UP TO US TO BE THE BEST: Fendi (right) and other members of Up To Us which emerged champion of the inaugural WOTR 2013 at SCV Santubong. They walked away with RM5,000 and on top of that their drummer and lead guitarist were adjudged Best Drummer and Best Guitarist for the night. — Photos by Churchill Edward
ROCKING THE NIGHT: Kahar, Best Vocalist of WOTR 2013, captivating the audience by singing Short See Cute’s original rock song ‘Bujang Senang’. The band emerged second best.
MUSICALLY-INCLINED: Third placed O’ Skool Acoustic which claimed that members learnt musical instruments only by heart, showing their gifted talents in music at WOTR 2013.
KUCHING: A near-flawless performance by ‘Up To Us’ rendered the band to emerge champion at the inaugural War of the Rhythm (WOTR) 2013 held at Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV) in Santubong here on Saturday night.
They brought home a cash prize of RM5,000. The five-piece band presented Chinese ballad ‘Zeng Fu’ and Bruno Mars’ funky number ‘Treasure’ and thanks to these songs, their member Samuel Mauh and Nasir Drahman won the Jury Awards for Best Drummer and Best Guitarist respectively. They won RM300 each for their talents.
The other members of the band were keyboardist and band leader Fendi Osman, bassist Benzy and vocalist Max. All are locals.
According to Fendi, Samuel is a teacher in an Arts school (Sekolah Seni) while the rest are full time musicians playing occasionally at gigs, functions, weddings and parties. However, Up To Us is an impromptu band as its members teamed up just to participate in the inaugural WOTR 2013. Fendi said he would not be surprised if all of them would be teaming up again in future battles of the bands.
Up to Us was among the six WOTR finalists. The others were The Rising (of UiTM), Kolej Komuniti Stars (made of students from Kolej Komuniti Mas Gading and Kolej Komuniti Kuching), Surya Ritma and O’skool Acoustic which emerged second runner-up and Short See Cute (first runner-up).
Short See Cute performed Wing’s rock song ‘Taman Rashidah Utama’ and their own and original rock number ‘Bujang Senang’ and they ended up second best to pocket RM3,000 cash prize while their vocalist Kahar Jemari thrilled even his band members, hardcore supporters and audiences by emerging Best Vocalist.
O’Skool Acoustic mesmerised the audience with their acoustic style by using sape, hollow guitar and percussion instruments apart from succeeding in bringing the audience to sing along the chorus of their original reggae song Boya Kah Kamek Tuk?. However, the judges made them third best band of the night. They walked away with RM2,000.
In all fairness, the other three finalists did not disappoint the Santubong audience, taking into account the number of supporters and young music lovers having to brave the rain just to enjoy the night.
The rain which started as early as 6pm was kind enough to stop just before 11pm for the prize giving ceremony to proceed. Giving away the prizes was Sarawak Development Corporation (SEDC) general manager Soedirman Aini. He was accompanied on stage by general manager Jane Lian Labang. Established band Noh and The Vagabonds made a special guest appearance prior to the prize presentation.
The inaugural event was jointly organised by SCV, UiTM Samarahan and Kuching Waterfront Management. The event is jointly supported by Ministry of Tourism Sarawak, Department of Culture and Tourism Malaysia, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and is jointly sponsored by Nescafe, Coca Cola, Les Paul Studio and AV Events. True to their theme ‘War’, prizes offered to winners at WOTR 2013 so far are the richest pickings in the local music scene because the other competitions only offer RM1,500 for champion.
Initially, 12 bands entered the preliminary round held last month and eight qualified for the semi-final round held on Nov 30 at Godown Auditorium of Kuching Waterfront where both local and foreign live band enthusiasts attended it.