A year around town

The past year has been Taiwan become more firmly imbedded on the international cultural events circuit with concerts and performances given by some of the world's top performers. The local scene didn't fair too badly either with contemporary music and the traditional arts making strides at home and abroad. Interestingly, only one event from the first half of the year made it on to the list. Below are the 'Taipei Times' top 10 events from 2005, listed in chronological order.

Samingad wows fans at Red Theater

(Jan. 14)

Songstress Samingad (紀曉君) represented Taiwan at the 2005 MIDEM conference -- the first time Taiwan has been invited to perform at the event that draws the world's top music industry professionals to Cannes, France each year. Before she left, she let local audiences hear for themselves why she was chosen. Her concert at Taipei's Red Theater not only brought a full house, it brought together some of Taiwan's best Aboriginal musicians to help her stage one of the year's most memorable performances.

Formoz Festival socks it to rockers!

(July 29 through July 31)

The Formoz Festival (野台開唱) celebrated its 11th anniversary in style with an electric atmosphere. The hot and humid weather conditions that greeted music fans was best summed up by the star of the festival, Moby, who, halfway through his set addressed the crowd with two simple words -- "It's hot!" He the stole the show with his blistering non-stop 90-minute set.

And hot it certainly was. The festival included great sets from folk-rocker Lisa Loeb, Japan's hugely entertaining J-pop combo Kishidan, high-energy ska outfit Kemuri and Taiwan's Golden Melody Award winning black-metal act Chthonic (閃靈樂團), who in an odd choice of couplings teamed up with ocal alt-pop/rock star Sandee Chen (陳珊妮).

Public Enemy

(Aug. 17)

Public Enemy was in magnificent voice when it delivered a two-and-a-half hour set at Ministry of Sound in Taipei, playing songs from their earliest and latest albums and also taking a bite out of other artists' repertoires, with nods to Rage against the Machine, the Wu Tang Clan and most impressively a final encore of Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, including guitar picking with the teeth and a wall of feedback.

It was hard, old-school hip hop, angry and uncompromising. Earlier, Chuck D and Griff rolled out the band's manifesto for journalists and talked about the "four elements" (DJing, MCing, graffiti and breakdancing), the current state of hip hop and changes in the recording industry -- but managed to veer away from the Jewish question and other thorns that have stuck in their side before now.

`Chicago' makes a splash in Taipei

(Aug. 6 through Aug. 17)

It's not often that Taipei theater goers get to savor a Broadway show, but when the traveling production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Chicago rolled into town for two-weeks of performances at the National Theater audiences were delighted.

And rightly so, as while Chicago's staging was minimalist the musical still managed to captivate its audience thanks to inspired performances from Kevin Carolan, Terra MacLeod and Tracy Shayne.

The highly sexual choreography of Bob Fosse and show-stopping numbers helped of course, and tunes like All That Jazz, Cell Block Tango and We Both Reached for the Gun were all expertly executed.

`Taike' comes out of the closet