Need a crash course on Taiwan’s best indie rock bands? The Megaport Music Festival (大港開唱) has got it covered this weekend.
The annual event, which takes place tomorrow and Sunday at Kaohsiung Harbor’s Pier 2 Art District (高雄駁二藝術特區), has a lineup of 46 bands that features the nation’s cream-of-the-crop indie artists, as well as several acts from Japan.
Organizers say the outdoor festival saw 15,000 visitors last year, and, with a few mainstream pop acts scheduled to appear, this edition should be no different. Sodagreen (蘇打綠) headlines the main stage tomorrow night, and celebrity model and singer Amber An (安心亞) performs a set of techno-pop tomorrow.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
But the festival’s spread of non-mainstream artists with large followings will also attract crowds. Metal heroes Chthonic (閃靈) and beloved nakashi (那卡西) punk rock group Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK) perform tomorrow, while indie-pop veterans Tizzy Bac and Aboriginal reggae rockers Matzka appear on Sunday.
Taipei live music venue The Wall (這牆) started Megaport in 2006 to encourage and develop a live music scene outside of the capital. Beloved pop-punks Fire Ex (滅火器), who play on Sunday, are a hometown favorite, and the festival offers a stage to up-and-coming bands such as the punk outfit The Locals (草地人), also from Kaohsiung, and Taichung hardcore metal band Flesh Juicer (血肉果汁機).
Megaport, which has bands playing on three outdoor stages and one indoor stage, is also putting on activities that are free to the public, including a skateboarding contest and a market selling arts and crafts and food.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
One new addition to this year’s event is the NGO Village, a set of booths run by representatives from organizations that include Greenpeace and Amnesty International. There will also be booths manned by aid groups helping victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last year, the first anniversary of which falls on Sunday.
A full schedule for the festival can be viewed at www.megaport.com.tw.
Megaport 2012 — performers to catch
Omnipotent Youth Society (萬能青年旅店)
Artsy folk/blues rock band from China’s Hebei Province
Tomorrow, 1:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Enno Cheng (鄭宜農)
Indie-folk songstress and film actress with a pristine voice
Tomorrow, 5:50pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥)
Hakka folk singer and highly admired songwriter among many Taiwanese indie musicians for his grassroots ethos
Tomorrow, 7pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
The Novembers
High-energy Japanese alt-rock band that balances heavy guitars and pop smoothness
Tomorrow, 3:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Pay Money to My Pain
Japanese nu-metal/alt-rock band that sings in English
Tomorrow, 6:20pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Sodagreen (蘇打綠)
Intelligent pop from college students-turned-stars
Tomorrow, 8pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK)
Kings of irreverent, satirical rock
Tomorrow, 9:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
The Telephones
Electro/disco punk rockers from Japan
Sunday, 6:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Toe
Math rock/post-rock outfit from Japan
Sunday, 8:30pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Dog-G (大支)
Taiwan’s smoothest rapper in Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese]
Sunday, 6:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Windmill (風籟坊)
Slow-core rock a la Pavement, sung in Hoklo
Sunday, 3:30pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Sugar Plum Ferry (甜梅號)
Post-rock heroes from Taipei
Sunday, 2:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Matzka
Reggae rock, Taiwan Aboriginal style
Sunday, 4:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Tizzy Bac
Enchanting piano rock
Sunday, 7:40pm, Dragon Goddess Stage (女神龍舞台)
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
On a misty evening in August 1990, two men hiking on the moors surrounding Calvine, a pretty hamlet in Perth and Kinross, claimed to have seen a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flying above them. It apparently had no clear means of propulsion and left no smoke plume; it was silent and static, as if frozen in time. Terrified, they hit the ground and scrambled for cover behind a tree. Then a Harrier fighter jet roared into view, circling the diamond as if sizing it up for a scuffle. One of the men snapped a series of photographs just before the bizarre
Power struggles are never pretty. Fortunately, Taiwan is a democracy so there is no blood in the streets, but there are volunteers collecting signatures to recall nearly half of the legislature. With the exceptions of the “September Strife” in 2013 and the Sunflower movement occupation of the Legislative Yuan and the aftermath in 2014, for 16 years the legislative and executive branches of government were relatively at peace because the ruling party also controlled the legislature. Now they are at war. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds the presidency and the Executive Yuan and the pan-blue coalition led by the
For decades, Taiwan Railway trains were built and serviced at the Taipei Railway Workshop, originally built on a flat piece of land far from the city center. As the city grew up around it, however, space became limited, flooding became more commonplace and the noise and air pollution from the workshop started to affect more and more people. Between 2011 and 2013, the workshop was moved to Taoyuan and the Taipei location was retired. Work on preserving this cultural asset began immediately and we now have a unique opportunity to see the birth of a museum. The Preparatory Office of National
RSS