Majulah Music Night 2023: A youthful night of local and regional music

As raindrops started falling, Majulah Music Night festival go-ers stood firm at the open space in Somerset Skatepark. They whipped out their umbrellas, donned on ponchos and continued moving along to the music.

Held on Jul 30, in conjunction with Youth Month, the festival was a celebration of music, culture and entertainment. The night before, the Skatepark was a competition venue for dance competition Super24’s Secondary School Category.

The iconic Skatepark was repurposed to hold an elevated stage and several booths that sold merchandise, food and drinks. Despite this, some skate ramps remained visible, alongside graffiti artworks on the walls of the Skatepark, retaining the essence of the park and building onto the atmosphere of the local street culture scene.

The crowd began trickling in about half an hour before the festival officially started. They were greeted by DJ Hanif on the turntables as he spun a variety of songs that ranged from 2010 classics to modern pop songs.

The first two performers were local artistes Feez and Hongjoin. The artistes, both 22, expressed excitement when asked how they felt before going on stage.

“I’ve never performed in a setting like this,” Feez said, as he gestured to Somerset MRT and OrchardGateway mall that towered over the Skatepark. “And my set is different from what I usually do so like I just want to see how people react to it.”

Hongjoin added: “I think it’s finally nice to have live music, it’s been a long time and I feel like festivals in Singapore are not that common.” 

“…the people who are coming tonight are the people who love music, so it’s nice to have an environment where you know people are actually supporting local acts.”

As Feez played his first few songs, the festival go-ers were greeted with a few specks of rain that eventually culminated into a drizzle. Not letting the weather rain on their parade, the audience continued bobbing their heads along while rummaging through their bags for umbrellas and taking the ponchos distributed by the organisers.

Next, Hongjoin performed some of his original songs as well as a cover of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone’ featuring a snippet of Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’. 

The festival also saw 19-year-old Jasmine Yen make her live performance debut. But it was hard for the crowd to tell as her confidence and strong stage presence proved otherwise.

The festival crowd cheered her on with their screams and waved arms. And she wasn’t the only one to feel the warmth and support of the people. 

Subsequent acts also had their fair share of infectious energy from the crowd.

This included Kuala Lumpur girl group DOLLA, consisting of Angel, Sabronzo, Syasya and Tabby. Before them, Glenn Yong sang some of his popular releases, together with a small teaser for an upcoming song. He is the third local artiste of the festival line-up, alongside Feez and Hongjoin.

As the umbrellas were gradually stored away with the passing of the rain, they were now replaced with signboards that fans brought along. One DOLLA fan held up a handwritten sign that wrote “spending all my dollars on DOLLA”. 

While DOLLA members thanked their fans for bringing signboards, Glenn Yong took a moment to thank his mother who was at the front of the barricade for being present at all of his performances.

The festival ended with the Taiwan artistes Zunya and J.Sheon. The latter was the headline act of the show. 

As a night dedicated to celebrating youths and music, Feez hopes that someone in the audience can resonate with his passion for performing and become inspired to do music too if they want to. 

Hongjoin added: “You don’t have to be musically trained or anything, I’m not. I’m not the best music theorist but anyone can do it.”

“I hope people can understand (that) local music isn’t just local music, it’s just music. Music is just music man, there’s no sort of labels onto it,” said Feez.