It took Extreme decades to finally rock the stage in Malaysia but it was well worth the wait for their fans.
“But I’m glad you did and I love you!” Nuno shouted as fans cheered, shouting their welcome as well.
Extreme Asia Tour 2018 brought the Boston rock band down to Malaysia for a rocking performance on the evening of 10 June at KL Live at Life Centre.
Local band Estranged opened for Extreme at 8pm, before the headlining act took to the stage about an hour later.
Opening with “Monster”, Extreme performed 14 of their best tracks from various albums during the show, including “Hole Hearted”, “Play with Me” and “Rest in Peace”.
Nuno had no reason to worry that there might not be Extreme fans in Malaysia because judging by the loud voices singing along, the crowd was definitely made up of extremely big fans of theirs.
The guitarist later joked that everyone in the crowd should get each other’s numbers and form one big band because they sounded so good. “For the first 3000 or 4000 shows, you won’t make any money because there’s so many of you but you know, you do it for the love.”
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| The three original members of Extreme rocking the stage in Malaysia. |
The interaction was two-way at the show, as it wasn’t just the Extreme members talking to the crowd. “Selamat Hari Raya!”, fans shouted as Gary Cherone was talking to them. Much to the fans’ amusement, the bemused frontman replied, “Huh? I don’t know the language yet. I’ve only been here for a day!”
Of course, it will not be an Extreme concert without a performance of arguably their greatest hit, the US Billboard Hot 100 chart topper, “More than Words”.
The moment Nuno switched to his acoustic guitar and sat on one of two stools that suddenly materialised on stage, fans knew what was coming and everyone had their phones out, ready to film.
Gary joined him and as he held out his mic to the crowd, everyone automatically started singing “Saying I love you…”
The “More than Words” performance was a beautiful harmony of Gary’s and the fans’ heartfelt singing.
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| Don’t worry, Kevin got his chance to shine too with his drum solos. |
It wasn’t just the two founding members that had their moment to shine, of course. Kevin Figueiredo had plenty of chance to show off his drumming skills while bassist Pat Badger also got to belt out some pretty impressive high notes.
To wrap up the show, the band performed Queen’s “We Are the Champions”.
Later the band thanked the fans, with Nuno apologising for not being able to come down into the crowd as they’d been instructed not to do so. Kevin threw his drumsticks to the crowd (Pat and Nuno threw their guitar picks into the crowd plenty of times during the show) as they wandered the stage thanking everyone for coming.
Organised by IMC Live Group, other Southeast Asian stops including in Extreme Asia Tour 2018 are Singapore and Bangkok.