a free CD also :)