Sunday, May 27, 2012

Lady Gaga, Anggun




Returning today again to the Tong Tong Fair on the Malieveld of Den Haag- a pleasant bike ride from Wassenaar on a sunny day. I have promised to blog about this annual cultural celebration (which I've been attending regularly since the 1990s) after my final visit this year.

 In the meantime, pop music is making big news in Indonesia. This morning the BBC announced that Lady Gaga cancelled her Jakarta concert due to threats from a radical Islamist group and the 50,000 tickets sold will be refunded.

 And the Indonesian pop singer Anggun, who has been living in France since the 1990s and became a French citizen 15 years ago, represented her adopted country in the Eurovision Song Contest last night with the song 'You and I'. The song was techno pop in a mixture of French and English but the flowing scarves, hand gestures and tight bodice evoked Javanese dance. Merci, thank you, terima kasih Anggun thanked the audience at the song's end. She came in 22nd out of 26.

 So not great news for the pop music world of Indonesia - but interesting nonetheless to see this coincidence.

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