My personal thought on Sunburst

Sunburst tahun lepas kitorang tak perform. We were busy doing our tours and promotions for our singles that the schedules were all clashed up. Diorang mintak kitorang perform but the deal was to split half with Najwa, pretty much because Najwa is in our ‘ Ada Masa’ track. But it doesn’t feel right to take her slots and I had to make the decision of letting go and focus on this year.

So I approached almost everybody that I know off. I met the CEO of Pineapple personally. Came to his office and passed Luscious and Infinatez song. And that was last year. Now this year I met them once again. Contacted almost everybody. When we performed at Sepang we even chat again. Siap jumpa Jennifer Thomson of Recording Industry of Malaysia. I mailed our cd’s to Singapore and Indonesia just to perform in Mosaic and JavaJazz. Called them straight from my mobile. Emailed them. And guess what?

We were not selected for all Sunburst, Mosaic and Javajazz…..sigh

Aku tak paham. First of all aku tak paham kenapa lineup Sunburst macam tu? The moment they announced the performers, almost everbody that I know who bought the ticket wanted to sell it back again. I surveyed everywhere and go online, and I noticed people were frustrated with the line ups. And aku tak salahkan diorang. From my point of view, Sunburst sama je macam gig2 di Lembah Klang. Tiada bezanya dengan Jomheboh yg hanya mempromosikan artis2 terkenal sahaja. Bagi aku, Sunburst ader class dia tersendiri. Its a music festival so diorang kena masukkan segala macam muzik Urban di Malaysia yg boleh diketengahkan di antarabangsa. Sunburst main peranan utk memajukan lagi industri kita. Just because the radios are playing Indie music, doesn’t mean 90% of the lineup should be bands. Mana jazz, Rnb, Hiphop dan sebagainya. Kalau ader pun apalah sgt compared to all the bands yg ratanya orang2 baru…

I wanna make it clear not that Im against the band tapi bagi aku ader lagi genre2 music lain yg patut diberi keutamaan dan pada masa yg sama can attract and relate to more crowd. When I spoke to one of the committee, they said memang tahun nie diorang terima banyak sgt pernyertaan, which is I think fair enough lah. Tapi bila aku baca performers dia, it looks like they are running out of performers to pick.

Naturally 7 performed. Im a big fan of them because Infinatez pun RnB dan acapella jugak. And guess what ader another group did opening for them. Aku rasa sgt ralat sbb tak buat opening utk diorang. Infinatez dah perform in front of 50 000 crowd. We deserve to perform with them. Name me another tight acapella group in KL. We can do one hour of acapella show and people know us and yet orang lain yg aku tak pernah kenal, tak pernah tau their existence yg perform. Its not that Im against them (diorang pun kawan aku jugak), but Im against this stupid and politics when it comes to showbiz

Well aku still datang malam tu lah. Just wanted to experience the event. But honestly Sunburst sucks. Erykah Badu tak dapat datang. Coldplay tak turun. And the lineup sucks…

Aku berkarya dan aku perlukan sokongan drpd semua pihak. Macam mana artis dan penggiat seni Malaysia nak survive kalau organizer dan radio banyak sgt memilih dan tak pandai membezakan good music and garbage?