PETALING JAYA, May 7 — Two local artistes have confirmed their performances at the “Konsert Langkawi Hebat 2018” tomorrow, which will coincide with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s final stop of his Election 2018 campaign.

Artistes DJ Dave and Ruffedge both told Malay Mail that they will be at the event featuring others such as Datuk Ramli Sarip, Dayang Nurfaizah, Ayda Jebat, Syamel, Ernie Zakri, Zahirah MacWilson and Achey Bocey.

When contacted about the purpose of the concert that has yet to be officially announced and sparingly promoted so far, the two said they were not privy to this as they were only invited as recently as last week to perform.

DJ Dave said he received calls from around three people asking him to perform three songs including 2014 hit Kawan Setia.

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“It’s a concert about unity. They wanted me to sing Kawan Setia which I recorded a few years ago,” said Dave.

Kawan Setia is a song about friendship, about people not stabbing each other in the back. When you are up, your friends are there with you. When you’re down, they’re no longer there.”

The song was also selected by Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak for use in his election campaign.

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A video of the track was also recorded and released via state broadcaster RTM on May 2.

Dave said he was pleased by the BN chairman’s support for the song.

When asked about a possible clash with Dr Mahathir’s rally on the island around the same time, Dave said he does not believe there will be a conflict.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. The events are being held at different padangs, so it won’t clash,” Dave said.

The star-studded show is will be held at Dataran Lang at 8pm, while Dr Mahathir is hoping to assemble a crowd at Dewan Ho Peng just 3.5km away.

Numbers of Dr Mahathir’s recent ceramahs have swelled into the thousands. There are around 40,000 registered voters out of Langkawi’s 80,000 population.

Konsert Langkawi Hebat headliner Ramli also confirmed the show via Instagram an hour ago, encouraging his 51,000 followers to attend the open entry event for the chance to receive gifts.

Hip-hop and R&B band Ruffedge said the request to perform at the open concert came late, saying they received a call from Nur Iman Tang, a prominent event organiser and artiste manager, last week.

“We are not aware what the concert is about, but the band’s schedule was free so we accepted the offer,” said Ruffedge’s manager.

“It was really last minute.”

When asked if she knew the identity of the event’s organiser, she replied in the negative and said the band was nonetheless pleased to be asked to perform.