Burmese Band Rocks SEA

A rock band from Burma, Unrivalled, won the second round of a rock music contest involving more than 3,000 bands from Southeast Asian nations held in Malaysia in June. The contest was organized by the Malaysia-based AirAsiaRedTix.com and MTV Asia.

Mon Bwe, a member of Unrivalled, told The Irrawaddy that for the first round of the competition his band had to submit English language songs. Of the thousands of participants, his band was one of only 30 that were selected to move on to the second round.

Unrivalled traveled to Malaysia on June 26 for the second round—testing voice—and was once again chosen to move on in the competition, he said.

“We used our music television video (MTV) to contest it and were again picked,” said Mon Bwe.

Unrivalled is the first rock music band from Burma that has ever been able to compete in the international music contest.

“We were able to compete with others in terms of song and playing technique, but we had weak points in our MTV. In shooting technique, I think Burma is far behind the others in Southeast Asia,” said Mon Bwe.

Most of the bands that took part in the contest were from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam and Burma. Seventeen music bands from Burma participated in the contest, but only Unrivalled was selected for the second round in Malaysia.