MIDI was weird, in the sense that for a major music festival, it had a lot of foodstalls, like maybe 20 or so, and not small ones as well. There were 2 臭豆腐, 3 羊肉串 and many other stalls that were replicated. The only alkie was beer, urgh. They sold ice-cream, and merchandise stalls were very bare.
Many people at the festival were locals, and dressed like they were going to a park or a restaurant... I counted tens of women stumbling across the slopes in 2-inch heels. And my, the slopes! Instead of grass, we had green netting nailed to the ground, which was supposed evened with a tractor. Tractor, not steamroller. It was like chiong sua. I myself stumbled around in my sneakers (no I wasn't drunk, not yet anyway), which had turned brown from the soil and dust. It was effectively a construction site, but I'm not complaining, for a 3-day ticket that cost 120RMB, there's really nothing to be said. The program booklet was free, the merchandise was cheap. I got a Thinman 瘦人 album for 30RMB, and a MIDI tote bag for 15 RMB. Compared to the 40 euros I paid for my Sonar bag, this was peanuts. I had to buy a tote bag because I stupidly wore a windbreaker in 20+ Celcius weather. Not very smart, I know.
Now on to the music, as expected, the dance music stage had more people commuting from the main arena to the toilets, which was a very sad fate. It was daylight, I was shy, so no dancing. Not that I dug that stuff anyway, mostly Detroit techno and minimal electro, as if they were the same thing.
The main arena was majestic, I almost thought I was at live8. I sampled the best of Chinese rock, and man was it good. Technically very sound, metal bands were very metal, alternative were alternative, and they were all dressed the part. I particularly liked Twisted Machine and Thinman. The foreign bands were a bit bleah for me, I guess we're quite spoilt that way. Mike TV (UK) was funny, and I LOL-ed when the singer of Army of Freshmen (US) jumped off the stage, only to be surrounded by 6-7 policemen, refusing to let him shake hands and connect with the crowd. Ironic when you see how the government has permitted all forms of American media, brands and products into China, causing the Chinese to imitate the American way of consumerism (my Fudan professors agree). And then they bar a no-name American band lead from shaking hands with the same youths exposed to hundreds of American-styled advertisements. *chuckle*
Obviously, everyone was waiting for Cui Jian, the Godfather of Chinese Rock. The stupid website said Grandfather, so when I went around asking people if this was 老催爷爷 they looked indignant. Then someone said 教父, goddamned translations...
I didn't really like his shit, but he was phenomenal. He was the only artiste people were chanting to see, and everyone at the back got off their asses, the scene was so intimidating, people were "pogo"-ing, devil's horns everywhere. There's no Western equivalent of Cui Jian. And having read up a bit of his past, I kinda had this feeling a lot of the youths were celebrating his past feats, and not really digging the music. Whatever the case, rock has always been politically-charged, but that didn't do it for me, so I left before Zhenjiang's pitiful fleet of cabs became all hired.
The cab I got on took on another passenger, offering me a "discount", so I sat in the backseat in silence while the 2 chattered away in the front. I got a 2RMB discount, judging by what I paid to get there earlier.
Please appreciate this post, I'm not very sober. I'm all ROCKED, and STONED. \m/
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