Deep Purple concerts in Jakarta 1975

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The concerts of the British hard rock band Deep Purple in Jakarta took place on December 4th and 5th, 1975 . The performances in Jakarta's Utama Senayan Stadium were to remain Deep Purple's only appearances in Indonesia until 2002 . During the stay, a team member was killed in unclear circumstances and the police attacked fans. In retrospect, bassist Glenn Hughes called them "the worst concerts of my life". Despite further offers, he and Jon Lord never wanted to return to this country.

prehistory

The band's singer at this time was David Coverdale , who took turns with bassist Hughes. Founding member Ian Paice was on drums and Jon Lord on keyboard. Guitarist Tommy Bolin only joined Deep Purple this year and completed the so-called Mark IV line-up of the band. The current album Come Taste the Band received poor reviews from the critics and did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessors. The tour had started in Honolulu and had already visited New Zealand and Australia . The next planned destinations were Japan and Hong Kong . Then the offer was received to be the first western rock band to perform in Indonesia. A smaller concert in front of 7,000 spectators (other source 20,000) and an advance of $ 11,000 were agreed.

Neither the band nor their manager Rob Cooksey had informed themselves about the domestic political situation. The country was under the control of the dictator Suharto , who came to power in 1965. Indonesians of Chinese origin and alleged communists died in the following mass murders by the military . The number of victims is estimated at 500,000 to 3 million deaths. As a bulwark against the communism spreading in Southeast Asia, the regime was supported by the United States , Australia and other western states. In October, Indonesia began Operation Flamboyan , which covertly entered the Portuguese Timor colony with soldiers . Five Western journalists were murdered by Indonesian soldiers on October 16 , for which the responsibility was blamed on East Timorese fighters. Because of the threat, the left-wing FRETILIN unilaterally declared East Timor's independence from Portugal on November 28 , which presented Indonesia as a communist threat.

Done in Jakarta

On December 4th, Deep Purple's yellow Boeing 707 landed in Jakarta. A military convoy brought the band to the hotel. Deep Purple fans stood around ten kilometers and greeted their idols frenetically. But instead of the announced hall for 20,000 spectators for a concert, the band should now perform two days in a row in the National Stadium, which could hold up to 50,000 spectators. 125,000 tickets were sold. The band's normal fee for two such performances was $ 750,000.

The stage consisted of orange boxes. The military, which at the time also included the police, provided security. They were armed with machine guns and batons and had Dobermans as guard dogs. At the first concert, 20,000 spectators were allowed into the stadium, but another 35,000 fans were sold tickets and broke through the barriers. The security forces largely let the crowd go, despite the heavy armament. Children were pushed away with machine guns, according to Jon Lord, but there was no organized police response.

At the hotel, band manager Rob Cooksey tried to hold Indonesian business partner Danny Sabri accountable, but he was apparently under government protection. Meanwhile, the bodyguard Patsy Collins is said to have rushed out of a room in an argument with two team members and, in his impatience, opened an unmarked door on the sixth floor. He then fell three stories into an elevator shaft and broke through several water pipes for the heating system. The powerful Collins then stumbled into the shaft again and fell down to the ground floor. He still managed to drag himself out of the hotel into a minibus and mutter "Hospital". Then he died of internal injuries and burns. At four in the morning Cooksey, Hughes, and the second bodyguard, Paddy the Plank, were taken out of their beds by soldiers and arrested on charges of the murder of Collins. They spent the day in prison. Hughes was taken out of his cell for the concert. 6000 military police were in the stadium. The Europeans in the audience were directed to assemble in the auditorium. Hughes describes the fans as "happy, young people," but after only 20 minutes the soldiers set the dogs on the audience and began beating the audience with sticks. Children were also bitten by the dogs. Deep Purple broke off the concert. The Rolling Stone reports 200 injuries. Hughes is said to have said later that he was sure that there had been deaths.

From the stadium, Hughes was taken back to the police station, where he, Cooksey and Paddy spent the night. The next day they were brought before someone in charge who was constantly playing with his revolver. He said that in his opinion it was a tragic accident and that the passports had to be photocopied for the formalities. In the end, those arrested had to pay $ 2,000 to get their passports back. Then they were brought back to the airport, where the rest of the band and crew were already waiting. The body of Patsy Collins, which apparently none of the crew saw, was left behind and disappeared.

At the airport, Deep Purple discovered that a tire on their aircraft had a hole. The Indonesians refused to change him, which was eventually done by stagehands Ozzie Hoppe, Baz Marshall, music journalist Chris Charlesworth and the flight engineer. You had to pay $ 10,000 for the loaned tool. Then Deep Purple could fly to Japan with her crew. A lawyer contacted by those arrested in Los Angeles , who only arrived in Jakarta after the band had left, was chased through the room with a machete while meeting Sabri. The band couldn't achieve anything financially.

epilogue

Deep Purple performed again on December 8th in Nagoya, Japan . The band broke up three months later after a final concert in Liverpool . On December 4, 1976, on the anniversary of the first Jakarta concert, Tommy Bolin died of a heroin overdose .

On December 7th, Indonesia began the open invasion of East Timor with Operation Seroja . 183,000 people died in the following 24 years of war. The occupation and dictatorship only ended after the fall of Suharto in 1999, but the military still has a great influence in society and politics.

Musically, Deep Purple had a huge impact on the Indonesian music scene. Esther Clinton and Jeremy Wallach have called Indonesia a "Metal Republic" since the band began performing. Since the late 1980s, a nationwide underground metal scene has emerged in the cities . The elected President Joko Widodo is an outspoken heavy metal fan.

Hughes, Lord and Cooksey are convinced that the trained bodyguard was murdered. David Coverdale seems to disagree and later refused to participate in the Phoenix Rising documentary about this time. Coverdale performed again in Indonesia in 2020 with his band Whitesnake . They played in front of the Scorpions at the JogjaROCKarta Festival in the city of Yogyakarta .

literature

  • Chris Charlesworth: Deep Purple - The Ilustrated Biography , 1983.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Purple.de: Come Taste the Band , accessed on December 4, 2020.
  2. ↑ === Deep Purple Tour Page === | concert dates - tour diary. Retrieved January 10, 2021 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Deeppurpelos: Deep Purple Mark IV Indonesian Tour - Highlights from Jakarta 1975 (Interview with Jon Lord 2010) , accessed on December 5, 2020.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Airen: "I saw children who were mangled by dogs" , in: Spiegel online, December 4, 2020 , accessed on December 4, 2020.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Chris Charlesworth: DEEP PURPLE - Trouble In Jakarta , July 13, 2014 , accessed December 5, 2020.
  6. ^ John Gittings: The indonesian massacres 1965/66. In: Mark Levene, Penny Roberts: The Massacre in History. Berghahn Books, 1999, pp. 247-262.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Peter Crescenti: Indonesian Nightmare Strikes Deep Purple. In: Rolling Stone . January 29, 1976, accessed December 5, 2020 (English, article reproduced on tommybolin.com).
  8. ↑ Deep Purple Mark 4. In: thehighwaystar.com. March 15, 1976, accessed January 6, 2017 .
  9. ^ Esther Clinton and Jeremy Wallach: Recoloring the Metal Map: Metal and Race in Global Perspective , Bowling Green State University, USA, Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, practices and Cultures, International Academic Conference 2015 , accessed December 4, 2020.
  10. ↑ Trinkelbonker: history Purple - Jakarta in 1975 , accessed on 5 December 2020th
  11. ↑ The Jakarta Post: Legendary icons rock historical city of Yogyakarta , March 5, 2020 , accessed December 4, 2020.