Alive Promotions may have taken a bath on the Heart Town Festival, after it was forced to cancel two of its three days of performances in August when Taiwan was hit by the world’s strongest typhoon so far this year, but it still has a headbanger’s-ball-type series of concerts lined up for this fall.
The big one is Korn, the rapping metalheads who pretty much invented the nu metal genre. They’ll play in Taiwan on Nov. 19 (en route to Ozzfest in Japan), though other concert details have yet to be released. From what I’ve heard, tickets will be in the NT$4,000 range.
In the next two weeks, Alive Promotions will also bring Japanese metalcore band Coldrain to Legacy Taichung on Sept. 13 (NT$1,600) and a second metalcore band from the UK, While She Sleeps, will play at The Wall in Taipei on Sept. 18 (NT$1,500, or NT$1,200 in advance through www.indievox.com).
Photo courtesy of Alive Promotions
Coldrain was one of three international bands that had performances canceled at Heart Town. The other two canceled acts, the UK group Young Guns and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas from Japan, will probably not be able to reschedule trips to Taiwan, according to the promoters.
Metalcore has only lately begun to seep into Taiwan, though it has gone mainstream elsewhere. Metalcore is basically the big next genre of commercial metal that has taken up where nu metal left off. It probably had to happen. Nu metal — now about 20 years old — always seemed like a fashion trend and unlike other, non-pop metal genres, was pretty much born with an expiration date.
In terms of style, Metalcore has inherited nu metal’s fast, heavy riffs; its mix of hardcore, metal and rap; its big, stadium-ready sound and its desire to be pop music, though on its own terms. Vocalists usually employ the unintelligible dry-throat growling of extreme metal. Basically, it is music for kids who want to mosh and bang their heads for an entire show, and if the songs can also get licensed to skateboard videos, professional wrestling or video games, so much the better.
Coldrain, which was also one of the top acts at Heart Town last year, has further injected electronic loops into the metalcore formula — electronics mixed with metal is common in Japan, but not so frequent elsewhere. The group, formed in 2007 in Nagoya, is also boy-band stylish and fronted by the striking figure of Masato David Hayakawa, a blond-haired Caucasian kid who grew up in Japan and, speaking Japanese and English with equal fluency, is as close as you can get to bicultural. In addition to the normal metal band coterie of fan dudes, Coldrain also has a pretty sizable female following.
While She Sleeps is a five-piece band from Sheffield, England now touring on the release of their second album, Brainwashed, earlier this year. They’ve been popular on the loud music festival circuit for some time now and featured on the Vans Warped Tour in 2013.
To round out the Heart Town Festival news, despite the typhoon, the festival saw attendance of 8,144 people. After the final band on Aug. 9, organizer Jimmy Liu (劉鈞輝) of Alive Promotions got up on stage and announced that they had lost NT$10 million on the event. He later clarified by e-mail that this was mostly due to equipment damage and costs related to rescheduling.
This is not the first time a Taiwanese rock promoter has reminded me of Jeff Spicoli, the surfer dude character in the 80s film Fast Times At Ridgemont High, who — in the movie — receives a big reward then spends it all by having Van Halen play at his birthday party. Alive Promotions has also made questionable decisions about booking huge acts while in fanboy mode, and now they’re stuck with the financial hangover. But at the very least I can congratulate them in the way that’s most fitting as I say, “Good party bro!” There are certainly far worse ways to lose 10 million bucks.
ANOTHER FREE CONCERT
Rock In Taichung (搖滾台中) will take place this weekend in Taichung, with around 90 rock bands playing on six stages, including free outdoor shows tomorrow and Sunday and a paid showcase tonight.
It’s the one weekend a year a bunch of young bands being noisy in public in Taichung City, and since the city government is paying for it, the cranky neighbors will be ignored when they call the cops. Interesting to note, most of the team at Alive Promotions previously worked producing Rock in Taichung. After several years, they split off to start their own festival because they were frustrated by the government’s lack of interest in music culture or in booking big name acts, and treating the event like a food festival with rock bands.
Liu says that an overabundance of free events in Taiwan, like Rock in Taichung, undermines the market for commercial events and keeps the festival scene mired in mediocrity. Rock in Taichung will include performances by bands from Japan, Korea and Malaysia and features a “best band competition” that will give out NT$150,000 in prizes. Local headliners include 1976 and Quarterback (四分衛).
■ Tonight’s showcase will take place from 5pm to 10pm at TADA Ark (TADA方舟), 362, Fuhsing Rd Sec 3, Taichung City (台中市復興路三段362號). Tickets are NT$500. Tomorrow and Sunday from 1pm to 10pm performances take in the Wenxin Forest Park (文心森林公園), 289, Wensin Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市南屯區文心路一段289號). Admission is free. For more info, go to: www.rockintaichung.com.
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