TOTO Took Us To The Time Machine During Java Jazz Festival 2019
JAKARTA (3/3) – The three-day affair of BNI Jakarta Jazz Festival 2019 has been wrapped up last night. Legendary group TOTO was scheduled to perform on its special show for the night and despite the pretty heavy rain, the crowd patiently waited for the band to play. The band who has reunited and embarked on a world tour opened their set with “Devil’s Tower” which was performed gracefully. BNI Hall was packed with those who grew up listening to TOTO’s songs and young people who wanted to see how was the performance of these legends. They followed the opening number with “Hold The Line” which generated much enthusiasm from the crowd. The audience sang in unison, although seemed pretty calm to stay on their seats. “Lovers In The Night”, “Rosanna”, and “Georgy Porgy” were brought afterward, managed to send us all in a time machine to the 80s.
What was special during TOTO’s performance was that they didn’t only perform their own compositions and original songs. They also paid homage to Michael Jackson by performing “Human Nature” and The Beatles with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. The audience could not contain their excitement anymore once “Human Nature” was sung and decided to leave their seats altogether and just had the most wholesome moment of the night there. A great singalong could also be heard during “I’ll Be Over You” and as anyone could predict, “Africa” became the band’s most notable peak performance of the night. Closing out their set with their biggest hit to date seemed reasonable right? However, the crowd wanted more of the band and Steve Lukather and co. finally made their way back to the stage by bringing “Home of The Brave” after the fans shouted for an encore. This version was very short and not a full rendition of the song which may cause disappointment for some audience.
However, as the 15th edition of Java Jazz Festival 2019 was the last stop to their world tour, TOTO had proved that their legendary status still prevailed until today. They thanked their whole crew as well as the audience for coming as they departed the stage for good. A huge smile was seen on everyone’s face as they left the hall to enjoy other stages on the venue.
Documentation: Java Festival Production/Writer: Novita Widia
