Wow, wow, wow. The local band Chairman put on tonight one of the coolest rock shows Iâve ever seen by any band anywhere. And very Taiwan. The tourists might not have been able to fully appreciate it, but appreciate it they still did, and the local fans, definitely. Damn! I hope it got some good coverage on the news. Ah Ji at the top of his game.
Wish you could have been there, I know you would have really enjoyed it. I bet there is some video because I saw lots of people with their phones pointed at the stage. Iâll poke around on the web tonight after work and see what I can find.
Hereâs a clip of one of the highlights I found on Youtube from the Chairman set at the Hohaiyan festival last night. Working late on a rush job tonight but might look around for more later.
Luantan Ascent (äșćœéżçż) did a set right before Chairmen that would be worth checking out too! By the way are you headed back this way any time soon?
The aborigines of Taiwan have a legend from the days before written records. One day, the ancients discovered the sea, but they werenât sure how to name it pointing their ears to the water, they listened as the waves rolled onto shore. A melody emerged âHo-Hai-Yan.â From that day on, the word "Ho-Hai-Yanâ has signified waves and the ocean to aboriginal people.
As Taiwan is surrounded by water on all sides, its people were originally close with the sea. Many of our ancestors lost their lives sailing across the Taiwan Strait from Tang Shan 300 years ago. The sea has maintained a measure of terror ever since.
Ho-Hai-Yan is the name of this international Rock Festival for two reasons: One, it is a beautiful aboriginal name for the sea. Two, we hope to help Taiwanâs youth to not only overcome their fear of the sea, but to learn to respect and cherish the blue universe that surrounds our beautiful island.
Ah, thatâs why they didnât allow anyone in the water yesterday - not even the knee-deep non-swimming-zoo they normally have there.
Some enjoyable stuff there yesterday. Good weather - apart from a bit of rain in the beginning, a bit more for a short time during the show of the last band (soda green), disabling some of their instruments - and a lot, lot more shortly after the ending fireworks. I pity those kids that were going home by scooter in that pouring rain.
Pity that almost no one went to the small stage though, where some harder stuff was playing.
Yes, I saw both of those links. Iâd like to see some academic verification. Itâs like the 2004 hoodwink of ânaruwanâ which we were told meant âwelcomeâ in an âalohaâ kind of way, when in fact the word was ânaluwanâ and it was just a meaningless vocalization that was used in singing, like âtra-la-la-laâ. The âwelcomeâ stuff was added on to bring in tourists.
It bugs me that theyâre selling aboriginal mysticism-love-of-the-sea BS in English, but theyâre promoting it in Chinese as âInternational Ocean Music Festivalâ(ćéæ”·æŽéłæšç„).
I took lots of pictures and some videos yesterday (July 10).
Will upload more within this week. Last year was also great. Think Iâll go there every year if I canâŠ
The rain (showers) stopped quite early (2 PM) but came back at around 9 PM. People had good mood anyways.
Bands I saw were âVAN SHEâ and âVan Coke Kartelâ on the main stage, with unfortunately too much break time between their performances.
Mounted police doing a visit:
Lots of sand:
Beer was cheap (four cans for 100 TWD at most stands, nicely cold) and there was a small night market with fried stuff on sticks and some bento boxes.