The spring break party weekend starts today, with half a dozen monster-sized parties and music festivals happening along the beachy areas of southern Taiwan throughout the weekend. Organizers are building DJ stages over swimming pools, loading foam-sprayers and stocking huge quantities of alcohol in the firm belief that this weekend will truly be epic.
The event that started all of this is Spring Scream, a three day music festival for indie and underground bands. It began in 1995 as a gathering of around 300 musicians and friends, and its phenomenon has now morphed, kind of like those never-ending mutating blobs in the film Akira, into a party weekend that the Tourism Bureau estimates draws 600,000 visits to the surrounding Hengchun region.
In its 21st incarnation, the event will feature 200 bands on six stages, including bands from Japan, Israel, India, Switzerland, Canada and Sweden, as well as a large selection of indie bands from Taiwan, Hong Kong and southeast Asia.
.Photo courtesy of Spring Scream
Event founder Jimi Moe says Spring Scream crowds have been steady at around 5,000 visitors for the last several years. In the midst of the raves and electronic music beach parties, he and co-founder Wade Davis believe that what makes them unique is a genuine commitment to culture and creativity.
“It’s about people spending time together in nature for three days with a bunch of cool musicians and artists,” says Moe, a Seattle native who has lived in Taiwan for over two decades.
“Really, it’s as simple as that,” Moe says.
Photo courtesy of Spring Scream
Spring Scream occupies a grassy park near Taiwan’s southern tip. The site includes a camping area, and it has always had a bit of a hippy feel. The festival moved to its current site, which is about 20 minutes by car away from the noisy crowds of central Kenting, around 10 years ago, when the spring break party scene began exploding and local officials redistributed event sites.
Though the Spring Scream event format is well established, Moe and Davis continue to keep fiddling with the template. The stages and performance schedule will run from noon to midnight as always. But this year they’ll try to develop the more participatory culture of the campground.
“The campground has always had bands or groups camping together. We really want to develop those as hubs and places where things can happen, so we’re going to give them more facilities, like small stages and other equipment to help develop that,” Moe says, adding, “So even after the stages shut down, the campground can go all hours.”
Photo courtesy of Spring Scream
Moe says the idea is influenced by his first ever visit to Burning Man last fall, a week-long festival in the Nevada desert that is famous for forbidding the use of money. He went together with about 50 others, including Taiwanese and Taiwanese-Americans, who created their own Taiwan Temple Pavilion as one of the many Burning Man campsites. They erected a temple, provided fortune telling services to any visitors, and late at night drove a pedicab food cart out into the desert to give away bowls of ramen noodles.
“For the first couple days, I really didn’t get Burning Man’s ‘gifting economy,’ but then suddenly I did get it,” says Moe, who also visited other pavilions, including “a full-sized clipper ship with a merry-go-round on it that went sailing through the desert.”
Increasing a sense of participation — especially for non-musician festival-goers — is now a significant goal for him at Spring Scream.
Photo courtesy of Spring Scream
“Before, you pretty much had three choices. You could party, eat or watch a band. But what if there was another choice? What if you had chores at your camp, or had to lead a yoga class or had a workshop to teach? It’s that kind of participation that can make the event more meaningful,” says Moe.
The adjustments will not mean any major shifts in the festival infrastructure, but Moe hopes it will reinforce the festival’s sense of having its own unique culture.
“We don’t have giant hopes of bringing about a major evolutionary change, or that things will be extremely different this year, but we are taking definite steps in this direction,” he says.
What about the bands? Top local bands to watch include The Clippers, The Chairmen, Skaraoke and Funky Brothers. My picks for reggae and ska would be Otaku3 and Mary Bites Kerry. A Japanese indie punk label called Free-Plant is brining half a dozen Japanese acts, which should be worth checking out. There is a Swiss metal band called The Erkonauts and Canadian instrumental band called What Seas, What Shores. Brass Nation Singapore is a 10-piece group that plays a swing cover of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and other contemporary R&B pop. But as always, it’s the chance encounters that make the festival experience memorable, and with 200 bands, there should be plenty of room to explore.
■ Spring Scream takes place today through Sunday from noon to midnight at Oluanpi Lighthouse National Park (鵝鑾鼻燈塔國家公園). Tickets are NT$2,000 for a three-day pass, or NT$1,500 for a single-day pass, available at the door or through 7-Eleven iBon. Visit www.springscream.com.
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