Ramona Depares reviews a recent night of music organised by Moviment Graffiti with the aim of raising awareness about environmental issues.

The environment – or rather, the way we are killing it off – has been dominating the news during these past months. The amount of transgressions that our politicians are cool with is infuriating and ranges from allowing massive infractions like building on ODZ land, to giving obvious eyesores the green light, killing off beautiful buildings to make way for more soulless concrete and harbouring a general disregard for ‘green’ issues.

There’ve been protests, complaints, media reports and police interrogations that were suspect at best and a violation of human rights at worst. The message, by now, should be getting through to the authorities loud and clear. Green votes matter, especially to the younger generation. And they matter across the board, not just for a small number of so-called hippies or tree-huggers.

This movement towards safeguarding our planet (we do need to live on it, after all) was very evident during Rock Ambjent, a music event organised last week by Moviment Graffiti at The Funky Monkey, a new performance venue on Manoel Island that also houses the old boċċi club of Gżira by day. The venue turned out to be very apt as it also reflected the current trend towards reclaiming unused/underused spaces and transforming them into viable locations that can potentially host not only music gigs, but also visual exhibitions, film nights and the like. The sizeable stage, dancing area and bar indoors are complemented with a lounge area and another performance area outdoors (where the actual boċċi are played), so I anticipate that The Funky Monkey will turn out to be popular even in the summer months.

Really great music from local scene heavyweights, a game crowd and a cause worth getting behind made this one a night for the books

For this particular event, the chillout area leading to the entrance was transformed into a Moviment Graffiti zone – members from the green movement were present to explain the goals behind the NGO and how they are planning to achieve them, which made a nice change from simply hosting an event in aid of a cause and leaving it at that.

Given that people can only be genuinely committed to a cause if they understand what’s behind it, this was an excellent move that I’m sure increased the reach of the message to people who normally wouldn’t necessarily get behind a ‘green’ agenda. The merch stand, against donations, seemed to likewise be doing a brisk trade.

Chris Radium

The evening’s proceedings were set to kick off with Bila, a relatively new punk band made up of familiar names on the music scene. Hip-hop outfit Sempliċiment tat-Triq followed. Although I did not arrive in time to catch either of them, their style of music and lyrics would have undoubtedly worked very well with the theme of the evening.

I arrived at The Funky Monkey just in time to catch post-punkers The Violent Violets. Since I first saw these guys perform during the Nil By Mouth sessions at the sadly-defunct V-Gen back in 2012, they have become giants on the local scene, their album Tame placing them securely on the list of top Maltese bands that are shaping the indie industry. Pre-gig, I had wondered whether The Funky Monkey would work out for them, given that I feel the sheer, raw energy of this band deserves a larger space. However, I was wrong and the venue handled their sound well, aided by a soundman, who was very much on the ball.

Next up were the godparents of Maltese indie, The Beangrowers, still going strong for what must now be getting close to two decades. The Beanies gave a great set – not to mention a great pep talk related to the topic at hand – that incorporated a lot of their new material and some classics, before closing off with 1999 hit AstroBoy and literally sending the crowd wild with a wave of nostalgia.

The night closed off with an eclectic set by DJ Chris Radium, who kicked off with the toe-tapping Surfing Bird by Trashmen, quickly followed by Violentami sul Metro, a rather rare Jo Squillo cover of Blitzkrieg Pop. This paved the way for punk, dark indie, surf rock and Italo disco with a set that kept everyone moving till the (very) early hours. Going back to Johnathan Cilia’s Sacred Noise review on last week’s edition of Escape, it was refreshing to see that the infamous cigarette breaks made no appearance.

Worth mentioning is the fact that all bands and the DJ all offered their services for free on the night. In short, Rock Ambjent gave us really great music from local scene heavyweights, a game crowd and a cause worth getting behind, making this one a night for the books.

For more information about how you can get behind this cause, visit www.movimentgraffitti.org.