It was during the last song by Monkey Insane (
Monkey Insane edged out 10 other bands that competed through the sweltering Saturday afternoon heat to walk away with the top honors in Taiwan's only music awards to recognize amateur bands that have yet to release an album.
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
The competition was hard fought, according to the judge panel, with exceptional sets put in by the other participating bands, especially Mango Runs, Spunka, Relax One (
Stone ended up walking away with the Jury's prize, while Mango Runs and XL together shared the Indie Music Award.
The competition is held as part of the three-day Ho-Hai-Yan festival, which began on Friday and continued yesterday with a lineup of bands from Taiwan and abroad.
"There are far more people this year than any previous year," said Zhang 43, head of Taiwan Colors Music, which organized the first two days of festivities. "We've never seen this many people out here for a show before."
Indeed, the popular beach-side town of Fulong took on a carnival atmosphere throughout the weekend as thousands of concert-goers flooded in from Taipei and beyond for the annual event. Students, young office workers and even families with grandparents and tots in tow flooded the beach, turning it into a patchwork of towels and pick-up games of beach volleyball.
In previous years the bands performing on both stages tended toward the garage-band style that could impress with their raw energy if not their musical abilities. This year, however, the bands were of remarkably higher caliber.
"All the bands are really tight compared with last year. They can all really play their instruments and put together a set of solid music," Zhang said.
The music was set to get even better yesterday when MTV took over the reins of the festival "to put on its own lineup of groups from Taiwan and abroad. By yesterday afternoon crowds were swelling on the beach again to catch local favorites Sticky Rice (糯米團) and to see the headliners Jaurim from Korea and the Perishers from Sweden.
By any measure the festival was judged by organizers and concert-goers alike to be a smashing success. Even traffic was kept under control in the town as a heavy police force restrained crowds from swarming the coastal highway and extra trains carried the throngs into and out of town without much hassle.
July 28 to Aug. 3 Former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) reportedly maintained a simple diet and preferred to drink warm water — but one indulgence he enjoyed was a banned drink: Coca-Cola. Although a Coca-Cola plant was built in Taiwan in 1957, It was only allowed to sell to the US military and other American agencies. However, Chiang’s aides recall procuring the soft drink at US military exchange stores, and there’s also records of the Presidential Office ordering in bulk from Hong Kong. By the 1960s, it wasn’t difficult for those with means or connections to obtain Coca-Cola from the
Taiwan is today going to participate in a world-first experiment in democracy. Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers will face a recall vote, with the results determining if they keep their jobs. Some recalls look safe for the incumbents, other lawmakers appear heading for a fall and many could go either way. Predictions on the outcome vary widely, which is unsurprising — this is the first time worldwide a mass recall has ever been attempted at the national level. Even meteorologists are unclear what will happen. As this paper reported, the interactions between tropical storms Francisco and Com-May could lead to
It looks like a restaurant — but it’s food for the mind. Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center is currently hosting Comic Bento (漫畫便當店), an immersive and quirky exhibition that spotlights Taiwanese comic and animation artists. The entire show is designed like a playful bento shop, where books, plushies and installations are laid out like food offerings — with a much deeper cultural bite. Visitors first enter what looks like a self-service restaurant. Comics, toys and merchandise are displayed buffet-style in trays typically used for lunch servings. Posters on the walls present each comic as a nutritional label for the stories and an ingredient
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,