Homegrown hero and long-reigning "king of rock" Wu Bai (
The album was released earlier this year and Wu Bai and his band have already taken their show on the road to the US, playing gigs in San Francisco and San Jose, among other places. While the rocker gets more than his share of respect here in Asia, reports from people who attended his show at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco were less than glowing.
Though the band played their hearts out, they did so to a sparse crowd of 30-somethings who seemingly had long been cured of rock-and-roll fever.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"It was a great show, but the audience looked like maybe they had all been given comp tickets," said one fan who was in the crowd. Wu Bai even spoke English to try to communicate with them, which was cute, but obviously didn't break the communication barrier.
The lackluster reception was despite the fact that the band was playing at a 1,000-seat venue -- a fraction of the standing-room-only stadium gigs they play in Taiwan and the rest of Asia.
As Two Faced Man is only the second album the band has released in the past seven years, tomorrow night's audience is all but guaranteed to be geared up for a good time.
The album is a bit of a departure for Wu Bai and China Blue, who have put aside their straightforward, hard-hitting style in favor of a foray into electronica. Their rock roots are still readily apparent, though, especially on scorching tracks like Taiwan Made (台灣製做) and the rock-tronic Li Hai (厲害).
Early word of the album on the streets had many long-time Wu Bai fans concerned that their head-banging hero had gone the way of Taiwan's legions of "head-shakers,"
but the album had been well received, with many Taipei stores sold out of stock earlier this week.
The album cover features Wu Bai nonchalantly donning a toy shark on his head, with his face visible in the shark's mouth.
The image, he's been quoted as saying, is a lot like his personality; not very friendly but cool and fun. It's a personality that had taken him not only to the top of the Asian rock scene, but landed him roles in films such as the locally produced romantic comedy The Personals and the 2000 Hong Kong action flick Time and Tide.
He also has a local television project in the works; and has written music for Karen Mok (
Wu Bai and China Blue
Where: Shinchuang Athletic Education Hall, at 75, Chunghua Rd, Sec 1, Shinchuang City, Taipei County (
When: Tomorrow night at 7:45pm.
Cost: Between NT$800 and NT$1,800 and are available at the ticket counter outlet of the National Theater at CKS Memorial Hall, or by calling (02) 3393 9888. Tickets will also be available at the door.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) and the New Taipei City Government in May last year agreed to allow the activation of a spent fuel storage facility for the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Shihmen District (石門). The deal ended eleven years of legal wrangling. According to the Taipower announcement, the city government engaged in repeated delays, failing to approve water and soil conservation plans. Taipower said at the time that plans for another dry storage facility for the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) remained stuck in legal limbo. Later that year an agreement was reached
What does the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era stand for? What sets it apart from their allies, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? With some shifts in tone and emphasis, the KMT’s stances have not changed significantly since the late 2000s and the era of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) current platform formed in the mid-2010s under the guidance of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and current President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity. Though their ideological stances may be a bit stale, they have the advantage of being broadly understood by the voters.
In a high-rise office building in Taipei’s government district, the primary agency for maintaining links to Thailand’s 108 Yunnan villages — which are home to a population of around 200,000 descendants of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies stranded in Thailand following the Chinese Civil War — is the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC). Established in China in 1926, the OCAC was born of a mandate to support Chinese education, culture and economic development in far flung Chinese diaspora communities, which, especially in southeast Asia, had underwritten the military insurgencies against the Qing Dynasty that led to the founding of
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abundant, followed by fin whales, gray whales, right or bowhead whales — two species indistinguishable with the analytical method used in the study — and blue whales. With seafaring capabilities by humans
RSS