Hammersonic ‘23
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Rocking out, headbanging, (seeing the) moshing, and screaming along to my favorite nostalgic anthems of my early coming of age, this was an unforgettable experience.
Before Hammersonic fest, I had a double broken heart: a chronic dissapointment. That’s why I almost revoke myself to come — but there’s something inside me urged me to come. Then I followed my intuition and won’t regret anything — rock and its metal music was my antidote when I was a teenager and had no clue to face brokenheart or other prodigious situations. In addition, I remembered one of my mediation sessions regarding broken-heart, where screaming can release all the negative feeling.
So, here we go! I went to Hammersonic all by myself. Rushing to the main stage; the Empire stage to join Pasukan Mati in the stifling heat midday. I joined in the middle of the crowd while Deadsquad just entered the stage and they perform the usual opening song, which I love the most; Enigmatic Pandemonium — my first scream and shout in Hammersonic. I didn’t really remember the songs the performed, some for sure: Catalyst, Bangsat Kuasa, and Curse of the Black Palgue.
After Deadsquad, I bought hotdog for lunch and ate it promptly while watching Revenge the Fate in Avalanche stage. There’s no umbrella in the table, thus to overcome the extreme torturing heat of Ancol, the praying room could be the answer.
In praying room, I stayed quiet long — perhaps an half hour and enjoyed Tiny Moving Part from there. Although I didn’t listen to Tiny Moving Part before, I instantly like this math rock band. Also, in that praying room I had conversation with four strangers, two of them immediatly become new friends; mba Nungki and mba Hisra.
An old friend picked me up in the praying room and he brought me to his friends; I met three other new friends! Their meeting point was the Kunci Koin booth close to Empire stage. My friend said in total he was with around 15 friends, in which it’s the friends of a friend of a friend and so on and so forth.
We waited for Story of the Year and went to the crowd while I met mba Nungki and some of her friends was there, so I joined them! Turns out all of us were from Surabaya!
Hell yeah, Story of the Year as awesome as I imagined, although they did not bring “We’re Not Gonna Make it” and “Real Life” but at least two songs from the Black Swan album were performed; the Antidote and Choose Your Fate! Literally my Antidote for the hard Fate that I currently walk through! Thank you so much SOTY!
For the last song, Until the Day I Die, a nice middle aged woman, offered me to stand in front of her, right next to FOH fence. That gave me the best view to the stage, so I forgot to record with phone, and I chose to record the moment with my memory. Seeing SOTY so clearly, sang my favorite song — I was like a toddler who watch a unicorn flies.
After SOTY, we had a short break in foodcourt corner in front of The Beast and Avalache stage, and had continued to Hammer stage to see Batushka. While we wait for their performance I made a conversation with a couple from Lyon, French. I saw more foreigner in this music festival and also the performers (both local and international) ware merge with the crowd too.
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Batushka was fun, but we left the venue after three or fourth song and sadly I didn’t record anything. We’re back to food corner and enjoyed Deez Nut from there.
After the dusk, we managed ourselves to watch Amon Amarth from afar. They had the replica of Viking Ship on stage, drink from viking’s ‘tumblr’ so called rhyton, also the Thor’s Hammer, even the vocalist had the real Thor’s voice — damnit!
I sacrificed Born of Osiris, and Watain for the sake of the last energy belongs to Slipknot. Along the way to main performers; I made another two acquaintance. First, a wife of someone important from Ravel Entertainment who gave me free mineral water. This music festival is crazy I thought I drank more than a liter of mineral water plus a small bottle of orange juice — very dehidratic. Second, was a random guy when I watched Trivium, we talked about some underground music and other chit chat about the two days shows.
About Trivium, similar to Weezer, Matt was pretty much interactive to audience and attempted to speak in Indonesia with his smiling face such as saying “Apa kabar chuaks?” and that’s how the conversation with the stranger guy started. “He asked me, ‘what did he say?’ after hearing me say ‘astagfirloh,’” I said, “he said chuaks.”
After Trivium, he asked me to watch Black Flag. Actually I really want to see at least one song from Black Flag, but I really thought I need to sacrifice this one again to save my reamining energy for the main course of the day. So, I stayed, and within a minutes me and my friends found a spot to watch Slipknot. Of course, as a petite girl, I couldn’t see the stage at all :)
That would be the first time ever Slipknot performed in Indonesia. No wonder, 30 minutes before its scheduled rundown, the crowd was already dense. At 10:35 PM when the night sky was bleak, no stars but the soar of maggots who were ready to scream — including me. Please welcome the mother fucker Slipknot!
Disasterpiece was their opening song, a perfect choice to make people noises! Of course circle pit was everywhere and a friend said few has passed out there. Yet my position was pretty much safe, in the right side of the Front of House (FOH), and also I’m with my Surabayans acquaintances whose mostly are men, so I felt pretty much save in the vibrant crowd.
Devoting myself for screaming and headbanging, Slipknot did not give us a break, these hit songs were performed consecutively; Wait and Bleed, All Out Life, Sulfur, Before I Forget, the Dying Song, Dead Memories, Unsainted, the Heretic Anthem, Psychosocial, Duality, Custer, Spin It Out.
Spin It Out was fun! Corey instructed us to get down, and all — all of the thousands people there got down. It felt like there were some vice commanders among the crowd who said “get down! Get down!” or “Not, yet! Not yet!” And when Corey said “Jump the fuck up!” just like a massive resonation, people jumped simultaneously! With triumph face, chuffed to bits, including me doing my screaming therapy.
People have been waited for Slipknot for years, not to mention decades, made the “we want more” shout was as loud as the songs themselves. The first encore song was the song that I wanted to hear after they perform the opening song; People = Shit. Lately, I forced to face people who act like shit, to absorb my madness this song repeated more frequent lately. My wish to hear it live from Slipknot, was granted.
The very last song was Surfacing. Overall, I really love this music festival although the venue was cruel because there’s no shady spots to save us from the hell’s heat. However, the vibes and all the awesome performers were that worth. I never talked to a lot of people in any concerts/music festival before, the metalhead solidarity was that beautiful and I do want to come to this kind of music festival again!
