One of the most anticipated concerts to happen this year, MTV World Stage took Malaysia by storm on the 15th of August 2009. Headlining the concert were performances by Kasabian, Pixie Lott, Raygun, Boys like Girls, All American Rejects, and out own Estranged! Going back MTV’s rock roots, all of the bands which performed with the exclusion of Pixie Lott were all the hottest rock and punk rock groups today. Hosted in Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach which was specially drained for this event, 15,000 rabid fans turned out in force to attend.

Us here at eff got our dirty paws on a complete set of mosh pit passes so we could give you the best view of the action. For the uninitiated, the mosh pit is the area right in front of the stage where the best views are to be had, and the most enthusiastic and energetic audience is supposed to be! Entry registration was supposed to take place at 3.30pm outside the surf beach entrance but due to delays the timing was pushed towards by the time we got in.

All the pictures were taken using a mix of the Nokia 5800XM and Apple iPhone. We didn’t bring in our dSLRs due to a blanket ban on photography, but lax security allowed people to bring in theirs.

The stage was set up at the tip of the surf beach at its highest point. Featuring LED displays, a massive sound system and the biggest light show you could ever imagine, the stage was set for a thrilling night. Luckily enough there was good weather throughout the concert, so it wasn’t a wash out.

VJ’s Utt, Denise and two more other VJ’s were there to host the show, along with 2 DJ’s from fly.fm. Utt has a terrible throwing arm None of the goodies he threw got any further than half the mosh pit! Besides the usual gift throwing, they had DJ there to entertain the crowd between intervals. The DJ wasn’t very good however, and the breaks between acts was far too long.

First up was local band Estranged. Not really our cup of tea, but they were good nonetheless, performing a selection of 3 of their songs. The crowd wasn’t very cooperative with their requests though!

Next up was Boys like Girls, performing among other things, their new single Love Drunk, and older favorites like Thunder, Hero/Heroine and The Great Escape. Energetic and crowd pleasing, they sound better live than on a recording! Enjoyable, and they energized the massive crowd. They were the most generous with the freebies, throwing out guitar picks and drum sticks all over the place!

Raygun, a Britpop group whose style is a mish-mosh of retro 80’s and electro, followed up.

While relatively unknown, their performances of their songs from their new album, most prominently their single Just Because, and songs such as Waiting in Line and In the City immediately made them a crowd favourite. With a wild performance for Just Because (The refrain is “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”), Raygun have just left a smashing imprint on the audience.

A rather long short break followed……in which we checked out the crowd behind us. The pressure of 15000 people pushing against the metal barricade threatened to collapse it, and it had to be reinforced with wood and manpower. It was so packed that for people to come out, they had to be lifted!

And then Pixie Lott took the stage. A new and upcoming star on the pop scene, the British Pixie Lott failed to impress us. The songs while catchy, had a distinctly manufactured tone to it. One of our least favorite to perform.

Hoobastank came up next. Within seconds of their appearance, the crowd went insane! Hoobastank shot to stardom in 2005 with their hit single Reason, and Crawling in the Dark, and they played these favorites along with their new single. Words can’t describe the energy of the crowd as they jumped and sang along to the songs, and as a funny gesture, they also played the theme from Ghostbusters!

Unfortunately there was another break between Hoobastank and the All American Rejects which was rather long, only punctuated by the uninspired spinning of a DJ. And when the All American Rejects came on stage, all we could do was to hold our hands to our ears.

As much as Hoobastank and Raygun sounded good, the All American Rejects were rather poor live. Playing It Ends Tonight, Move Along and other hits, regardless of how nice it was in the studio, it was terrible on the stage in person.

We missed out on Kasabian though, but we got wind that they are another of those bands which sound awesome in real life too!

There were a couple of things that MTV could do a bit better with, such their concert organization, because we had terribly long intervals between bands, and for an event that doesn’t promote alcohol, tobacco should be banned too. We had plenty of idiots puffing away to the detriment of all the people around them, and I inquired security if smoking were prohibited, he said quite simply, no. Urgh. Also, it was rather hard to obtain drinks

All in all, MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia was a great experience, with upcoming bands giving their all and established ones continuing to please fans all about Malaysia! An experience of a lifetime.

Videos of the performances are available here.