Taiwan rock comes of age?

Amassive thunderstorm ripped through Taipei on Friday afternoon threatening to short circuit Formoz 2001 -- Taiwan's first hardcore rock festival -- before it even started. But by 5pm, the sky had cleared, dispelling the organizer's fears.

Taking place at Hwashang Arts District (華山藝術特區), the event brought an unprecedented number of big name acts from Japan and the US to perform over the last three days. With tickets priced high at NT$3,500 each for the three days, Taiwanese gladly took up the time honored rock 'n' roll tradition of fence jumping. Organizers made a disgruntled announcement from the outdoor stage for members of the audience to inspect the person next to them for wristband ticket passes, making ironic threats of violence.

Saturday afternoon was dominated by the all femme cutie-punks Softball from Japan. The grrrls showed that they weren't just pretty faces, making a nod to local political history with the third track on Just Try It, their latest album -- titled 0228 after Taiwan's 228 Incident. A pity that the lead singer's guitar kept falling down like a loose bra strap.

Later Magane took over the outdoor stage, whipping themselves and the crowd into a frenzy. The influence of Brit heavy metal glam rockers Kiss was quite obvious in their music and make-up. Japan's three girl hardcore act, Yellow Machine Gun, followed up with one of the heaviest sets of the festival.

A few hours later and indoors, the much heralded Yo La Tengo from the US seemed to be having problems with the sound system but the crowd didn't seem to care.

The highlight on the outdoor stage Saturday night was Biohazard. It was lead guitarist Billy Graziadel's birthday and he delighted the crowd by teaching them how to form a "circle of life" -- Taiwan's first ever rotating mosh. "I almost fell down then someone helped me up," gasped one participant breathlessly. A few minutes later, the police arrived to shut down the outdoor stage, the birthday boy winked a quick brown-eye to the audience, and that was it for Saturday night outdoors.

Sunday afternoon, Japan's Garlic Boys became an instant crowd favorite and local Taiwanese bands proved their metal: Celluloid indoors, Chairman outdoors and later Echo gave a stirring performance at the indoor stage. And all of this was only a prelude to the festival's raging climax, the appearance of Megadeth, who were scheduled to perform late Sunday night.

So, has the Taiwanese rock scene finally come of age? The festival's main organizer, Freddy (佛來敵), said that despite the unanticipated problems of bringing in some of the world music scene's major acts -- a truckload of sound equipment was flown in for Megadeth alone -- the festival was both a learning experience and a success.

"We had a lot of Japanese bands that wanted to come and we had to turn several away," he said. "We hope we can bring them over in future, in addition to other western bands. It'll be both an inspiration and a boost to the local scene."