[Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia] No one was naive enough to believe Rock The World 9 would start as early as 10am, and the giggers only began plaguing train stations and highways towards Bukit Jalil Stadium as afternoon dawned. Bukit Jalil’s carpark space has held not only many cars but also many events previously, equipped with the ability to hold up to three stages – as witnessed at Fat Boys & Hypptunes’ Rock The World 9.

Malaysian giggers are good at keeping themselves hyped up and energetic whether it be whooping at drenched girls under the rain or rocking to the bands, despite the equipments that were meant for long range hearing, meaning those nearby heard pretty shitty sounds from the speakers. The rain could fall, the sound could falter, but all in all, rocking the world only needs to happen within a venue filled with three stages, and people who love music.

The bigger replica of a typical Malaysian gig, this was where Malaysian music was projected as it is. Giggers here were able to boogie, pogo, skank and mosh; a melting pot of all genres.

Boogie time was granted during the performances of bands like  Robot Asmaraand  The Otherside Orchestra. With one way early in the day and one way late in the night, the Electro genre was appreciated and never got sick of, leaving many in the crowd breathless from grooving to the frantic keyboard of The Otherside Orchestra and the groovy vocalist of Robot Asmara.

One of the tighter bands that day on the Indie Stage,  40 Winks pulled the crowds in for a mosh-skank session with their enthusiastic flow of ska punk songs that never failed to produce well arranged and solid sounds. Skanking didn’t just end there however, for  Skudap Skudip had their fair share of performing the crowd favourites of pure ska music.  Labratshowever takes a turn, and is an affair where Syahrul cheats on Love Me Butch with his wife. Singing in a sweet duet, Labrats was fun, hyperactive and held funky bass riffs and cute chinks of the tambourine, making them almost as cheesy as Joanna’s flirtatious interaction with the crowd when  Joanna & Coperformed.

Second Combat always know how to entertain their fans and though the vocals may be hard to accept for some, it is the energy and music that flows from stage that inspires the crowds to go wild – which they did.  An Honest Mistake are also to be credited for the uprising of the crowd after their temporary pause due to weather conditions.  Auburn had the unfortunate luck to face technical problems throughout their set with session bassist from  Tempered Mental, and the stage was shut down after a blazing performance by Stonebay , who had the mosh pit soaking with sweat, not rain, by the end of their set.

A stage gone unnoticed for most part of the time, despite it being the first stage you see when you enter the venue (that was probably why it’s positioned there), it held some pretty wonderfully orgasmic artistes throughout the event. There were the more upbeat ones like Bactrim who had people thinking of discos and “Play that funky music white boy”, and Estrella who never fail to win the crowds’ hearts with their girl-fronted Bossa Nova set.

This stage was a breath of fresh air (in all too literal a term!) from the other two sweat-filled and choking pits, taking listeners to a level above ground, with mind-churning, skin-prickling music from artists like  Rendra Zawawi and the oh-so-sexy duo vocals within his band. Taking out-of-the-world to an even hyperactive level, Khottal is brought up onto stage and given the permission to trash about on stage. What else is better than jumping to ‘The Woo Song‘, watching ten people go mental on stage with their percussions and strange instruments?

Main Stage

The excitement of Love Me Butch (LMB) and  Seven Collar T-Shirt (SCT) playing again after a long silence shouted throughout the atmosphere the entire day, and their performances fired up the stage with a unique energy of LMB’s sorethroat screams and SCT’s creeping adrenaline effect. The time limit restraining them to two songs did not do them justice, along with  Disagree and Pop Shuvit, who conquered the stage and pulled everybody up from exhaustion.

New faces such as underground hardcore band Bleeding Mascara churned havoc within the crowds equally successfully, not intimidated by the size of the stage nor the bands they shared it with. They easily won the thudding hearts of the ecstatic fans as swiftly as metal band  Restraint did. Yuna soothed the mood with her storyteller voice, but Loque somehow failed to captivate fans with  Monoloque’s uncanny music  the way he could with  Butterfingers .

New faces, however, were not only about new bands, but new members, too. Line-ups changed for Brit-inspired  Bittersweet,  The Times and  Meet Uncle Hussain (MUH). Though MUH daringly changed the frontman and soared through their set, this could not be said for Bittersweet, who left crowds confused. The change of The Times’ guitarist and drummer was evident too (and not in a good way).  Amy Search decided to make an excitable appearance during  Republic of Brickfields’ performance, skanking rather foolishly and shamelessly up on stage, the rockstar that he is, and the stage closed to an end with an appearance of youngsters  Bunkface, who as always, had their strong fanbase waiting for their predictable punk-rock set.