INDONESIAN IDOL: Joy to the world

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. My boss still demanded me to finish updating the English part of the website. I anxiously looked at the time and the amount of work yet to be done. I promised Isna to come to Sarbini at the latest, 19.30. Hmm... two hours left to finish everything, if I didn't say a Maghrib prayer, I could pull it off. Ooops... I don't do Maghribs, so problem’s solved.

The time moved so fast and I finished editing and translating all the materials at 18.55. What’s left was uploading. I didn’t have to do it myself, we got a webmaster for it, but I usually had to supervise the process. My Boss was still working and waiting for the result of the uploading process. He seemed like he wanted to stay longer so I figured why not let he did the supervising of the whole uploading-thing for me. For a change.

So, I asked for permission to leave the uploading process unsupervised, and left my Boss in charge, for a ‘family affair’. He asked what if there were troubles in the process and he needed me to fix things. Easy, I was ready with an answer. I told him that in the event of emergency, call me or message me, I’d be back at the office that night if I had to. He gave his consent, grumblingly, I could tell.

I have already prepared myself so I ran to my cubicle and grabbed my backpack and walked as fast as I could before he, or anyone, would ask anything else from me. How to go? Taxi, in the midst of three-in-one? Bad choice! So I hailed an ‘ojeg’ driver and asked him to take me to Plangi, fast. He did, I think I shouldn’t’ve encouraged an ojeg driver to go fast, it’s like salting sea water! They don’t do slow!

I got there in one piece, thank God, and frantically searched my cell to call Isna. Damn! she was still on the way. I waited and bought some breadtalks. I met Rommy and Adit while waiting—they got the tickets from Arya. I also spoke with Dan who had already got in and saved some seats for me.

Fifteen minutes before eight, Isna came from behind my back and dragged my arm and we ran inside. Once got in with a balloon for purposes I got no clue about, we looked for a seat. Pheeww... there was only one seat left on blue side, the color of ‘client’ ticket. So we sat together on that one seat.

O boy, how was I irked when the show was about to commence! The screaming of pubescent girls was deafening my ears. They screamed “Bona! Bona! Bona!” like those Hawaiians screamed “Tora! Tora! Tora!” upon the coming of Japanese Kamikaze! Crazy teenagers!

I looked at Isna and pleaded, “Please, tell me that you were never like one of these abatutets (anak baru tumbuh t%$^) who screamed and screamed aggravatingly?” (For Mas Wisa, this is the actual dialogue, “Plis deh, Na, jangan bilang lo pernah jadi abatutet yang suka teriak-teriak kayak orang gila gitu?”)

She poked me with her balloon, “Gilingan!” (Well, you don’t need translation for this sort of language ya, Mas)

The show began. The chorus of the Power of Eight sang the theme song of Indonesian Idol opened the show before Irgy and Ata and Guy “Kribo” Sebastian showed up and greeted the audience, in Sarbini and at home. The theme of the night was ‘Romantic Songs’. Hmmm… nice, I guess. Isna was excited and I wondered whether she preferred to be with his fiancée listening to these romantic songs instead of me.

Anyway, Bona came out first singing Mandy flatly and I cursed all these teenage girls who couldn’t stop screaming and screaming. Despite his sweet voice and for being so cute, Bona provided no chill in my back except. The same cuteness-but-no-thrill-performance came from Delon who tried his best to give ‘How do you heal a broken heart’ the sound of a heart-breaking. Err… Delon, honey, bad choice, with a look like yours, you’re doomed to break so many hearts but your own.

Michael, on the other hand, gave a better performance than his cute competitors. His voice was, as Isna put it properly, “laki banget”. And he wore this white shantung (I just learned about the textile from my dear-bride-to-be-friend) jacket that was soooo cool. Sooo Dan Johnson circa Miami Vice with a hint of Puff Daddy or P Diddy or whatever name that J-Lo ex boyfriend is using these days. Lucky was the best male performer that night—my abang in Bandung said his look was so obviously “pendekar”. He has the best voice material in male category as Nania does in girls’. No-contest. He chose a too familiar material sung by another wonderful singer, Glenn, his recent hit, ‘Januari’. He couldn’t make it sound better than Glenn, but he pulled it off nicely, though a bit slow.

That night, Nania was rather disappointing by her own standard. She’s good as usual, with a voice like hers, even yawning, she would sound lovelier than say, me trying my best to sound like err… Josh Groban (Heck, I can compare myself with whomever I please ya! Remember this is my blog, you siriq people). It was another case of bad choice for Nania. As for another female Idol-to-be, Helena, she gave a ravishingly confident performance. I like her stylish way. She’s the best performer that night in terms of making the stage as her playground. She seemed so at ease. But again, she chose a not-so-popular song for Indonesian to relate to, ‘You make me feel like natural woman’. Another contestant, Karen, chose a familiar song’ Cinta jangan kau pergi’, but she just simply didn’t have the heart to sing it. She competed Bona in flat singing. She’s simply out (and she was).

But the star of the night was none other than the rubber face, Joy! O my God! She blew my pants off, although of course, I wish… oops, I daydreamed a bit. Joy overjoyed me! Joy ruled the night! She rocked! She sang ‘To love you more’ from Celine Dion with her heart in and out, her voice high and low, and that face, that used-to-be-irritating-face twitched only when necessary! She gave the chill I looked for. And she drew audiences crazy, even those screaming abatutets now screaming for Joy, and thumped their feet. It was ecstatic. She’s the best! Watch out Nania!

Enough said.

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