Hijab-wearing heavy metal band set to smash stereotypes at UK music festival

Watchdog looking at potential collusion between operators on S’pore-Batam route

- Hariz Baharudin

JAKARTA Smashing barriers is something all-female heavy metal band Voice Of Baceprot (VOB) do well, and their voices will be heard loud and proud when they take to the stage at the iconic Glastonbury Festival in late June.

The three young hijabis, or Muslim women who wear headscarves, are debunking stereotypes of metalheads often seen as noisy, tattooed and overwhelmingly male and challenging established norms in Muslim-majority Indonesia, hitting milestones and earning an international reputation along the way with their gutsy message of non-conformity.

On May 2, news broke that VOB will perform at Glastonbury, the first Indonesian band to do so in the music festival's 54-year history.

Britain's biggest performing arts festival is held for five days at a 364ha site on Worthy Farm in Somerset County, south-western England. In 2023, over 200,000 people attended the event, with a record 21.6 million watching the BBC's television coverage of the event.

Two weeks later, VOB found themselves among the trailblazers in the entertainment and sports field listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Class of 2024.

When band members Firda Marsya Kurnia, Widi Rahmawati and Euis Siti Aisyah heard the double serving of good news, they broke out into boisterous cheers and celebration.