Heineken Green Room: Art vs Science & Gossip

What: Heineken Green Room: Art Vs. Science & Gossip
Where: KL LIVE
When: October 5, 2011

I always look forward to Heineken Green Room events because of the quality & choice in the main acts they feature and the spunky followers that flock to the party. The latest one featuring Australia’s ‘electro-dance’ trio Art Vs’ Science and America’s Gossip were probably the highlights for me cause a)I didn’t have to go to work the next day and b) you can’t go wrong with boys rockin’ porn staches’ and girls gender bendin’ doing and wearing whatever they please. It might sound pretentious to some but the night was anything but that.

When I first heard Gossip was performing in Malaysia (and not the usual Singapore) I was thrilled but being known as a band that have members that fight, stand up for the rights and are part of the LGBT community, I had my worries that the Malaysian equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church protesters would picket their concert but when the day came it surely made our neighbours down south green with envy to have such fabulosity grace Malaysian soil.

Minus the ghastly hour long traffic to drive 1km in the city and the gobo chips that never came at the Japanese restaurant we went to (as a treat to ourselves for getting stuck in that traffic) in the same building as KL Live – everything was just right. We managed to catch the tail end performance of local act Mini Compo in which I believed they performed this song as their closer – It reminds me a bit of the Faint but they did their part in getting everyone excited for the first international guests Art Vs’ Science.

Geek chic and 90s hip-hop

When the boys of Art Vs. Science donned the stage they looked more ‘science’ than ‘art’. Despite only having done my ‘homework’ on them a week before, I felt the music spoke for itself. It was fun, catchy, the boys entertained with synchronised dancing and oh yeah – a wicked rendition of Boom Boom Shake Shake the Room. The rapping was so spot on I almost thought they pulled a Milli Vanilli. They closed with their catchiest song ‘Parlez Vous Francais?‘ which left the chorus with the same title ringing in everyone’s ears for the rest of the night until of course the Gossip titillated us with their presence and began their set with the sultry and groovy Vertical Rhythm off their latest release Music for Men.

Standing in the way of control

Once they launched into the second song of the night – everyone went bananas and jumped around singing the lyrics to “Standing in the way of control” while Three36am ‘survived the only way’ that we knew – up front and center to experience the magic that is Gossip. The next hour or so could only be summed up in highlights including front woman Beth Ditto taking her time to say ‘hi’ to everyone in the front; high fiving, shaking hands, touching everyone and in return letting everyone touch her derrière. Being up front had its advantages and I got to grab on to Ditto’s sweaty palms and smack a big wet kiss on her hand. Ditto was not only figuratively but also literally smoking on stage, accepting gifts from fans in the crowd and even jumping into the crowd during Heavy Cross for some heavy petting with fans. While most international acts learn the usual “Terima Kasih” (thank you) when trying to interact and impress their Malaysian fans, Ditto learned a word more meaningful and powerful; “cinta” (love) which she repeatedly said throughout the night. One twitter user summed it up best; “Beth Ditto isn’t a singer, she’s an experience”.

While most of the attention was on Beth Ditto and her endearing stage antics, it’s also hard to ignore the rest of the band. You have the handsomely beautiful and super fly drummer Hannah Blilie whom I couldn’t take my eyes off that night and the presumably male and straight counterparts of the band – Brace Paine on guitars and keyboards and their 4th and touring member who played bass. When Ditto jumped into the crowd, I jumped on stage (twice!) and dance around like an asshole and blew kisses to all the other band members because they deserved it and I wanted them to know that nothing will stand in the way of control of one just wanting to have fun. Thank you Heineken for giving that liquid courage and of course for putting on another kick ass Green Room event.

Other highlights

Hearing Bikini Kill’s ‘Rebel Girl’ lyrics
“Ain’t no Power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop”
Groovy covers of Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to do with It and an encore of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ – showing that hipsters in the crowd know how to sap it out too.