Kelly Clarkson’s concert in Jakarta
Update: May 2010

Days before April 29 were tense. Adrie Subono, head of JAVA Musikindo, had to wait in anticipation as Kelly Clarkson got a sudden change of heart to carry on her Asian tour to Indonesia. This, he stated, was due to one cigarette brand taking part as a sponsor in the concert.

On the press conference, Clarkson uttered what she felt about the issue. “I really didn’t know about it, and it’s impossible that I would encourage the young fans to smoke. I’m not a smoker and never did smoke before,” she said. Her action to follow at that time was either to cancel or to get on with the concert.

On Subono’s point of view, the whole matter seemed to blow out of proportion. His event organizer has long enjoyed an undisputed reputation as being the top three, if not the best, in managing international artist performances. And the stake of the show’s cancellation would be more than 3,000 fans disappointed, which generally results in a complicated process of ticket refunds and so on. At the same time, Sumber Ria—the audio rental in charge over the concert—also shared some worries looking at how the situation went on. Their past experience counted in some international artists backing out to perform in a matter of days toward the concert. “In 2008, we had Rihanna canceled because of her personal reasons,” the sound supervisor, explained. “So for now, we can only keep our fingers crossed to see what’s coming out of this.”

When Clarkson’s decision broke to the public a week prior the concert, it was something Subono had optimistically guessed. He recalled her saying “I [Clarkson] don’t want to cancel it [the concert] because of my fans.” Moreover, the tobacco company sponsoring the event suddenly announced backing out, letting the American idol have her wish granted. All the while, the whole issue drew more public’s attention. Not only did the number of audience bulk up, even all the 150 VIP tickets were sold out a few days before the concert.

No less than 3,400 fans filled Tennis Indoor Senayan during the 90-minute concert on April 29. Clarkson sang out songs from her four albums that had won her both multi-platinum record sales and two Grammy Awards. The song “Impossible” taken from the latest album with the same title initiated the evening show. What followed next were a list of Clarkson’s best hits, such as “Breakaway”, “Because of You”, and “My Life Would Suck without You”, along some other songs like Morissette’s “That I Would be Good” and the White Stripes’s “Seven Nation Armny.”

Kelly Clarkson’s powerful and crisp voice was delivered brilliantly along the concert by the FOH loudspeakers, consisting of 6 pairs of KF760 and a pair of KF761 per side . The array of SB550 tailor-made subwoofers gave strong boost to the low frequency, while RCF Art-500 filled the center fill. For the outer fill, Sumber Ria positioned a couple of VHD 2.0 KV2 for upper balcony . The FOH console used for the concert was DiGiCo D5, collaborated with the monitoring mixer DiGiCo D1.

Amidst the young audience, a number of local celebrities were seen present in the concert. Syahrini and Aurelie Hermansyah enjoyed Clarkson’s loud performances, and so were the daughter-father musicians, Gita and Erwin Gutawa. Gita Gutawa later admitted that she was totally thrilled to see her idol, Kelly Clarkson, singing live before her very own eyes. Both Clarkson’s vocal power and exemplary attitude have proven well that this American idol is a true winner.

www.javamusikindo.com