IT was good to perform live again with a band after so long. It’s like meeting an old friend after decades apart.

In gigging, just like any production, be it musical or something commercial, pre-production rituals are just as important as the gig itself.

This is even more critical if one is performing at a venue or location you have never performed at before. Everything is fresh and vivid, even the mundane.

Our soundcheck was the day before the gig itself, on a Friday night, so I took the opportunity to head in earlier, ahead of Kuala Lumpur’s “traditional” rush hour traffic.

My greatest fear heading into the capital is always rain – not because I detest rain, quite the contrary I love rainy days – but because what follows are flash floods, and you know how that usually transpires.

To my liking, it was cloudy, and not rainy like previous days, although there’s always still a fair degree of anxiety over a sudden turn of the weather.

I hung around, caught a nice golden hour sunset over Masjid Negara and Dayabumi, the former centres of the capital in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

Ate my tapau char kuey teow in the usual luxurious-looking pearly white Styrofoam container with chopsticks. I always have to request for one because I probably don’t look like I’m capable of using them.

Jalan Panggong, if you didn’t know, is changing. It had a dimmer reputation in the past, but has remained a relatively peaceful corner of downtown since there’s a police station nearby.

Dealing with parking touts is the usual tango one must take if you drive, but there’s now an MRT stop in Pasar Seni.

The dodgy back alleys, where I used to find free parking when I sometimes, somehow slip past the touts, are now brightly lit and painted with Instagram-ready walls, with upscale cafés, bars and dining establishments.

Findars, an arts and performance space that houses all kind of cultural events, was the dim light shining at the end of the cultural tunnel of downtown KL about a decade ago.

It had a nice view from the Jalan Panggong end of the windows on the top floor of the row of shop lots.

Now the place is no more; the space became RAW Art Space, which carried the torch for a couple of years before closing down just a couple of months ago in 2021.So here I am going up the stairs and elevator of the adjacent lot. It feels like a new place with new possibilities. And even more so because of the experimental nature and non-commercial intent of the event by KLEX and the venue – The Percussion Store.

It’s always a hoot to arrive for soundchecks to see if you are the first of your band mates to arrive. I usually am but, today, my drummer, a good friend, beat me to it as I noticed his equipment by the wall.

I’m doing this as people commute, leaving the centre rather peaceful and tranquil, actually.

Most of the time you are going against the flow, really. Everybody’s leaving, on the way back to somewhere, retreating, while you head on forward in the opposite direction, which is culturally interesting.

I’m sure there’s some smart sounding terminology for this on YouTube somewhere but I’m not concerned about that. It’s these little moments of realisation that reminds us that we’re alive, we’re in the here and now.

It’s easy to forget or be distracted by things in our head instead of what’s immediately in front of us, or even where we are standing.

I think about these things when I am at the soundcheck of most events. It’s clandestine in the sense that the average audience does not know about this pre-production process.

There’s some excitement, some paranoia, too, about leaving or forgetting an important piece of your instrument behind. Sometimes it can be a long wait, an arduous sonic martial art that the trusted soundman works his magic on.

It’s magical to me because I choose to maintain the wonder – call it resistant naivete. We all need this. Let yourself not know about something too much.

Just as there’s history in the crevices, in the hints of mould on the tiles, the old dust clinging to the ancient kaki lima ceilings, of these shop lots along Jalan Panggong, there’s simple pleasure in looking up – just tilting your head even – to take in the façade, the roots, how the light reflects.

Then you notice a strange metallic object jutting out from one of the Petaling Street shops – itself abandoned and adorned with rental and sales banners. It’s atop the hill off Jalan Sultan. Another one.

It’s good to travel downtown, noticing buildings and structures you know wasn’t there before.

Just like the sweet jagged sounds we made during our soundcheck, the meeting of old friends in the old part of the capital to grasp what is still left before the glory of gentrification devours everything and everyone and all that is left is the same sunset and sky.

Here’s to hoping there’ll still be music in these shop lots for at least a decade to come. – December 3, 2021.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.