Bring on the heavy hitters

Once strictly a one-day head-banging hard-rock affair, the Formoz Festival (野台開唱) has, over the past 13 years, morphed into a three-day musical mishmash featuring an eclectic assortment of sounds from both home and abroad.

Organized by TRA Music with additional assistance from corporate and individual sponsors, this year's festival will again be held at the Yuanshan Children's Recreational Center (台北市兒童育樂中心) in Taipei.

In keeping with tradition, Formoz Festival 2006 has a bit of everything for everyone.

Over 300 local bands applied to play at the festival and more than 100 others from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US sent in demo tapes. Of these, TRA chose what they considered to be the best 100 acts.

This year's leading international performers include post-alternative band the Super Furry Animals and mod-punk combo Dirty Pretty Things, both from the UK, and Japan's ska-punk outfit Kemuri and pop-rock sensation Nanaseaikawa.

On the home front, Formoz features some great local sounds from one-time pop singer turned electronica-giant Lim Kiong (林強), retro-jangle-pop act Won Fu (旺福), downbeat trio Tizzy Bac, nu-metal combo Monkey Insane (潑猴), nakashi-punk five-piece LTK (濁水溪公社) and alternative Aboriginal rock from Totem (圖騰).

And of course, there's also a whole heap of sounds from lesser-known Taiwanese acts and several bands from Japan who enjoy what can politely be described as “a minor following” in Taiwan. These include Japanese heavy-metal groups Outrage and King's Evil.

Although some of the local bands performing this year have already appeared at other summer festivals, TRA Music has set out to ensure that the bands don't play the same material in the same format at Formoz.

And some of these bands will be sounding very different indeed. Tizzy Bac will be performing live with most of a classical orchestra, Back Quarter (四分衛) will be backed up by a brass section and Chthonic (閃靈樂團) will be throwing in a few curveballs and performing some uncharacteristic cover tunes.

However, some bands, including boring faux-Brit pop act 1976, have managed to slip through the net and will, no doubt, be playing the same old songs, again.

According to TRA founder and Golden Melody Award winner Freddy Lin (林旭佐) this is the last year this will happen. Next year he intends to ensure the lineup is fresh by only signing local acts who don't perform at any of the other summer music festivals.

“We didn't want to book quite a few local bands because they play all the time at free festivals. The only people who go to see them all the time are their friends,” Lin said. “So by not booking them we're certainly not going to lose any money. I figure more people will pay to see bands they haven't seen in a long time rather than ones they can see every week.”

Last year's event — which featured performances by electonica/rock superstar Moby — was attended by over 35,000 people. While TRA is for all intents and purposes adhering to the same tried-and-tested format — five stages offering different types of music and plenty of stalls selling everything from CDs to Mexican chow — it has made a few minor alterations.

Lin reckons the changes will make this year's event better and far more user-friendly. The music may have been faultless in 2005, but the purchasing of food, drinks and paraphernalia left hundreds of festival-goers unimpressed.