Flaming Wreckage is a heavy metal band from Australia that just wanted to come to Indonesia to rock out and melt the faces off of some of Indonesia hardcore metalheads. In fact, they say they weren’t even going to make any any money off of the performances they were scheduled to play around East Java in March. But in the end, they paid a very heavy price for coming to entertain their fans in Indonesia
The tour started off well, with shows in Jember that they said were among the “most intense” and “most insane” they’ve ever played.
https://www.facebook.com/flamingwrekage/photos/a.133876542622.116749.111684927622/10154262037537623/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/flamingwrekage/photos/a.133876542622.116749.111684927622/10154263982737623/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/flamingwrekage/photos/a.133876542622.116749.111684927622/10154271890132623/?type=3
But the music came to a crashing halt during Flaming Wrekage’s concert at the Houtenhand Beerhouse in Malang on March 22, when undercover immigration police suddenly showed up.
The officers from imigrasi stopped the gig and forced the three band members to hand over their passports. The band described their ordeal over the next few days in a post on their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/flamingwrekage/photos/a.133876542622.116749.111684927622/10154280212022623/?type=3
Absolutely broken.
Our Indonesian tour has come to an untimely and devastating end for both us and all the fans in East Java that wanted to see us play. After police intervention at the Malang Beerhouse, our set was cancelled and our passports were held for over 36 hours by immigration police. Regardless of the fact that the venue held the correct paperwork and permits, the show was still shutdown, much to the disappointment of fans that waited outside the show past midnight, hoping that we might still be able to play.
This photo was taken around the 10 hour mark at the immigration department the following day after being intensely questioned by one of the officers who shut down the show. We had to purchase new flights to get our passports back, turning a relatively affordable tour into a very expensive one for us, our Indonesian tour manager and for the venues we played at.
It really upset all of us to have to cancel the five remaining shows as we were all very much looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful country and the amazing people that call it home. We’ve seen a passion for heavy metal here that is unlike anywhere we’ve ever been.
The three shows that did go ahead were three of the best, most packed shows Flaming Wrekage has had the opportunity to play. The experiences we had in this country will never be forgotten and I highly recommend touring Indonesia to every metal band. You will be given the best treatment possible and all of the shows are incredible.
I’d like to extend a massive thank you to the best tour managers ever, Herman Bimz and his wife Oopie for being amazing hosts and for helping us out so much in a very unfortunate and unexpected situation. We are all home safe and sound so now it’s time to do the only thing we can, keep playing shows. See you on the road.”
In an interview on Musicfeeds.co.au about the incident, the band members filled in a few more details about the incident not mentioned in their Facebook post including this sinister bit about the immigration police asking for a photo and a smile:
“Everyone from the show, including over a hundred fans waited till after midnight outside the venue, hoping that we still might be able to play. It seemed like a bribe wasn’t going to cut it this time.”
The band ended up not being allowed back inside the venue, and the cops added insult to injury by asking them to pose for a photo.
“‘Why aren’t you smiling?’ They said to us, before finishing with: ‘Immigration office. 10am tomorrow. See you there’,” the guys recount.
It seems the band might have come on tourist visas, but they told MusicFeed that they were playing all of their shows completely for free. That apparently did not sway the immigration police, who said they still had to “obtain working Visas as the shows were ‘being promoted’”.
The band claims that the only way they were allowed to get their passports back was after purchasing expensive new return tickets to Australia immediately. They also said the Australian Consulate was instrumental in advising them about the legality of what the immigration officers were doing to them (numerous allegations about requests for bribes were mentioned) and what they had to do to make sure they would be able to leave the country without further incident.
If this sounds at all familiar to you, you might remember the ordeal that American musician Kina Grannis and her bandmates had to endure in 2015 after immigration police confiscated their passports over an alleged work visa violation and kept them stuck in Jakarta for 100 days while they tried to navigate the bureaucratic nightmare.
Both bands handled their situations with class, despite the enormous stress they underwent just for wanting to entertain their fans in Indonesia, praising our country, their fans here and the people who helped them out of their jams. We hope they’ll both decide to come back someday, though we certainly wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t.
We can’t say with certainty if the immigration officials in either incidents were acting outside of the law, but we do know that it’s going to become even more difficult to attract international musicians to perform in Indonesia because of them.
