Rock for a reason

Pandas don't come in peace.

That was the message dark metal frontman Freddy Lim (林昶佐) had for his fans at this weekend's Formoz Festival (野台開唱), the annual three-day series of rock concerts he organizes through record label TRA Music.

In April, Taiwan rejected China's "goodwill" offer of two giant pandas, calling the proposal a propaganda ploy. Lim, who also organizes the Say Yes to Taiwan music festival, is a strong advocate of an independent Taiwanese national identity.

Lim normally bellows demonic lyrics about ghosts and Taiwanese legends with his band Chthonic (閃靈樂團), but at their performance Saturday night he departed from the usual repertoire to cover the Radiohead song Creep, which includes the lyrics: "What the hell am I doing here?/ I don't belong here."

"Do you know what this means?" asked Lim, who was decked out in full dark metal regalia, with white face paint, a black mesh shirt, and an upside-down cross dangling from a chain around his neck.

Lim told his audience that a graffiti artist had painted an image of a panda along with the words "I come in peace," near the entrance to the Wall, a rock venue he owns on Roosevelt Road in Taipei. Lim said he crossed out the message and wrote "I'm a creep" next to the image.

The purpose of this song "is to tell you that pandas don't belong here," he said.

"Freddy believes Taiwan is a separate nation and he feels that China's offer to send pandas is a disingenuous goodwill gesture," TRA spokeswoman Molly Chen (陳惠婷) said in a phone interview yesterday.

Last week, the China Times reported that Lim had signed an Internet petition calling on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to resign because of corruption allegations that have dogged close advisers and family members. The document reportedly was also "signed" by Chen's mother and US President George W. Bush. Lim stated in interviews with the media before and after the article was published that he did not sign the petition.

Plenty of people were on hand to hear his message on Saturday. Organizers sold more than 10,000 tickets for this year's festival, which featured 100 bands performing on eight stages at Taipei's Yuanshan Children's Recreation Center (台北市兒童育樂中心) Friday, Saturday and last night. TRA's Chen said staff had recorded roughly 50,000 entries to the festival grounds by Sunday afternoon.

The hope was that some of them would come away having had more than just a good time. This year non-governmental organizations were given booths at a Social Action Village (公共議題村), which was set up between the main stage areas.

"We're happy," said Dana Wu (吳佳臻) of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (台灣人權促進會). Some 320 people on Friday and Saturday had signed a petition protesting the demolition of the Happy Life leprosarium, she said yesterday in a phone interview. "This is exposing a lot of young people to the work that NGOs do," she added.

But a volunteer with the Green Citizen's Action Alliance (綠色公民行動聯盟) said he wasn't sure how many people had visited his booth because he was paying too much attention to the music.

Formoz got off to a rollicking start Friday evening, with Japanese ska-punk band Kemuri and Welsh post-alternative rockers Super Furry Animals providing two of the festival's best performances.

But fans at the Wind Stage (風舞台), where the two foreign bands performed, responded more enthusiastically to a run-of-the-mill effort by popular local act Won Fu (旺福). While Kemuri inspired some crowd surfing, the Super Furry Animals' performance -- clearly the night's most memorable -- drew less of a reaction.