Five years since bringing together a few dozen amateur bands for a day on the beach at Fulung, Taipei County, the Gungliao Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival has morphed into a full-blown, three-day festival, this time with bonafide international stars, like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
The festival isn't on the scale of the major European festivals or Japan's Fuji Rock -- not even close -- but the exponential rate of the event's growth shows that it doesn't lack in ambition. And the fact that admission is free sets it apart from most festivals in a distinctly positive way.
"We'd like to see the festival develop into a benchmark event for the Chinese-speaking world," said Zhang 43 (
PHOTO COURTESY OF GUGNLIAO HO-HAI-YAN ROCK FESTIVAL
"Five years ago, the whole thing was organized on the fly, calling up people and saying `hey, why don't you show up and just play?'" he said. Now the festival rejects three times as many applications to play as it accepts.
battle of the bands
As in years past, the festival has two main parts: a battle of the bands between up-and-coming groups, and shows by major local and international bands. The first year of Ho-Hai-Yan, the battle theme was to pit local bands against expat bands, having taken inspiration from the interaction between groups that played at Spring Scream a few months earlier.
In its third year, the battle was called the Taiwan Indie Rock Award and started to give handsome cash prizes of NT$200,000. A second award, the judge's panel award, also gave a sizable check for NT$50,000.
The Indie Rock Award also attracted some controversy over the term "independent," which was used as a qualifying criterion. Many felt that some of the competing bands, in particular the ones with agents and management contracts, didn't quite live up to the term. So this year, the contest was opened to anyone, though the wording of the qualification criteria mentions the term "huaren" (
Anyway, the 10 bands that are competing in tomorrow's battle made it to the finals by passing a first cut with a demo and then making a second cut at concerts held in Tainan, Taichung and Taipei over the past month.
no more nu-metal
According to Zheng Hsiao-dao (
"The bands are a lot more interesting this year," said Zhang of TCM.
Those with the good fortune to be able to make it to Fulung today will be able to catch some of Taiwan's best bands.
This year's program
The music starts at 5pm with sets by last year's two winning bands, Stone and XL, both nu-metal groups that turned the several-thousand-person mosh pit in front of the stage into a frenzied, heaving mass.
Slowing things down a bit after these two will be Sandee Chen (
"Everyone split from [Clippers] on very bitter terms. So, whether they'll all show up to play is an open question," Zhang said. So fingers are crossed.
The big day of the festival will be Sunday, when three Taiwanese bands -- Chairman (
The first of these will be Mach Pelican, a Japanese punk band that lives and plays in Australia pretty much full time, followed by the 5,6,7,8's, the all-girl Japanese retro band featured in the climactic fight scene of Kill Bill Vol. 1.
Next up will be Dirty Three, an Australian three-person instrumental band with a huge following in Taiwan thanks to two brilliant live appearances in the past two years.
Contacted in Paris where he lives, Dirty Three's violinist Warren Ellis said "it seems like we're becoming quite a fixture over there, which is cool, I guess. In any case, I'm looking forward to it." So is, undoubtedly, most of Taiwan's indie-rock scene.
Closing the show will be the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, whose name effectively sums up the music the band plays and Andrew W.K., known for his hard-riffing metal anthems.
With the third day's lineup, the festival has taken a huge step toward trying to put itself on the map as a regional festival worth the attention of people beyond Taiwan. "We can't say now what next year's show will be like. But it's a good bet it will be even bigger," Zhang said.
Event information
What: Gungliao Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival
Where: Fulung beach, Taipei County
When: Tonight, tomorrow and Sunday
Admission to the festival is free
How to get there: Trains will be travelling in both directions between Taipei and Fulung at the rate of about one train every hour throughout the weekend. The last train back to Taipei on all three days leaves at 11:02pm.
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