Sean Kingston came to Jakarta last week to do a concert promoted by my team, D'Makaveli. So not only organizing events and promoting parties, we're expanding our business to a higher level by making concerts too. Sean Kingston was our first project with our partner, Sentralive. They've been around longer as a promoter, they've brought artists like New Kids On The Block back in the days as well as threw huge show like High School Musical.
It went SUPERB.
And I got to OPEN for him. This was, hands down, the biggest gig I have ever performed in my life.
I wanted to write about it for MONTHS. God knows I can never keep my mouth shut and I had been giving a few small details in twitter from time to time but it just doesn't feel right for me to write about it until the event really happened. I felt nervous for weeks. Unlike other performers, my schedule is crazier than crazy with work that consumes so much of my time, so it's not like I could practice everyday. I planned to perform not only with a DJ and a back-up rapper who's also a talented talkbox player, but with 4 dancers as well.
I've said this before: I don't do choreographed moves all that well. The choreographer had serious patience by putting up with me in such tight deadline, I would have smacked me if I were her. We only practiced TWICE before the gig. We didn't even get to have a proper sound check due to so many performers and Sean Kingston's band took almost 5 hours of sound check for themselves. Leaving the rest of us around 1 hour and a half to check our minus ones and instruments. The CHAOS. People started to get annoyed at each other and had mini melt downs. I know I did.
So imagine how relieved I felt when everything turned out alright. People seemed to like it. They didn't seem to notice a couple of mistakes I made on stage like forgetting a few lyrics (so I freestyled!) and forgetting a few moves (so I posed / interacted with audience). My choreographer told me beforehand to just look confident to cover any possibility of making mistakes. Hehe.
And Sean Kingston? Obviously he performed awesomely with his full band, DJ, and several backing vocals. I screamed like a teenager especially when he sang Dutty Love and Rude Girl. I watched right in front of the stage and touch the guy easily. I didn't though, creepy, but I got the chance to talk to him at his private lounge with the band. I was standing around talking to several people in front of it when Angga motioned me to get in. He was sitting and eating with his DJ and after he found out I rap, he told me to rap for him and well, it's hard to say no to Sean Kingston so I did it while trying to keep my legs from shaking too much.
He said, "That's nice", after I was done. Then called his DJ so he could hear me rap.
It would be hard to top that night, that's for sure.
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Cool.
And you are so tiny next to him!