Looking at the man onstage sporting a black tank-top and a pair of washed denims revealing his bare feet, one needs a constant reminder that this musician will turn 57 this year.
But for Indonesian-born Dutch singer Daniel Sahuleka, the passage of years has left no mark on him, except a deeper and more soulful voice.
Apparently, his vocal cords are the key to the longevity of his gigs — otherwise, he might not have gone beyond his two timeless hits: 1977’s You Make My World So Colorful and 1978’s Don’t Sleep Away the Night.
Yes, as much as we might hate admitting it, Sahuleka has been silently acknowledged as a two-hit wonder. The subsequent silence has largely been filled by a kind of unanimous pride at seeing someone with Indonesian heritage making a name overseas. Whether this achievement was made in the past or present does not seem important.
What matters most for Sahuleka’s fervent fans is his inimitable presence as seen in his trademark long curly hair — something to cherish while it lasts.
And if anything, his brief gigs on May 5 and May 7 at the Erasmus Huis in South Jakarta showed that Sahuleka chose the right way to be a stage star — by simply letting his vocal skills do the talking.
No doubt that most of the audience in the hall had no idea of Sahuleka’s other works aside from the aforementioned two.
The musician also did not bother to reveal much about his other repertoire, ranging from the lesser known to the unknown — perhaps because he knew that his fans had come for the sake of seeing him reclaim the youth of his 30s, when the two songs became hits throughout Europe and Asia. Back then, Sahuleka still wore his hair in an undistinguished short cut a la Eddy Silitonga, an Indonesian crooner of the 1970s.
Sahuleka seemed content to play for himself, letting out his emotions freely without being afraid of not getting any applause. Of course, he need not have worried about this, since the audience of mostly 30- to 40-somethings were almost sure to be polite and appreciative, albeit somewhat predictably.
Light applause followed the opening song, If I Didn’t, taken from his latest album, released in 2006. Without any other musical accompaniment other than his guitar, Sahuleka was able to bring out the natural, upbeat tone of the song to lift the mood in the hall.
Other songs followed, and while these would be interesting to listen to as recordings they felt like fillers until the singer reached another emotional pinnacle: Must You Go Away. It would have been another passable song had Sahuleka not revealed that the song reflected “”how I felt when my mother passed away””.
Some audiences went “”ooh””, while others seemed to go numb. But the awkwardness was evident when Sahuleka, obviously trying to hold up, asked if anyone had ever felt the same loss as he had.
It was, indeed, a weird conversation starter. But it was more than obvious that Sahuleka was no great talker on stage by any means. This was partly due to his juggling English and Bahasa Indonesia, and partly because he did not bother with small talk. Or maybe both.
And when some of the audience began requesting Don’t Sleep Away the Night, he “”confronted”” them in Indonesian: “”I’m so tired of being asked to sing that song everywhere! And I certainly don’t want to put you to sleep away!””
Hilarious laughter followed, and his fans were willing to wait just a little longer until he finally started belting out You Make My World So Colorful. The infectious melody and spot-on lyrics prompted the audience to clap during the chorus and sing every word of it while swaying slightly.
It suddenly felt like one was on the nostalgic TV show Tembang Kenangan(Melody memory), rather than at an acoustic guitar concert.
This jovial, old-fashioned style of watching a concert continued with the long-waited Don’t Sleep Away, played in a finale in which Sahuleka was willingly relegated as a mere guitar accompanist to the singing audience. The result was exactly like state station TVRI’s music shows in the 1980s, with standing ovation and no one yelling “Encore””.
Yet, as the song lingered in the mind long after the last notes had faded, it was hard not to appreciate what Daniel Sahuleka and his contemporaries had given us: pure music that seemed to come from the heart.
Their music was created without any electronic arrangements, and it is a music we listened when our attention wasn’t divided by beeping sms’s and other electronic messages.
While the less than 90-minute gig was hardly outstanding when compared to today’s glamorized shows, for one rare night Sahuleka brought back the good old times of good old music with his deep vocals, and nothing else seemed to matter.
Original Post Nauval Yazid The Jakarta Post on May 12 2007