Penang Jazz Festival 2010 - Concert 2

The second concert had arrived, and also the last day of the Jazz Festival Penang 2010! Tonight, I came with different group of friends included my sister! Cloudy and windy in the whole afternoon, we were praying for good weather, rain does not make any fun to the concert though! However, still, we searched through few convenient stores to look for rain coats! Well, this is the last night for the festival, and I went to the previous night’s concert and it was really AWESOME! So, I did set up a level higher of my expectation.

The opening show was a local acoustic guitar player, Roger Wong trio together with Peter Lau on drums and Simon Lau on bass. Very refreshing songs composed by Roger Wong himself, which are really good for opening. He played the song Human Nature by Michael Jackson which is one of my favourite!

Boi Akih from Netherlands sings in Haruku (a Moluccan Languange), the trio consists percussionist Sandip Bhattcharya who play Indian drums, and also a guitarist Niels Brouwer. Of course, most of us did not understand any single word in Haruku, but the harmony and tempo are extremely unique! It drew us into the music immediately!

Azerbaijani Jazz musicians-Rain Sultanov Quartet, created by Rain Sultanov who is a talented saxophone player. Similarly to those classic jazz music, Rain Sultanov plays wonderful music with Elchin Shirinov (Piano), Ruslan Huseynov (Bass) and Ramin Sultanov (Drums). Their performance was really Jazzy, toxicant!

The next band was the PELbO from Norway, a shocking band which surprised everyone with their music! A band consists tuba-Chris Lo, drums-Trond Bersu and vocal-Ine Hoem; they mixed rock and jazz together and also adding tuba in their music. A very different and unique combination of instrument plays hardcore and charismatic jazz! That was a rocking-ly jazz! Lol

The highlight of the concert was this artist who is one of the most respected Australian musician/guitarist; also he has a name being called “The Guitar Wizard of Oz” and a two-time Grammy nominee. This man is Tommy Emmanuel! I can only say he is the God of guitar! He is so damn good and fast in picking the strings, together with the tricks by knocking the guitar. The show was so worth it! He is really Awesome!

The closing show was by the band called Zhan. Joined by the famous Malaysian drummer-John Thomas, Rie Tsuji-Pianist who is currently Beyonce’s pianist/keyboardist and versatile composer/arranger, Saxophone by Nicole Duffel and a Malaysian bass player. Not bad for Zhan, the best player was the pianist, Rie Tsuji is really good and charismatic!