Inkibma popped its cherry at KL JAM ASIA

It was a dark and gloomy evening as the sun was about to end its daylight and waltz away into its slumber. The silver Waja was filled with anxious band members of Inkibma, my rock band that was formed 6 months ago, and despite the quiet feeling of anxiety the band seems to be chit chatting away into the dark approaching night. The drummer whom is the proud owner of the car seems to be in an upbeat mood because his lady was sitting in the front seat next to him while they non-chalantly talked about hospitals, exams and flirting. The back seat was filled with 3 brothers, whom happen to be the vocalist, the lead guitarist and the rhythm guitarist. These three was quietly thinking of the show except for the vocalist because he was too fixated on taping his microphone with a black scotch tape. Ian Watkins, the front singer for Lost Prophets, has a microphone with a white tape around it and somehow it inspired the vocalist from Inkibma to do the same. “Imitation is a form of flattery” is what they say as long as it doesn’t fall under plagiarism. A Kembara whizzed by the Waja as it startled the vocalist who was sitting by the side of the window; it was their bassist who waved as he overtakes the rest of the band. He looks happy and has always been since he radiates the aura of a comedian, but plays a mean bass line. We were fast approaching Sri Hartamas and this is the part were I, as the storyteller, introduce the characters in this short story or article.

The Vocalist – Rae, Me
The Lead Guitarist – Rin, my lil brotha
The Rhythm Guitarist- Biff, my 2nd lil brotha
The Drummer- Eizaz
The Bassist- Micky

I arrived at Sri Hartamas around 6.30 with the whole band and we were all anxious to see the place for the gig; especially our drummer. After waiting for a couple of minutes for our bassist that got lost from Burger King to Soul’d Out, we finally made our move to the venue.

The place was small. Basically it’s like the size of an apartment that I used to stay at Kelana Putri and it cost me around RM1400; pretty good deal. Anyways, the band that was there before us looked like a couple of college kids and it seemed that both of us are the only band that will be playing for tonight. This is because the sound engineer got into an accident and it prompted for the rest of the band to back out last minute. How ironic because one of our songs name is Last Minute. However, the thing that shocked me the most was when the vocalist for this band asked me on how to pronounce our bands name. He even asked me that he tried to download our songs at myspace ,but to no avail seemed hopeless with the problems that Myspace are facing today ; songs are not being able to download and loading time is slow as a madafackaa.

We did our soundchecks which sounded pretty good on the second time. I just felt that the vocals were not that loud and the lyrics was not coming out , because the drums was covering the whole sound of the band, so I guess I need to ask my drummer to tone it down. And I was a bit annoyed because my drummer and my bassist kept asking the same question on “How was it? How was it? How was it?” over and over again. However, being the oldest in the band, I decided to control my temper and just let them know by saying “it was aite man” which in the end prompted them to ask the same question later after we had our dinner.

The time was almost 9 pm and my drummer became anxious again to see how good the band that is performing before us is. He relentlessly kept asking on how we should open or start the gig and other type of questions kept flying here and there. I didn’t know the answer to it so I told him that we’re just gonna rock the house down because we are a rock band. If they don’t like us then so be it, because our songs are all original stuff and to play original stuff is waaaay waaaay better than playing covers; except if it’s a Lost Prophets song.

The band played a lot of nu-metal songs and some of their own composed songs – which consisted screaming, and a monotonous beat and style of rhythm; in other words it was allright, and they were pretty good for a first timer. Our band on the other hand have went through our first gig which was Blastoff 2006, and we bombed that audition miserably. To me, this gig will and have to be my redemption for that awful moment in the band’s rock journey. So, no prisoners will be left for tonight’s show.

The whole time the band was playing, I was sitting quietly by the bar with this pretty hot looking chick which had these cutest glasses on her and she looked petite too; just my type. I started to have an urge to write how I felt at that moment and asked the girl if she has any pen and paper that I could write on. I started to write furiously and quickly because the words were flowing in my head and in my soul like a river flowing seamlessly. I felt the beat of my heart goes faster and louder as the loudness of the song tries to drown it, but it didn’t work at all. I wrote down things that I felt and how I was feeling the intense anxiety that is hitting me which in result will make me tremble in fear which will affect the way I sing later on stage.

I’m downtrodden to the bone and there’s nothing could stop it.

(to be continued)