Late afternoon rains didn't spoil MTV's Taipei Music Festival Saturday night, but MTV's VJs almost did. Deployed to hype a crowd estimated between 60,000 and 80,000, the best Katherine Wang (
Having already spent several minutes chanting Stanley Huang's (
PHOTO: AP
Huang was understandably reluctant to take the stage following an opening salvo fired by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne. She played the five songs she was scheduled to sing, accepted an "award" designed to give various local figureheads photo time with the young superstar -- in this case Taipei City Deputy Mayor Yeh Jin-chuan (
PHOTO: AP
Not surprisingly, the media besieged Lavigne's every move during her stay in Taiwan. They met her at the airport Thursday night, followed her to Snake Alley night market that night, then met her officially at a Friday afternoon press conference where she wowed them.
She performed a two-song acoustic set with the help of one of the members of her band and showed that she's much more than just her mascara. Though provided a microphone, she didn't need one. Her voice was heard clearly even in the back of the Grand Formosa ballroom where the press conference was held. She was given an award -- surprise! -- and sat to answer some hard-hitting questions from Taiwan's media: Did she like Chinese food? Had she ever heard of spicy hot pot and would she be interested in trying it? Was she really as cool as she seemed, or was it just an act? Answers: "Sure," "No, so, dunno," and "Hunh?"
No wonder that by the time she took the stage Saturday night, she looked ready to get out of Taipei. Her face had a pinched expression, as if she'd maybe left something in her hotel room. Or it might have been the look of someone who'd just tried spicy hot pot for the first time.
But by all accounts, her Saturday night show and her press conference went off better than anyone else's. Japan's Naohito Fujiki (
Likewise, no one understood what South Korean soap-opera-star-cum-pop-singer, Rain, was crooning about, but he was at least much better looking than Fujiki and didn't demand to be addressed in a certain way. He garnered screams from the tens of thousands of 13-year-old girls in the crowd, then had to head home early to shoot his soap opera.
For the local acts, Jay Chou (
At the end of it all, more than 15 performers (a few of them musicians) played for three hours in what MTV billed as the "biggest music event this summer in Taipei." If that sounds a bit like MTV preening its pop plumage, it is. The growing success of both the Formoz and HoHaiYan festivals have ruffled feathers at the network and they seem eager to remind everyone that they're the "world's most valuable media brand."
Maybe next year they can have Katherine Wang chant that between sets. "All together now: World's most valuable media brand! World's most valuable media brand!"
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