Festival Diary is a series of diary entries dedicated to local music festivals and the personal recollections they evoke. This is the first entry of the series.

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12:56 pm

This Grab driver has been on the phone with his family the whole journey. In my head, there’s not even a tweak of excitement for the festival. But this is the usual stuff, I don’t get excited unless there’s a reason to be. I may have a checklist of bands I’d like to see but I know Bayangan is on the top. Am I a huge fan? No. Did I once scour through several record stores in Klang Valley in a single day just to find “Kelana” CD? Yes. My entire existence at this festival is owed to Bayangan. Imagine hearing Cagaran Mimpi live. The galloping rhythm throughout Kuala Lumpur. The majestic ending of Kebiasaan that I religiously listened to when I went through a painful friendship breakup in December. The entire Pahit Manis but especially to surrender the longing to hear these two words live: konfeti rasa.

I think of the review written by M. Hilmi, an Indonesian journalist about how the two words successfully accomplished something that many songwriters struggle to achieve; the ability to capture colossal emotions with simplicity:

Masih di lagu yang sama, kita juga diajak untuk menemukan sisi lain dari bahasa yang sebelumnya belum pernah kita lihat. Dan itu ada pada penggunaan frasa “konfeti rasa” yang mind blowing, membuat kita ragu, jangan-jangan selama ini kita agak kelewat congkak untuk berpikir bahwa Indonesia adalah pengguna Bahasa Melayu yang paling paripurna. Sedangkan banyak di antara musisi kita suka kelewat rumit untuk bercerita. Banyak di antara mereka harus membuka tesaurus supaya terdengar paling sastrawi, padahal justru membuat kalimat-kalimat omong kosong tak masuk akal dalam liriknya.

– Nasionalisme yang Memicu Stagnasi Skena Musik Kita, dan Ulasan Mars Kominfo by M. Hilmi

The radio is playing but I can’t hear anything. Each excitement that courses through my body awaits to be released, prompting me to safeguard them within the confines of the car’s back seat, whose driver just seems to can’t put the phone down while driving.

1:12 PM

We’re here at KLPAC. I look at the rundown. My eyes read from left to right like I’m reading a complicated billboard, as if I wasn’t already aware of which bands I wanted to see. They have signs made out of foamboard (?) for directions, and the sign for “Crate Digging Market” is broken. I look for the broken piece, it’s on the floor.

1:30 PM, sitting on the hot, concrete bench

In my hand, there is a rib steak sandwich that costs me RM18. The sun is breathing on my head, a poor tortoise swims alone. I still aggressively pronounce tortoise as “tor-toys” as if I’m still four years old, learning the word for the first time.

“You datang nak tengok siapa?” A girl at the Brotani booth asked when I passed the cash into her hands.

“Bayangan,” I said. She asked what time Bayangan plays and confidently I answered, “Oh, dia main pukul 4 macam tu.”

When I sat down, I checked the rundown that I screenshot earlier before I left home. Bayangan is actually playing at 6:00 pm. I’m so sad that I look like a loser in front of her.

But the sandwich is, surprisingly, good. Why did I find it surprising? Because I’m sick of eating bad food at music festivals! Every time I get to eat food with bare minimum standards with working-class prices, I’d be in disbelief! At some festival I attended last year, I didn’t eat for 12 hours straight. It was in the middle of the month and there was nothing to eat when you’re poor and every other meal costs RM20. Even a cup of Milo half-filled with sugar costs me RM5. I mean, how is it possible to fuck up a Milo ais that bad?

2:40 pm, Awang Samrow

The lady in front of me has the rundown schedule set as her lock screen. Meanwhile, I’ve been zooming in and out on the screenshot like an idiot. Awang Samrow has the stage presence of a pop star, though he was performing to an almost empty hall. I clapped harder after each song to make it seem like there were many people around.

4:26 pm, Loko

I had my pink raincoat on because it was raining the entire set. This was my third Loko show and genuinely, I’ve never had a bad time with them. They skipped the bit where they’d ask the audience to sit and later jump towards a song’s finale, which is a shame because I was so ready to jump in the rain. Two girls combined moshing with twirl dancing, and I know I’ll never be as cool. 

5:43 pm, anticipating Bayangan

Two Bayangan fans are waving his merch — a shirt, “Kelana” lyrics booklet, a tote bag — in the air to catch his attention. The crowd starts to fill in the empty seats.

5:48 pm

Three guitars?! Oh they’re insane.

5:50 pm

I recognise every person on the stage from their other projects. I’ve seen Lust, No Good, and even Lucy in the Loo live before. Is this gonna be an official thing? Does this mean Bayangan is now a supergroup?

6:47 pm

I’m writing this in the dark, my hands are cold and Bayangan has just finished. I gave them a standing ovation, because they deserve every clap, every woos, every joy I’m embracing at this very moment. When the drums gushed to Kuala Lumpur, after they said Pahit Manis would be their final song, I let out a tiny shriek. The entire performance felt grandiose and cinematic, I’m sad that its music video form probably will never exist.

I’m trying to interpret this feeling in my stomach into words. Here’s an attempt: It feels like punches made up of slow butterflies and shimmery fireworks. Does that work? At moments, the entire set felt so dreamlike — not literally a dream because I’d be frustrated if it were, since I can never recall my dreams. So I want to remember Bayangan’s set. It’s breezy. So light yet so heavy at the same time. It makes you float emotionally yet aware of your grounded state. And I’ve never been awake. It’s nice to remember that at this age of yearning for anything good, I’m still capable of feeling this much exhilaration, and in all of its honesty too. 

7:20 pm, almost an hour after Bayangan set ends

There’s barely any signal inside the Emerge Live Stage, so I sit outside to send a video of Cagaran Mimpi to N on Whatsapp.

“Gila wei,” I wrote. “Suara Bayangan sebijik macam dalam studio.”

Every now and then I’d play Bayangan in his car, and we’d listen to the entirety of “Kelana” quietly. We both have different tastes in music, but he understands my foreign, solitary need for music so fluently. He replied to my message almost instantly, he agreed that Bayangan in the video I sent him sounds precisely like the studio version, almost as if he was listening to the soundtrack of our car rides.

8:03 pm

I’m sitting down at the bench, watching Dirgahayu play from afar. I have a half eaten chicken shawarma in my hand, and a few pieces of the chicken fell on my black shirt. I’m eating so carelessly and I don’t know why. I watched Dirgahayu play right in front of me for a good 10 minutes, their energy blasted from the speaker so loudly that I felt the wind nudging my shoulder softly. I looked behind a few times, but nobody was tapping my shoulder. It was just Dirgahayu all along. 

8:24 pm

They ran out of mineral water in the vending machine. I think I left my mushy brain at the front row seat of Emerge Live Theatre. Semakin Jelas is playing softly in my head but I can’t visualise it properly. I watch the videos I recorded over and over again. Oh, I’m going to be so sick when I get home. There’s no way to recover from this aching nostalgia for a performance that happened less than two hours ago.

9:10 pm, Sweetass

The entire day I had imagined Sweetass playing at the Roar Stage — the biggest stage. It wasn’t until moments ago that I saw their name in the Groundbreaking Stage rundown. The room is still almost empty. I sit in the dark, looking for plug points as my battery is drained to 23%. 

10:02 pm, near the vending machine

The aftermath of a Sweetass set feels somewhat like an inescapable trance to me. They were unbelievably amazing, of course, that it put their other shows at bigger stages to shame. Maybe Sweetass belongs in a smaller room, a smaller crowd — they sound bigger this way. But god, the fucking smell! This room smells like a thousand cigarettes drenched in sweat are being lit up all at once. And I can’t even escape, everybody is rushing to the small door for the exit. A girl screamed in hysteria, jumping around with her friend. I said hysteria because everybody actually looked concerned. But she was so happy. 

10:15 pm, Masdo

Oh I’ll never understand the hate these dudes get. They’re so fun. 

10:50 pm

My brother is driving us home and I’m trying to remember. Remember. Remember. Remember. I’m hoarding moments from today, and the best ones are dictated by the glimpses of emotions they made me feel. I read somewhere that memory is your best editor. It edits your understanding of your experiences, sometimes to the point you no longer possess the original encounter. I’ve been betrayed by my own memory several times; protruding ugly recollections at the wrong places (queuing for groceries, amidst the bustling Bukit Bintang intersection) and hiding the memories I wish to remember more (hazy childhood, the first encounter of love that doesn’t hurt). I wish to remember today, at the very least this feeling I’m holding on to, for many years to come. Admittedly, I’m afraid of exaggerating my joy, even more than I’m afraid of putting my grief under a magnifying glass. But this joy is real, this anxiety to lose them all exists, this fleeting hope that everything will remain as its unadulterated condition persists. I ask for more of them, quietly.