Day 1–Rainforest World Music Festival 2011, “Rhythm of Borneo” (Part 2)

Here comes the second part of first day. Many festival goers thought that first day won’t be as fun as the second day (Saturday), or even final day on Sunday. Trust me, mark my words, if you’re planning to go next year after reading my blog posts, go for all three days. Yes, 3 DAYS of Rainforest World Music Festival. If you think it’s expensive, no doubt, it is. Set aside the price of tickets, you pay what you get. This is a real-deal WORLD festival. If you’re a Sarawakian, or even from other Malaysian states, do make it in your calendar to go next year.

I’m going to write about the workshops during RWMF I went. I was quite busy at first, facing some problems and getting some goody bags from Chris, I made it to the cultural village to catch the Leweton Women’s Water Music from Vanuatu and also, my favourite workshop, Percussionists workshop held at the Lagenda Hall. You’ve seen the videos from the workshop, didn’t you? Awesome.

Themed “Drum Dance”, bringing together groups from Mamak Khadem, The Shin, Ishkew, Agungbest, Kenge Kenge, Kissmet and Lisa Haley & the Zydekats to beat the drums together in the same rhythm. As the saying goes, music is the universal language. The whole one hour of workshop was full of marvellous and great beats all over the hall.

We all loved it. Beats from North to South, East to West, coming together in one beat, one rhythm to entertain all festival-goers. Seriously, I had so much fun I couldn’t stop taking photos while dancing to the beat! One guy named Alex from The Shin of Georgia caught my attention when he danced ‘frantically’ (literally, hehehe) during the jamming session. One word, AWESOME!

Alex of The Shin performing his traditional Georgian dance to the beats of the jamming session. He’s like a male ballet dancer.

Seen someone familiar? Pretty girls just love to hit the floor to the masters of the beats.

People just love Bollywood, and also Kollywood. Not sure what’s that? Look it up in Wikipedia. Hehe. The final part of the jamming session was let by Buzz of Kissmet, showing off his traditional Punjabi drum called dhol. Quoting from Wikipedia, "The dhol is a large, high-bass drum, played by beating it with two sticks, known as daggah (bass end) and tilli (treble end).” When Buzz started playing, everyone got of to their feet and danced to the beat, the Bhangra rock!

Buzz of Kissmet beating his dhol and cheered to the crowds!

Dum dum dum!!

Dance! Dance! Dance to the Bhangra rock!

I could never imagined that all these different instruments can just literally ‘fuse’ together in one place!

It was very hot and humid after the workshop is over. After that, Nathan, Annie and I headed to Heinekabana to chill and cool off from the heat. It was a very cosy and nice place to chill out, and thanks to Chris Ho, we got our VIP invites to chill out with free beer and finger food at Heinekabana!

A place to be to chill and cool off from the heat during the fest at Heinekabana with a cold glass of beer.

I want a glass of Heineken beer!

But, then again, are you INVITED? =)

I missed out the first Sunset Concert, and soon after was the night concert of the 1st Day of Rainforest World Music Festival 2011. Part 3 of Day 1 RWMF will be up after this! Friday night concert was fantabulous!!