Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall performed all the top hits from his 40-year career, and then some. (Right) Talented Thai artist Phum Viphurit was a hit with the younger crowd. — Photos: SUNLEE KHAN/Desaru Coast
Some artistes make great festival openers, while others are great at closing them. Simply Red is one that could actually do both.
The Ombak Festival 2025, held from Sept 12-14 during the extra-long Malaysia Day “weekend”, once again took place at Desaru Coast, Johor’s premium travel destination. This is the second time the festival is held, and just like last year, it involved all the four resorts – Hard Rock Hotel Desaru Coast, The Westin Desaru Coast, Anantara Desaru Coast Resort & Villas, and The Sireya Desaru Coast (formerly One & Only Desaru Coast).
But back to Simply Red and its charismatic lead singer, Mick Hucknall. The British group celebrates its 40th year in the music industry this year and has been touring around the world since the end of February. Malaysia is its only Asian stop, says Hucknall mid-performance on Sept 14 at Ombak.
He placed an emphasis on the word “only”, much to the delight of the crowd. It’s nice to be treated special, after all.
Simply Red’s set closed the second day of the festival, but in a way it also felt like it was the opening show to the “main” part of Ombak.
Sure, every aspect of a festival is just as important as the Main Stage performances, but we all know that the reason why most people buy tickets to a festival is to watch the big shows. And this year’s line-up was a solid, albeit eclectic one.
Joss Stone knew how to pump up the crowd.
Apart from Simply Red, the other big international artistes were British pop soul singer Joss Stone and US funk outfit George Clinton & The Parliament Funk, as well as Australia’s dance duo Flight Facilities (who played at the Ombak Stage) and Thailand’s indie star, Phum Viphurit.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Joe Flizzow, SonaOne and Ismail Izzani each held their own on the Main Stage for more than 90 minutes, with a seamless and fantastic, heart-pumping show.
“Ombak Festival 2025 was designed as a bold celebration of Asean creativity, culture and community and our artistes and festivalgoers helped us deliver just that,” said Karina Ridzuan, director of Ombak Festival 2025, in a post-show press release.
The Main Stage was positioned in the same place as last year’s festival, which is great because that’s pretty much the centre of Desaru Coast.
Folks who stayed nearby could easily walk there, or just grab one of the handful zero-emission shuttles to the venues (Main Stage or Festival Village at Riverside).
The Funfair of Forgotten Futures was an activity space for kids and the young-at-heart, featuring fun interactive games like this balancing scale.
The Festival Village had a small stage, too, where bands like Kyoto Protocol, Golden Mammoth, Masia One & The Jah Jah Army, Sunwich and The Filters played.
It was also the stage for the Keluar Sekejap Podcast with Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan, who on Saturday featured a string of guests including Masia One, Fuad of Kyoto Protocol and Clinton. Needless to say, this session was very popular and attracted many festivalgoers.
Shows aside, what was wonderful to see at this year’s Ombak was the vast improvement at the Festival Village. Thanks to a thoughtful curation by Pasar Seloka, which is known for organising lifestyle pop-up events, the Festival Village saw a bigger crowd this time around. These visitors – many of which were not wearing festival wristbands, meaning they were not there for the Main Stage shows – also hung out for much longer, even when it started to rain on Saturday.
A young boy enjoying a kite he helped make at the kite-making workshop.
The kids were running around, playing games and blowing bubbles, while the adults were just hanging out at the many Instagram-worthy picnic-style spots around the area.
One of the standout spaces was the Funfair of Forgotten Futures, which featured old-school interactive games that were fun not just for the kids but adults too.
There was also a space dedicated to the Department of Orang Asli Development (Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli/JAKOA), where visitors could learn about the Orang Asli communities in Johor. While this was a good addition to the festival, I do wish it was more interactive, just like the Funfair of Forgotten Futures. Perhaps next year, the department could plan for something more engaging.
Main food vendors were few compared to last year, but it was enough to feed the crowd. Beverage carts and snack huts were placed all around, while the Glasshouse hosted two popular Klang Valley dessert shops, a craft beer brand and a pop-up vinyl store.
Talented Thai artist Phum Viphurit was a hit with the younger crowd.
One of the dessert places was MadHatter Desserts, helmed by Chef Marcus Low, who held cookie-baking workshops for kids on both Saturday and Sunday at the Glasshouse.
Overall, this second edition of the Ombak Festival saw many improvements as compared to its inaugural run. But there are still kinks that need to be ironed out. For example, ground transportation.
While the shuttles were great, they were mostly for guests who stayed within Desaru Coast, and not in the greater Desaru and Bandar Penawar area. There were buses prepared for folks who stayed outside of Desaru Coast, but there was just not enough information on that.
Perhaps a collaboration or partnership with all properties within Desaru should be in the cards for next year’s festival. And there should be another Ombak Festival, seeing as how next year is both Visit Johor Year 2026 and Visit Malaysia 2026.
Wouldn’t it be great to make Ombak one of the main attractions of these two events?
George Clinton (middle) with some of his Parliament Funkadelic band members. — MELODY L. GOH/The Star
