I'm Indonesian, and I've waited around 13 years to have DT played the 1st time in Indonesia, and the others were around 20 years or more waited for them. So it's kinda magical to have them played here 2nd time this year. Like Xmas came early.
Here's my personal theory...
Rumors told that Portnoy against cig and alcohol drink sponsor, while in my country, those 2 are the biggest sponsor possible to have the great metal concert to respect the music and audience. So many local promoters have tried to ask DT to come and ended up rejected.
When I heard Potnoy left the band, my heart raced by agony coz he left and by excitement coz DT may have their concert here. And voila, they did, on 2012.
Based on this personal experience, I, myself, alone, I guess, believe my own theory is true.
But yeah, you can add up some security problems, being conservative, majority are moslem, and so on into the reasoning of it, plus our bureaucracy is the most complicated one in the whole world I believe, and this metal head president is about to fix them, so...hallelujah!
The reality is, we are not so conservative. The media mostly highlighted on several things like that out of oddity of this modern era, but it's not generally Indonesian. What's even surprising is when Stryper came to one of big rock fest in Indonesia, I met moslem fans even sing along and spilled the name Jesus within the lyric... So Indonesian metal-heads are religious and pretty respective to other religion as well. Maybe we shall worry more to those who are not into metal...
You may laugh on the joke of DT played in Indonesia, we will not blame anyone for joke like that, but you may have to try waited for 20 years or so to have the band you love played in your country to really understand it...
And yeah, we have a huge metal fan base of many bands, but since the society may perceive us as (maybe) savages, we usually stay humble and rage on the right time and place... But I guess metal heads not care much of what people said to them...
And from my own experience is that attending K-Pop concerts are FAR more dangerous than metal concerts. I've been to concerts of megadeth, iron maiden, helloween, DT (of course), metallica, and some others and NO ONE ever stepped on my shoes, or hurt me in anyway. (Yeah I have interest too in kpop stuff... I just have wide range of interest)
And Jokowi, our president, failed to attend any DT's concert, coz the 1st one he had a social event in his neighborhood, and the 2nd one he has to announce the cabinets of his presidential in the afternoon. So he missed those DT concerts. But he came on metallica's concert, he stood 10 rows behind me.
Just adding more information if you still curious about the Indonesian thing...