Exclusive Report: KREATOR Thrashing Indonesia

Special thanks to Wendi Putranto of Rolling Stone magazine (Jakarta, Indonesia) for the following report:

Legendary thrash metal warriors from Germany KREATOR made their live debut in the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, Saturday night (Sept. 24). The show, which was covered by the national media, was attended by nearly 4,000 people, many of whom had followed the band's career since the early '90s when the group's "Extreme Agression", "Coma of Souls" and "Renewal" albums were released domestically and hugely influenced the national metal scene in this archipelago country.

KREATOR played a 21-song set to a great crowd response, especially during the older material, such as "Pleasure to Kill", "Extreme Agression" and "People of the Lie". Unfortunately, not many people were familiar with the group's newer songs from "Violent Revolution" and "Enemy of God" because neither album has up until now been released in Indonesia. But the audience still responded very enthusiastically to the newer tracks, mainly because both albums sound as powerful in a live environment as the songs from the band's early '90s efforts.

KREATOR's concert took place in an open-air setting on the Festival Beach Ancol in North Jakarta. The venue was the same place used to hold shows by such international artists as NAPALM DEATH (April 2005) and HELLOWEEN (February 2004). MIPRO, the promoter who arranged the show for KREATOR, was the same promoter who invited NAPALM DEATH to the country for the first time. The difference this time was that the KREATOR concert was arranged without any commercial sponsors' involvement, while the NAPALM DEATH gig was backed by the biggest tobacco company in Indonesia. Because Indonesia is a religious country, the promoter had to changed the official name of the KREATOR tour from "Enemy of God Tour 2005" to "Thrashing Indonesia Tour 2005". After KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza learned of the change in the tour's official name, he reportedly said, "[The promoter has done] a lot of things that we didn’t know about."

KREATOR's performance in Jakarta capped off the group's two-date tour of Indonesia, following an appearance in Surabaya (the second largest city in Indonesia) on September 23. Unlike the Jakarta show, the Surabaya concert was poorly attended, with only 1,000 tickets having been sold at a venue that holds 7,000. This was in sharp contrast to the SEPULTURA show in 1992 in the same city when almost 25,000 people watched their concert in Tambaksari Stadium or the HELLOWEEN concert last year, where nearly 5,000 fans saw them perform at the same stadium.

Samack, editor of Solidrock magazine (Malang),who was present at KREATOR's Surabaya concert, told Rolling Stone that the main problems with the Surabaya show were related to the high ticket prices, lack of promotion, and the location of the venue, which was situated far away from the city. "Mille was kind of disappointed with the Surabaya show — it was obvious from the look on his face," Samack said. "In the middle of the concert, he also asked the audience strange questions like if they were sleepy or tired, because it seemed like there wasn't much activity in the mosh pit." According to Samack, KREATOR played an abbreviated set in Surabaya.

Before the Jakarta show, Rolling Stone asked Petrozza if it was true that he was disappointed with the Surabaya show. "It was a little chaotic," he said. "But other than that, we knew the hall wasn't good to play in, because of a lot of feedback, a lot of echo, so it wasn't really good. But other than that, it was OK. It's just not…what I expected to be. You know, sometimes you have a show that you're really looking forward to and a show that's not good as what you expected to be. But we're not really disappointed, we're just, you know… too much echo, the hall was not so good."

KREATOR's concert in Jakarta was preceeded by warm-up performances from two hot local metal acts, THRASHLINE and SIKSAKUBUR (which stands for grave torture). THRASHLINE music is being decribed as KREATOR-like thrash metal while SIKSAKUBUR are said to follows more brutal death metal style with a touch of progressive rock and thrash. SIKSAKUBUR had two albums released by the Dutch label Displeased Records. Support at the Surabaya show came from Singapore's RUDRA, TENGKORAK and BRUTAL TORTURE.

A complete recap of KREATOR's "Thrashing Indonesia Tour 2005" can be found in the November 2005 issue of Rolling Stone (Indonesia) magazine.

After their short Indonesian tour, KREATOR are scheduled to perform a club show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on September 25.

KREATOR's setlist for the Jakarta show (Sept. 24, 2005):

01. Intro: Choir of the Damned
02. Enemy of God
03. Impossible Brutality
04. Pleasure to Kill
05. Phobia
06. Violent Revolution
07. Suicide Terorrist
08. Extreme Agression
09. People of the Lie
10. Voices of the Dead
11. Terrible Certainty
12. Riot of Violence
13. Betrayer
14. Terror Zone
15. Love Us or Hate Us
16. Renewal
17. Flag of Hate
18. Tormentor

Photos of of KREATOR's press conference in Jakarta can be viewed at this location.