Exposing Carabao

The songs-for-life band Carabao is calling a close to their Bt300-million mega project in celebration of the 30 years in the music business with a seven-day “New Year Expo” at Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre. 

Promoter Fresh Air Festival has invested more than Bt50 million in creating this New Year Expo, which opened Wednesday and features several zones named after Carabao songs.

“Phu Pid Thong Lang Phra” which comes from His Majesty the King’s book “Nai Intra Phu Pid Thong Lang Phra”, itself inspired by author William Stevenson’s “A Man Called Intrepid” and “Nak Soo Phu Yingyai” exhibit the band’s history through LPs, cassette tapes, CDs, concert tickets and lighters sporting the Carabao brand.

“Khon La Fun” offers a music contest, “Mahalai” features a music workshop run by Carabao, “Khon Nang Niew” has the band’s rarely seen movies, while “Welcome to Thailand” and “Samakkee Prathet Thai” host fun games. The last zone is where punters can listen to a concert, “Mon Pleng Carabao”, which is based on several different concepts.

The Expo seems to cover all the bases but it’s far from perfect and is especially lacking in the area covering the band’s history. Japanese rock band Glay’s Expo ’99 offered four separate exhibitions for all four members in four halls, each with a capacity of 10,000 people. While it would be over the top to do that for all Carabao’s members, I think that far more attention could have been given to displaying the collections and instruments of the band’s three stalwarts – Yuenyong “Ad” Ophakul, Preecha “Lek” Chanaphai and Thierry Mekwattana.

There’s also a shopping street packed with booths offering anything and everything Carabao including merchandise and 300 limited-edition folk and acoustic guitars priced Bt4,400 and Bt5,500 respectively.

The Expo opened at 2pm but by 6, an hour before the concert started, only a handful of fans had made it to the hall. By 6.30, the crowd started to build, with fans in their signature black T-shirts with the Carabao logo and the usual Ad Carabao lookalikes wandering in, probably aware that the “On the Rock” concert would start late, which it did, at around 8pm.

Screened before the concert was a video of the recent floods victims to the soundtrack of Ad’s “Kor Kampaeng Jai”, as well as the story of the band. 

Carabao opened with “Kamlang Jai Carabao”, a song from their 30th anniversary album. As the final chords died out, Ad commented, “This is our newest song. Now we’ll go on with the oldest.” And they did, playing “Loong Khi Mao”, the first song off their debut album, 1981’s “Khi Mao” in 1981. 

“It was inspired by Freddie Aguilar’s much-covered hit ‘Anak” and I wrote it while living in the Philippines,” he added.

Later, Ad led the packed auditorium through “Luk Kaew” before handing over vocal duties to Lek and Thierry for “Prachathippatai” and “Khwai Kwa”.

 “Are there anybody here smoking ‘ganja’?” Ad asked to a ripple of polite laughter, before launching into the song of the same name. That was followed by the “Thanon Cheewit” and “Khon Niranam”, which Ad explained came from one of his lecturers at Uthenthawai Campus referring to someone in the province as “suphapburut niranam”.

In “Big Su” praises the late luk thung singer Suraphol Sombatcharoen and Caravan’s founder Surachai Chanthimathorn while “Thub Lang”, he said, is all about getting the Narayana lintel back to Phanom Rung Historical Park.

With the evening coming to an end, the band brought the audience to its feet with a non-stop performance of four hits, “Khon La Fun”, “Bang Rajan”, “Chao Tak” and “Bua Loy”.

Carabao ended its first show with “Tam Roi Phor”, a song penned for the King.

 

Four to go

_ Carabao’s “New Year Expo” runs until Tuesday at Bangkok’s Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.

_ Each night’s concert has a different theme. Tonight it’s “Ordinary People”, tomorrow “Politics and Society”, Monday “Philosophy” and “Grand Finale” on Tuesday.

_ Tickets are free. Visit www.Carabao30.com.