PenEk and the big bang

The filmmaker has fun with the audience at Hua Hin

Music lovers enjoyed a different kind of experience over the weekฌend at Heineken's second music campaign "Shoot the Music with PenEk" concert, held last Saturday in Hua Hin. The sixhour music event featured plenty of local favourite pop acts along with interฌnational headliner, Babyface. But what made the event special was that this time, the concert was "directed" by filmmaker PenEk Ratanaruang.

Advertising as the first concert with a cinematic show, the event merged live music performances with the screening of film footage. "I want to create a sensation among the audience and let them feel involved in the emotion from each show. This sort of experience usualฌly occurs when we watch a movie, and you become personally engaged in the happening in the film," PenEk explained.

And it was fun watching random clips with amusingly dubbed conฌversations between band breaks - entertainment for those who did not leave their spot for a beer refill or a toilet break. But somehow the "merging" did not involve the audiฌence anymore than the live music performances. Nobody felt for a minute as though they were watchฌing a film, or part of a film in the making. It merely felt like a typical Heineken outdoor music event - a combination of music, beers, snacks, toilet cubicles, unnecessariฌly well dressed people and sitting on wellmanicured grass.

Half way through the concert, though, a small explosion erupted on stage. The lights went out and everything froze. The organiser led us to think that it was a technical breakdown for a few minutes, then PenEk on the big screen confessed that it was part of the "experience" and the scene filmed from this conฌcert would be the ending of the speฌcial short film, the director had made exclusively for Heineken. That short is called "It's Personal" and stars Tar Barbie and Ex Thiti.

The concert resumed with live pop and Thaistyle R&B performฌances by Tu Popthorn, Tor+ Saksit, Lipta, members of Monotone group, Tul Apartment Khun Pa, who delivered a rap session for old school pop duo Bird and Hart, and many others. There were so many acts that each got to sing only one or two songs.

The highlight of the show came on later in the night in the person of multitalented singer and songฌwriter Babyface. The 3times Grammy Award winner performed his classic compositions "I'll Make Love to You", "End of the Road", "Never Keeping Secrets", "Change the World", "Every Time I Close My Eyes" and capped off the event with "When Can I See You".