Modern Sky Festival welcomes "Blonde Redhead", "The Big Pink" and Latvian "Brainstorm"

When: October, 2 – 4, 2010

Where: Haidian Park, Beijing, China

Stages: 4 (Modern Stage, Sky Stage, Badhead Stage, E-Stage)

Through the language barriers to pleasant atmosphere and green, lovely nature, low hierarchical level between people, journalists and musicians and warm Chinese crowd, enjoying, listening and thoughtfully thinking of the music they get and reacting properly to what they like. That was my first impression after entering Modern Sky festival at Haidian Park on its first day.

I have been to many European festivals and foreign music gigs and usually the procedures for accredited journalists are more or less the same. At least you expect them to speak English with you. Here it was a bit different, though I don’t mean worse. I was telling them at the VIP entrance that I have applied as a journalist, but nobody understood me. What I understood somehow by their gestures was that I have to call somebody. I called to the person not knowing who it was, it was just his number mentioned somewhere on their mailing lists (and good I had taken that number). The person picked up the phone, but couldn’t speak English either (though he was saying in English: “I don’t speak English”). After that I had nothing to do, but to find a translator for me and after that the situation started to proceed. I immediately got to know the responsible person as he appeared in the gates and after showing my passport they at least recognized me. However, they didn’t want to give me the media pass, telling that I will not need it and just “Enjoy the festival!”. But after insisting on the right to take pictures of musicians in front, I got the pass. Finally!

Modern Stage

 After this little incident my impression wasn’t spoiled as nobody treated me bad, I just took it as another experience with the problem of language. As well as I realized how informal are Chinese even in festivals where you as a journalist can go in front and take photos through the same gate as musicians go and moreover, there is no limit of photo taking. Basically, you are allowed to stay full time of the band’s performance unlike European gigs where it’s usually for the first 3-4 songs. That was something what surprised me in a positive way and gave some cultural differences regarding festival and concert management cultures in different world areas.

Day 1 starts here

House de Rackett

Because my issues at the gates took longer time than planned, I missed a part of House De Rackett. I managed to see only the last 2 songs of the energetic French guys. Also the audience seemed to appreciate their performance as it was full of energy, especially from the lead singer Victor le Masne. Needless to say that this band deserved to play on the main stage called Modern Stage. After their show I was trying to understand the locations of the stages and find the Sky Stage in the same time not to miss the Chinese band Escape Plan. I didn’t actually expect that most of Chinese bands will be singing in Chinese. But so it was. And Escape Plan was one of them though I must admit their music sounded nice: melodic and rocky.

Local performances

After Escape Plan I realized I have been so hasty so far that I haven’t had time to explore the great place of Haidian Park where the festival was rocking. The atmosphere was really relaxed and natural as the park was decorated with lots of greens and the small bridges and a river made it even nicer. As usually different kinds of shops were not missing in the area. What was funny to see in the Modern Sky festival, were randomly built tents inside festival area. It seemed there was no specially organized tent village. You could just bring your tent and build it in front of the Modern stage and enjoy the festival while lying in your tent a bit further away from the area where people are standing to see the band.

The evening came and embowered the beautiful oasis with darkness and light wind that became stronger as the night came closer. That was the time for the Scottish guests Camera Obscura to come on a stage. The audience was already gathering at the Modern Stage and waiting for the foreign guests to appear. They came timidly on a stage and after saying hello started their performance. Being proud to come from the dusty Scotland, the guitarist of the band was wearing traditional Scottish skirt. Audience was happy, but not the poor singer Tracyanne…as her voice seemed to have suffered cold and she couldn’t sing for a moment. But after some trials and the support from the audience she was fine again and could not only sing, but tell what the band has managed to do in China. “It’s strange to be here,” she said honestly and mentioned how they had gone to Tiananmen and noticed its crowdedness on the day before. Yes, that was national holiday then. This is how 40 minutes had been spent or enjoyed mixing slow and a bit faster indie pop melodies from the band’s newest album My Maudlin Career and the others as well.

Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura went off the stage to give a place for the Chinese Queen Sea Big Shark on the Modern Stage while Dragon Road was performing on the Sky Stage and after them the evening culmination – The Big Pink – had come to its turn. This was my second time to see the recently so famous British band with the catchy hit “Dominos”. The first one was in the Flow festival in Helsinki, 2009 when they were sharing the stage time with another British act Lily Allen on the main stage and The Big Pink performance was left in the small club stage. China received them on the Modern Stage probably not because there was no Lily Allen this time. J The band really deserved it. Equipped with Chinese traditional red key holder on his jeans, the lead singer Robbie Furze showed his happiness to be in China and was singing one hit after another from their only album so far. “Tonight”, “Velvet” and the catchy “Dominos” in the end – all those popular singles were played there. For many people and also for me “Dominos” was enjoyed on the way to catch the last subway. I left, generally happy and satisfied with the first day of the Modern Sky festival.

The Big Pink

Day 2 with getting lost

On the second day I was planning to start with Free Energy, a band from the USA, but unfortunately the China touristic side played its role and I got lost so badly that finally reached the festival at 6pm when a Taiwanese band Zhang Xuan was playing on the Modern Stage. The sparkle of this band was the female lead singer. Even though she was singing in the native Taiwanese language, everyone could feel her friendly and peaceful attitude and a little shyness towards fans supporting the band with a great pleasure and singing along with her.

Zhang Xuan

 After her enjoyable performance on the Modern Stage it was time to get some European spirit with the French band P.U.S.S. playing on the Sky Stage. Two attractive guys were easy-going and active on the stage and succeeded moving the audience. Dressed in similar costumes, they had really prepared well for their performance.  They never let you feel bored: was it an energetic or rhythmical song, their encouraging movements, a slow ballade in French or a well-known cover song. They definitely knew how to make them noticed and in the same time enjoy their time themselves.

P.U.S.S.

 Being stuck to the Modern Stage and Sky Stage so far, I decided to finally check out the Badhead Stage and after reaching it was happy to hear the local singer-songwriter Chow. He surprised me with being one of the rare Chinese bands in this festival to sing in English. The slow indie music he was playing sounded nice and warm.

Chow

The night was getting colder as the time for the day’s headliner Brett Anderson was coming closer. The lead vocalist of the well-known Britpop band Suede took some time to come on the stage, however was warmly welcomed and awaited by the audience who indeed enjoyed today’s star. Accompanied by his last songs I decided to leave the area as it was freezing so badly and again - it was time to catch subway.

Day 3 comes with Brainstorm

The third day of the festival was most awaited for me and my today’s partner Tomoko. Guess why? For sure, it’s Brainstorm’s gig which by a real luck happened to be in the same time when I was in China and also in Beijing. Only after booking my tickets to China I found out that Brainstorm is going to play in the Modern Sky festival. For the first time I felt like we are in the changed roles when I am not following them but so to say they are following me. Nice swap.

However, the day started early for us as we wanted to take the front row at the Modern Stage where Brainstorm was supposed to play at 16.00. We came even before the festival had officially started and the bands were still doing sound-check, but Chinese music lovers had already taken their places and were capturing every moment to see the bands playing even during sound check. This is how we got to see today’s headliners Blonde Redhead sound-checking. Taking into consideration the fact that we were about to miss them at night due to our train to Shanghai, it was a nice surprise to see them now.

Go Chic

Still few minutes left and the third day of the festival could start with the Taiwanese band Go Chic. Keep in mind that once you see them (or more precisely “her”), you will never forget them! Especially the outstanding lead singer Ariel who was bright not only with her blue hair and garish clothes, but also in her way of acting on a stage. Her music is powerful and energetic or as the band describes itself “Electro-Hyphy-Chicks, Hybridized Punk-Blues-Rock” or “sound like Peaches, CSS, Le Tigre”. And besides that also her performance is shaped in a similar way: she moves all the time, climbs up the railing and jumps into the audience. She definitely wants to be noticed and this is what she gets, even though some of her moves might be a bit too exaggerated and even dangerous. And in the end you find yourself paying more attention to her “circus” skills than musical performance. However, one cannot deny that it’s something surprising and different and something you might have seen at SXSW world music conference in Austin and Fuji Rock festival in Japan, both in 2010.

Go Chic

After the hilarious lady, it’s time to welcome the local band Universal Youth Hotel. They manage to calm the audience unlike the previous singer and you notice it as a good balance knowing that the next band is definitely not going to let you sleep. Some Latvian faces in the big Chinese crowds, also a Latvian flag is already there and it seems it’s time for a Latvian band to take the floor. Yes, I am talking about Brainstorm, the band who also took part in the same SXSW as Go Chic and in its international year of 2010 has also given shows in London, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia. Finally they have reached China and after the last song from Universal Youth Hostel the Brainstorm guys can bravely conquer the stage to tune their instruments.

“Nu, laižam?” asks the lead singer Renārs Kaupers. “Laižam (Let’s go – in Latvian),” the rest of the band agrees and the gig starts with a powerful energy of the song “Your Call”. They have 40 minutes in this festival to show the special spirit of Brainstorm. They win the audience quite fast as the powerful songs, like “Thunder without Rain”, “The Kitten who didn’t want to give up” are being performed in the beginning and the Chinese audience starts supporting the band more actively. Moreover, whenever there’s a Brainstorm gig wherever in the world, it seems there will always be some Latvian fans to show their support. Perhaps in the dominant Chinese audience that might be difficult to point them out, but it always becomes clear once you see a Latvian flag over the people’s heads. And for sure, Brainstorm didn’t ignore that; moreover the song “Lec” (Jump) in Latvian was devoted to them. It wasn’t an obstacle for the audience at all; furthermore it fit absolutely perfectly in the overall festival atmosphere where it was common to sing in national languages: Chinese, Taiwanese, French and now Latvian. Audience seemed to enjoy the energetic music and the band with smiles, dances and general happiness no matter the lyrics. 

Brainstorm

After the show the newly gained fans went straight to the backstage area to wait for the band to come out. So did the old Latvian fans and all of them got what they wanted. The guys came out and nicely spent some time with their new and old friends.

Who’s next band? Hmmm…it’s hard to follow the schedule after gaining so much energy from Brainstorm guys and also it’s time for me and Tomoko to leave the festival and catch our train to Shanghai. Therefore, we missed few more local bands like Hedgehog, Canned Oxygen, SUBS, Taiwanese indie singer Joanna Wang and sadly also Blonde Redhead. However, in general I am very satisfied with the experience I gained in the Modern Sky Festival and would like to thank for the nice welcoming. Though it doesn’t have as many foreign bands as European festivals, it still brings its positive aura and seems progressing every year. Moreover, I appreciate the unique experience I gained highlighted by some cultural differences. I would definitely go again to this festival though not alone as in my first 2 days.