In my previous article you read about how the artist I managed got his first show in Myanmar (April 2016), and how we ended up in Yangon with multiple local DJs. After a fantastic week in ‘The Golden Land’ (as that’s how Myanmar is often named), the story continues.
In the summer of 2016 I was on a holiday trip to New York with my friend Michael. We visited Felicia, who was at that time doing her internship at the Dutch embassy. A couple of days before this trip I received a new booking request for Jurgen, this time his show would take place in a nightclub in Yangon, Myanmar. I was obviously super hyped, but also sad because I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity because of my holiday in the US. I had to find a way to combine things, so just a couple of days before my departure to New York I started planning and we managed to schedule things so that I would be back home just in time to make it to the flight to Myanmar.
Getting the visa
There was not really enough time to arrange a business visa for entry to Myanmar before our departure date. Thankfully, the country offers a ‘business visa on arrival’ procedure for these kind of urgent situations. We requested the required paperwork from the organizer and were provided with an official invitation letter in both English and Burmese, the company’s official registration certificate and required information about the company’s owner. This would’ve been sufficient to get the required visa on the airport of Yangon, Myanmar.
Let the jetlag begin!
I left New York on the 24th of August 2016 and arrived later that day in Amsterdam. I then flew together with Jurgen to Myanmar on the next day, the 25th of August 2016. Eventually arriving on the 26th. This schedule was obviously super tight and any delay could have had a big impact on my travel plans. But thankfully I made it. You can imagine I had quite a heavy jetlag at that time, and that would explain everything that happened that night, which I’ll tell more about below.
First of all: we arrived on the day of the show: the 26th of August. It was about 7PM when we finally got to the hotel. We arrived a couple of hours late because the traffic in Yangon was an absolute hell that day. I bet you can imagine how I felt after a roughly 30+ hour journey, travelling through 13 time zones, with little sleep.
The Clubhouse
The show going to take place in the basement of the beautiful and luxurious Kandawgyi Palace hotel, in a club called ‘’The Clubhouse’’. It was a members only club and meant for Myanmar’s elite, not a place for ordinary youth to hang out. It was different.
Time for a soundcheck
Jurgen and I had a meal (for those who are interested to know: these make part of the deal you make, so that’s included in the fee and to be offered by the organization). We then took a shower, but we certainly didn’t have enough time for a power nap. We had to do a soundcheck, so we walked the stairs down to the basement where we saw about 10 to 20 security guards being briefed by their manager. For some kind of reason there is always a lot of security in Burmese clubs and festivals. We walked further and ended up in a fully lit up club with luxurious sofas and tables everywhere. There was not really a dancefloor, only some open space right in front of the DJ booth. This was not an ordinary club, you could tell it had an elite feeling over it and I had never to such type of club before, so it was a new experience for me.
Let the show begin
In Asia, people will make sure your glass never gets empty. And me being afraid of seeming rude by denying a drink, kept accepting these many wodkas and wines that were offered to me. It’s fun that at that time it always seems like a good idea, but it’s the mornings after when the regret comes. Being the rookie manager I was at that time, I drank a little too much. (Tip for beginning artist managers/tour managers: STAY SOBER, haha).
I was so tired and the alcohol exhausted me even more so I decided to head back to my room, while Jurgen was having a little afterparty with some local DJs. I opened the hotel room door, closed it behind my back and I don’t know what went through my head, but I decided to lock the door with the anti theft buckle lock.
Later that night, Jurgen tried entering the hotel room but he found himself locked out. He couldn’t enter the room because I locked it from the inside. He knocked on the door, rang the bell and shouted through the little door opening, but without success. I didn’t hear a thing. My biological clock was totally messed up and the lack of sleep in combination with alcohol caused me to be in a very very deep sleep.
Hotel staff tried force opening the door, but without luck. Jurgen was offered an extra room to sleep in, and the next morning he did another attempt to enter the room. He knocked on the door, I opened it and there he was: angry, but also cry laughing because of what happened. The combination of a super jetlag, little amount of sleep and alcohol is not a good one. Don’t do it, even though I’d now say it was absolutely worth the experience.
The day after…
The next day was a Saturday and we planned to meet with some local friends to visit another club in Myanmar: Club FUSE. Not for a booking, but for fun! It’s the biggest and best known nightclub of the country. We went there with our friends (the local DJs we met months earlier) and had a fantastic time dancing and chilling in the VIP area of the club.
Looking back at this: that is such a weird experience. The only reason I was in that “VIP booth”, full of complimentary food and luxerious drinks was because I was managing a Dutch DJ who appeared to have become a local celebrity. ‘’Big in Myanmar’’ is what I should call it, I suppose.
The club was packed with people, and I got introduced to its owners and a bunch of other DJs that were playing there that night. Jurgen played a couple of tracks behind the decks with his local friends. The crowd responded really well, which is suppose the reason he got booked there for a proper show the year after. More about that in part 4 of this article series.
Seeing an old friend
The next day we decided to meet up with the guy who had invited us the year before in Mandalay. It was the person who kickstarted this whole career! Without that first show in Mandalay, all of the above would have probably never happened (or much later than it did now). It was fantastic to hang out again, and you obviously do that with some good food! (No karaoke this time unfortunately).
The airport
That evening we went clubbing and that marked our last full day in Myanmar again. We went back to the airport the next day and were supposed to be picked up and dropped off by one of our friends, he unfortunately didn’t show up because he missed his alarm clock. We took a taxi and headed to the airport.
Once we went through security and immigration, we received a call from him with his apologies. He didn’t want to let us leave without saying a proper goodbye, so he raced to the airport. Jurgen and I were however already at the gate waiting for our flight.
Our friend had some serious connections at the airport and managed to arrange a ‘’construction site pass’’ with which he could easily pass through airport crew entrances, immigration and security, ending up straight at our gate. I still don’t get how he has ever managed to do so, but it worked. There he suddenly was, chilling with us at the gate without even having a ticket! One good last goodbye hug and we continued our journey to Bangkok.
In Bangkok with Double U, Paing Takhon, and AR-T
Our friend Double U (biggest DJ in Myanmar) appeared to be on the same flight to Bangkok. He was together with some other local celebrities. One of them being AR-T, a singer from Myanmar and Paing Takhon, who is a local model. We went shopping at H&M (as that doesn’t exist in Myanmar) and then went straight to Khao San Road for some beer in the popular Thai backpackers street.
The next day we went to Pattaya for a day at the beach and to meet my friend Davide, who you probably by now know from one of my previous articles. Davide is the guy who made me enter the music industry, he is big in Japan! He moved to Thailand a couple of years earlier so it was time for a (2nd) visit to his Thai music studio!
The months after
In the months that followed we did A LOT, with shows during the Amsterdam Dance Event and a couple across Europe. One being in Spain. That trip marked the start of the launch of our own music label: Futurized. We started this project with our friends Rik and Coen, who at that time already ran a label and YouTube channel. We signed the first release in person, with artist manager Rafa, who was at that time managing a couple of local Spanish artists. The song was an instant success with a couple of hundreds of thousands Spotify streams and 100K+ YouTube streams.
For a few months not much happened on the Asian continent, until we managed to get a booking in Vietnam. A country both of us had never been before!
