Chaos, gunfire, French kisses - must be a Sek Loso concert

Rocker Seksan “Sek Loso” Sukpimai was utterly confident that his concert on Sunday would fill Rajamangala Stadium with 50,000 fans. He didn’t even come close. Maybe it was something he said.
Pictures live from the show billed as “40 Tae Roo Suek Muean 14” (“40 But Feel Like 14”) began appearing online soon after it started, and there were lots of empty seats. Sek posted a shot on Facebook showing a huge mob of fans packed in at the front of the stage, but other shares on the social media suggested a sparse turnout elsewhere.
Pictures of empty seats, though, couldn’t divert attention from the student brawl that erupted up front, complete with gunfire, though luckily no one was injured. Security guards beefed in, so credit to Sek where it’s due.
The show was delayed by heavy rain, getting things off to a soggy start, with Sek finally taking the stage at almost 8pm. Seeing the vacant seats, he told the ushers to remove the barriers near the stage and got the fans to move up. So even if you arrived with a Bt200 ticket, you could end up in a posh Bt5,000 VIP seat. The VIPs were not amused. “I’m very disappointed he allowed the Bt200 tickets to move to my zone,” a wealthy fan told Sek on Pantip.com. “It was so unfair for you to ask us to be broadminded. If that was the case, why didn’t you sell all the tickets for Bt200?”
Another fan said Sek’s invitation to the cheapskates caused chaos. “I was really afraid when they were all rushing to the front that there’d be a stampede.” Other grumbling was aimed at the poor sound quality and – surprise, surprise – Sek’s behaviour.
Amphol “Nui” Lampoon came onstage and you could barely hear him sing, and his guitar went mute for awhile. Sek meanwhile swore at the crowd more or less at random. “He was using bad words and lighting cigarettes whenever he wanted,” said a fan who’s nevertheless managed to stick by Sek since he was eight years old.
Sek seemed to enjoy himself, even if some of the fans weren’t. He noticed yet another fight underway and called out, “You guys better get a room instead of fighting!” (Don’t ask us.)
As to the “main event” – Sek versus his wife in an interminable series of very public bouts – he took the opportunity to announce that he’s now single. In fact, he had the staff in T-shirts bearing the phrase “Sod ton 40” (“Single at age 40”) and during the finale invited a horde of pretties from Fashion TV onstage for a kiss. “I invested Bt300 million to bring these models from around the world,” he explained later on Facebook. “They came in seven chartered planes. So some hugs and kisses were just fair to me. I earned Bt2 billion from sponsors and ticket sales, so I still have some profit.” (As to the math, don’t ask us.)
One of the young ladies got a French kiss for a photo much circulated (“nang sod”, someone called it on Pantip – “explicit love scene). A long-time fan who only came to see Sek play music found it “totally unnecessary to bring up all the women”.
What’s saddest about all this is that these are his actual fans doing the complaining. Sek seems unfazed, announcing on Facebook later that there’ll be two more “40 Feel like 14” shows at Impact Arena and another 10 around the country. Let’s see how he does – or rather WHAT he does.