I’m back from Rock The World 7, and I finished the 6 rolls I got for my birthday.

Yeah, it’s probably unceremonious to open and use your presents before your birthday. So yeah, you all only need to wish me “Happy belated birthday!” after the 19th. 😀

Heck, I might start the trend. Don’t spam me at midnight, 19th December. Spam me at midnight, 20th December. Let’s see who pays attention.

Anyway, I found that 24mm at F2.0 is an amazing focal length to be at; next to the infinity mark is 7 feet or 2 meters, which means that anything somewhat beyond there doesn’t need focusing; I’d just set it on infinity. Such convenient, deep depth of field with great handheld shutter speeds and bright exposures!

Also, since I’d seen or heard of most of the bands, I could afford to go from stage to stage since the songs were familiar (and some bands appear on a regular basis on my blog.) It just comes with… otai-ness. (Otai is slang for old-timer.) After going to a lot of gigs, you start wondering if there is anything to do other than pay close attention to the band. In a way, I occupied myself by taking pictures. And maybe, if the band was boring, I’d take more pictures and pay less attention? I might also experiment with different methods. (Though it could just be the case that the band has great stage presence and has photogenic members.)

Plus, getting pushed around a moshpit circle gets tiresome after a while, so this round, Broken Scar got me in; originally as roadie photographer, but with all access. The camera bag that housed the Olympus OM-2000 SLR was a great uh… excuse not to mosh with my friends. (Well, previous years were with friends who didn’t like moshing anyway. Boo you stim-girl! Like Jolin, who I met at Rock The World 6, and left a lasting impression when we all sat in a circle on the rubber track, far from the crowd, and said, “Let’s talk about philosophy!“)

Ambitiously, I decided to wander from stage to stage, attempting to cover every band. 51 bands over 3 stages. I missed Media Puppets, Republic Of Brickfields, Force Vomit, 2SidesToAStory, Love Me Butch, X-Cited Screamers, Couple, Bittersweet and Rosewood. 82% coverage! Yay.

There was also a band slut competition, with;
– Alda Tan, playing for Broken Scar, Soft Touch and Isaac Entry (could be maxed out to 5 bands; he once played for Estranged and Dragon Red.)
– Melina William, playing bass for Tempered Mental, Reza Salleh and Dragon Red (could be upped to 4 bands if she played for Soft Touch.)
– Alex Ang, drumming for Broken Scar, Soft Touch and Isaac Entry (he drummed for Jason Lo back when he was on the West Side, yo.)
– Hanafi, playing guitar for Estranged, Auburn and Reza Salleh (could play for Tempered Mental too, heh.)
– Izuan Shah, playing guitar for Auburn, The Deserters and Stonebay (I didn’t see The Deserters so I cannot confirm this.)
– Bakri, drumming for Gerhana Ska Cinta, Republic Of Brickfields and Koffin Kanser
– Justin and Aru, both playing for Republic Of Brickfields and Koffin Kanser
– Hana, playing guitar for Lucy In The Loo and Couple
– Edy, playing guitar for Gerhana Ska Cinta and The A.C.A.B.
– Mono, playing bass for The Times and The A.C.A.B.

Consolation prizes:
– Adam screams and sings for Dragon Red (but could play bass for Lied)
– Natalie plays bass for Lied (but played bass for Dragon Red before)

And now, for pictures from my Canon Powershot A520! (There will be more with the infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1, mostly using the Olympus 35-70mm G3.5-4.8 Zuiko lens, and the Olympus OM-2000, once the film has been processed.)

The hills are alive with the sound of music! (Maharajalela monorail station is right next to Stadium Merdeka)

Tempered Mental, alt-prog-metal heavies are thunderstruck.

Hermano Grande of Y2K, punk rockers.

You’d never know it, but this is Khai, who made Ciplak the movie.

Hana of Lucy In The Loo, indie-pop darlings.

“And I play bass.”

And now, to save bandwidth, here’s a collage of shots!

Left to right, top to bottom: Emcee Haaarooon!: Are you all enjoy?; Ariff Akhir of the funky Sofa Sessions; Sarah of The Official; a man under zero effort (of M.U.Z.E.); Jerome Kugan reaches for cosmic bliss with trippy electronica; M.U.Z.E., somewhat progressive rock; Ian of Throne Away, great emo rockers with a dancy frontman (not in pictures yet). Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: Moots of rap-rockers Pop Shuvit; the chillout lounge (with air-conditioning!); all that is thanks to Jason Lo, who started that with the Force Of Nature concert; his bass player gets on down; every time I passed the Discovery Stage I’d see Steeltoe Solutions still waiting for the power to be restored to their stage; Din of funk-metal Estranged; “Tak Nak” Andy (spot the hidden Mickey!) Click on the collage for a bigger view!

I also bumped into Hsin, who’d seen me around the office and gigs but never said hi. I quote her:

“In fact, I pretty much saw the entire contingent of bloggers – faces which I know I’ve seen on someone’s blog, or someone linked from some other one’s blog at some point…. you know. Albert, for one, I’ve been seeing at almost every other event I was at – rock gigs, jazz fest, Laundry, my intern stint in ASTRO. =.= Wait lah one day I’ll just step up to him and block his way and go HELLO ALBERT DO YOU NOT RECOGNIZE ME FROM THE BAZILLION TIMES WE’VE BUMPED INTO EACH OTHER? AND BTW YOU TAKE DAMN NICE PHOTOS. It kinda bugs me that someone I see so often hasn’t become smile/nod/wave buddy yet – like how it took me one whole term before this leng chai in my marketing class and I started acknowledging each other. And by then it was already the end of my only class with him, pfft.”

Therefore, the rest of you should make effort to become smile/nod/wave buddies. Especially if he is a leng chai. 😀

And uh, I don’t go around telling people that they look familiar anymore, even if I’ve sat at the same table for an hour. I’ll let the conversation lead to such hints as to where I’d seen them from. I really do think people look familiar! Why must all of you think it’s a pickup line?

I hereby dedicate this blog entry to Hsin, who is of the habit of flooding her blog with pictures.

“Jangan tak rock beb!”

Left to right, top to bottom: Justin, on percussions for Republic Of Brickfields (I can see a cute smile form on someone‘s face); Aru of Koffin Republic Of Brickfields; Hanafi for Auburn (note that everyone in this row is a band slut!); Izuan Shah wonders what song his band will play next; his bassist waits; Brainhead; Reza Salleh and the Fumakillas play 90’s rock (featuring band sluts Melina and Hanafi). Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: Muck, old-school emo punk; Rickenbacker bass (damn old-school!); their other guitarist is also on a Fender Jaguar; Kluk Kluk Adventure calls you to ska; Silent Scream is Christian rock. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: Alex Ang: “Somebody hollered for band sluts?“; Alda Tan: “Oh thank goodness you stood up instead, heh.“; Paul of Qings & Kueens couldn’t make it so they got a mad-shredder replacement; it started to rain, but the cameraman was prepared; you can tell this collage is for Broken Scar the rock band, who got me in! Click on the collage for a bigger view!

I then ran over to the main stage, but Love Me Butch had ended. 🙁

Left to right, top to bottom: Peter Hassan Brown of hippie rockers Soft Touch, going “How many band sluts you got huh?“; Alda’s one of them (Alex Ang too); Insecure, metalcore; Natalie of “angry rock” Lied; Mono plays indie-rock-bass for The Times (as well as The A.C.A.B.); Infectious Maggots is grindcore. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: Isaac Entry and friends (including band sluts Alda and Alex); They Will Kill Us All; Rahul of One Buck Short (who seems to have a new life in Malay punk rock); Izal casts a funky silhoutte; Koffin Kanser; Justin again, for Koffin Kanser; Aru again, for Koffin Kanser. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: The smallest member of Dragon Red waves to the crowd; the crowd waves back; Melina-band-slut and DJ Naz-T (also a major film star, Goodbye Boys anyone?); guest percussionist; Adam the screamer; Amil the expression-ful shredder; Slyde looks taller in these jeans. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

This long exposure looks lomo-esque.

Left to right, top to bottom: A cloud of smoke; Stonebay, tried-and-tested grunge; spot the Izuan lurking eeriely; Curtis Blues Review; he croons; these guys do the blues like nobody’s business; Electrico, indie from Singapore; Pete Teo, acoustic folk rock from Malaysia. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

Left to right, top to bottom: Prana, funk-metal-reggae (missing the rapper vocalist, what a pity); I don’t know who this bass player is; hot groupies; percussionist. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

However, I’m pretty sure that the groupies are here to see this masked terrorist work the turntables. I wondered how long he’d keep the disguise. He took it off after a while, to reveal:

Cleo Bachelor Jeremy Little! I told you so. Those who only read the magazine know of his aeronautical engineer tendencies, and not as long-time DJ for Prana (his brother Jeffrey plays drums and doesn’t quite look like him. Sorry girls.) This picture’s for you, Fireangel!

John of Nervewreck, a most powerful screamer (he screamed on Prana – Away From Another.)

Left to right, top to bottom: Mono for (formerly skinhead Oi!) indie-rockers The A.C.A.B.; Radhi-jadi-Statue-Of-Liberty for O.A.G.; Pedram for Damn Dirty Apes, superb instrumental post-rock/space-rock which turned reggae for a bit; feedback (dammit, I came too late, to catch their last two songs; previous Rock The World instalments had them entrancing the crowd in shoegazing bliss, like that enveloping Feedbach); I headed back into the band tent, where obviously bored people shredded paper cups; more post-rock with KL Post-Harmonic Quintet. Click on the collage for a bigger view!

The last band I caught was Sil Khannaz.

An Ibanez Iceman guitar never looked so good.

This is death metal! (He’s probably growling about how tight his leather pants are.)

By 11:50pm, the Maharajalela monorail station was closed, so we all walked to Bintang Walk and passed the Hang Tuah police station. The lower sign (in red) says “Lindungilah harta-benda anda” or “Protect your valuables“. Funny thing is, the sign’s flipped over vertically!