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Last Saturday night, most of Malaysia united for an urgent cause that’s been playing on everyone’s minds. For the common future of the planet and all life on it, Malaysians turned off their lights and restrained from non-necessities for 60 minutes in support of Earth Hour.
On the ground, it was good to see young Malaysians make an orchestrated effort to take their passion for life up one notch. The night before Earth Hour, around the same time, a cavalry of young urban Malaysian college rockers bonded together in expression for the cause in the way they knew best – a rock concert organised expressly in the name of Earth Hour.
Under the umbrella of Call To Arms, local, mostly college bands like Under Headlights, Fourletterstory, PG165 and Army of Three performed at the awareness concert held at the downtown central venue, Urban Attic, situated in Capsquare Mall, KL. Most of these budding musicians take their cues from contemporary MTV, emo and modern rock names like Paramore, Fallout Boy, Switchfoot, Our Lady Peace and even our very own, Estranged.
The brainchild of Jason Ding, singer with the band Unabashed, Call To Arms was culled from gathering his buddies from school and church, as a chance to speak out and showcase their music and introduce their little band community to the public.
Says Ding: “I was really moved by the stuff that’s been going on in the world, to just start something that showed local bands our age can have relevance to important issues beyond our country and where we live.”
This One’s For Mother Earth...
Salutations must go out to these guys’ honest efforts in getting the word out without any outright benefit on their part, besides the chance to rock out 24 hours before the sacred Earth Hour.
Their gift: ‘Bands In Support Of Earth Hour’, a compilation album of 14 songs by seven bands, including Altered Frequency, a two-album-old local English alternative rock band recently nominated in the upcoming annual AIM awards. Another band contributing songs to the album besides Altered Frequency (who gave tracks entitled “Beyond Now” and “Ever Wondered” for the collection) and the four that performed on Earth Hour eve also include the excellent trio, Scene At The Movies.
These CDs were given out free during the Urban Attic gig along with Earth Hour stickers to spread the buzz about knowing our own little impact on the world and doing something about our individual carbon footprints. Most of these young Malaysian “Earth songs” are sung in English, with the exception of Jason and friends’ “Hanya Satu”.
It’s not a new message but being there that night it was as if these young folks in bands and their volunteering friends wanted to be even more obvious about it, if only to wipe out the apathy that’s still bugging quite a number of us a little quicker (preferably before the world ends).
They’ve turned their best intentions into noble action, their way – isn’t it time to answer with yours?
*Join Call To Arms at calltoarmsmovement.org and have a heart for the planet this year at voteearth2009.org or www.org.
 
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