A weekend filled with good, chill vibes : Goodvibes Festival Malaysia 2016

Good Vibes Festival 2016 was a weekend long music festival with a big mix of local and international artist gracing its stages. The location was perfect for a hot-weathered, summer all year Malaysia, where it was held in The Ranch, Genting Highlands. The festival attracted people from all around Southeast Asia and the world and was pretty well run overall. 

Festival Grounds set-up : 

Image taken from GVF website

The festival space was very well utilised, with two main stages, Red and Blue Stage, set up side by side, and acts playing on each stage every hour while the next act sets up on the other stage. This was brilliant transition from one musical act to the next, where the festival go-er could enjoy the acts they came to see easily. There was also set up in the middle of the festival grounds, an alcohol section called the Star Club, where only non-muslims were allowed in. 

Behind the Star Club, there was the Electric Fields, where prominent local DJs played their sets. Scattered around the festival grounds were also plenty of activities and different booths set up. There was plenty of food vendors, a super big and giant trampoline, a Topshop/Topman picture booth with popsicles. The slight downside to it was that most of the goods sold at the festival was pretty expensive than usual. 

Day 1 : 

The first day was probably my most anticipated day because it featured some of my personal favourite artists. Sibling duo Juno and Hanna, from Johor kicked of the festival with their experimental electronic music which pulled in the early festival go-er arrivals. The Fridays and Toko Kilat continued the local flavour with local legends Sevencollar T-Shirt being the highlight of our local musicians. Ta-ku chilled the night down with a surprise appearance from Wafia, and Purity Ring took it up a notch with some of the best lights and visuals, followed by Aussie boys The Temper Trap rocking the stage with ’Sweet Disposition’ capping of a brilliant set. 

The 1975 at GVF 2016

The 1975, who was arguably the biggest crowd-puller for the festival rocked up on stage with a few thousand screams as they began their set with hit single ‘Love Me’. The bands solid groovy tunes coupled with next level drumming by drummer George Daniel and the suave of frontman Matt Healy sent the crowd crazy with every hair flick and bad joke thrown from the stage. The crowd went into a frenzy during the last two songs, ‘The Sound’ & ‘Sex’ cementing the band as one of the Malaysia's newest favourite british bands of year.

Two Door Cinema Club however, took it up a notch. Their appearance was highly anticipated because 3 years ago, their performance at Urbanscapes was cancelled due to a member’s case of laryngitis. This time, no sickness to hold the guys back, as they rocked out songs from their hit album ‘Tourist History’ and upcoming album ‘Bad Decisions’. The crowd danced all night and when we thought the night had reached its climax, enter : Mark Ronson. The DJ killed it with his set as he kept people dancing from 11.20 all the way to the early morning (1.30am to be exact). He pulled out old-school hiphop tunes remixed with modern day EDM dance music which left audiences wanting for more. He brought the house down when he play his hit song 'Uptown Funk' and ended the night with a bang.

Day 2 :

I only managed to stay for awhile during day 2, but I will have to say, Day 2 didn't have a good flow for the entire night. The festival started off with Mutesite taking the stage with their instrumental progressive rock followed local indie boys Jumero got everyone moving to their chilled out tunes. +2db played next, doing their original tunes and also covering a song by Malaysian songstress Yuna, called ‘Crush’. Froya got everyone dancing to her adorable indie-pop tunes, while Subang Jaya based Enterprise got all experimental taking the audiences to another planet. Kyoto Protocol capped off the local bands leg by rocking their hards out and the crowd definitely rocked out with the band to hit songs ‘Jelita’ and ‘KL I Love You’. 

This is the part where the flow of the night wasn’t very good. Ryan Hemsworth, a Canadian DJ took the stage at a early 8pm. His set was cool, but it was a little early to try for hard dance music as the next act was Alina Barez, a soulful R&B singer with a very sultry voice. She had a nice set, but the mood at the festival took a slight dip as a consequence from overhyped dance music to chill tunes. Tokyo Police Club rocked out the stage after that set by Alina, and they were my favourite act of the night and a new discovered band for me to add to my Spotify playlist. Australian indie-folk group Angus & Julia Stone was next and so breathtaking, with the duo having such soothing voices. And DJ brothers Disclosure closed the night with what i hear was an energetic climax. (i missed their set cause I had to leave back to KL) For me the transition between genres from EDM to R&B, to Post Rock then to Indie-Folk left festival go-ers a little fatigued and confused at the end of Day 2. 

Having said all the festival was a success, improving on previous years with a stellar line-up and a well organised festival.