Spring Scream Music Festival: Kenting

For whatever reason, the Thursday was a holiday, so in order to have a 4 day weekend, we all agreed to make up the Friday next Saturday (a decision we still may regret). The four-day weekend was timed perfectly to coincide with Spring Scream.
Local bands, The Idiots and The Dolittles made up of mainly Changhua teachers had made the line up, so to support them a full coach of Westerners headed off early Thursday morning from Changhua main school.
The weird thing was that I didn't know half the people on the bus. I thought it would be all Shane peeps but no. Still they were a cool crowd. Dave (dolittle bass) put on one of his Dave mixes which always make a journey easier. Half way there the coach made a stop at a place where you could "toilet, buy beer and food". Well it had olbviously been a while since he had been down this route. The gas station he stopped at was shut down with no shop and the only "toilet" was an open mens urinal or an algae covered squatter space with the door smashed in. The funny thing was the driver didn't seem to think any of this a problem. We forced him to stop again before we got there.
I soon recognised the rolling Kenting Hills I'd cycled around months back: we were there!
The coach couldn't get up the driveway as there was a huge frame with all the festival's bands across it blocking the road; the driver said we shouldnt try to move it, so we waited for a couple of shuttled buses to collect us from the main building. They were tuck-tucks (2 benches in the back of a pick up truck). We formed a chain and passed all the luggage, food and guitars into the tuck tuck. It was a short drive to reception where we unloaded the vans. We were in the middle of a large holiday resort filled with 4-8 man cabins and every space had a stage assembled upon it. The headliners for the weekend would be playing at 2 large stages at the tip of Kenting a drive from where we were staying. The smaller bands would be playing here in the resort.
After a long wait, Rachel (Dolittle vocals and mum to us all) had our keys and we were reloading the tuck-tucks to get to our cabins.

I would be staying with Kim and Erica (Changhua English teachers) and a guy known as puppet: Matt. The four of us were sharing 2 double beds but that was something you get used to in Taiwan. Collin a Scottish guy who no-one remembers meeting had a problem with his camping arrangments, so he and his two Taiwanese friends were sharing the floor of our living area.

Rachel had been shopping and our cabin soon became a fluid sandwich production factory.

The event was supposed to kick off at 2pm. However there was little going on at any of the stages and I kept thinking it would have more people around. maybe on Saturday!

At 4ish we managed to locate the bar, burger and burito stands... which was all too tempting to resist even after the giant lunch we'd had . The first act I saw was in the circle; it was a Taiwanese band; they looked like college students and rightfully terrified at being first on. They didn't sound too bad despite their rigidity throughout their set.

As the sun started to sink we headed to the hillside stage and watched a collection of interesting bands: including one whose last song had only 2 lyrics: there are 2 sides of the road, one's for driving and the other is for driving. A little crazy, but you'll have to watch the flick i took.

Gemma and her friend only just in from Hong Kong Vicky finally arrived after most of the sets had finished. They'd had a hellish day of Taiwanese transport hurdles, but were glad to be here.

Knackered from the long day and keen not to miss breakfast the next morning; we took an early night.

The next day we got up stupidly early and threw on our clothes and headed to the dining room. To my delight breakfast was Western and Chinese: we had fish in breadcrumbs, bacon, sausages, scrambled egg, cereal and toast. I happily stuffed myself.

As a few people hadn't been to Kenting yet, we thought we'd investigate the shuttle bus. Sadly we were told that the shuttle service didn't start until 3pm... it was now 11am. We tried a taxi but they were all busy... in the end we had enough people to hire a small bus to take us there.

We spent the morning shopping down the packed main street. And after a touristly priced lunch, Gemma Vicky and I headed to the beach to chill. It turned out Vicky had backpacked through Cambodia and Vietnam earlier in the year; she had loads of great advice for me: including not to go with the tour group I'd almost signed up for. From the beach we went for dinner in a nice Thai restuarant. As we were fairly close to the 2 main stages, we thought we'd check them out. We found a shuttle bus that took us to the venue, where the lighthouse towered in the background. The first stage we came to - again - seemed not to have that many people in front of it, but we sat with a drink and watched a couple of bands, one of which 'I.R.I.S.' sounded very much like a Taiwanese Manic's or Ash. We walked over a hill to the second stage and finally it felt like I was part of a music festival. Everyone in Kenting must have been there.
We caught the last part of a blues/funk band with an excellent Taiwanese singer. Then there was a boy band that had everyone including the fellas screaming and singing along (there's nothing unmacho in Taiwan about blokes listening to boybands or wearing pink clothes - just come down to the poolhouse in Yuanlin - they're all doing it!).

The last act was good, but her music was a bit slow... so we walked back to the other venue and caught the end of a really cute artist who had the crowd in the palm of her hand.

The journey back to the resort was fairly easy, but the music had ended. As I walked back to my cabin, I passed another with 30 people or more crammed in for a jam session; I'm sure it sounded better to the players than to those on the outside. Despite the noise, I slept like a baby!

On Saturday; I discovered why they call Matt puppet.

As part of our Dolittle groupie task list; we walked round the resort promoting the band (which would be playing at 3pm) with Rachel made garments and posters. Matt brought his dog (Matt's a ventriloquist) to sell the band. Now Matt's a funny guy, but RJ is hilarious, I spent more time talking to the dog than Matt. It was soon time for The Idiots to play. A fair crowd had gathered on the hillside. Now the Idiots [Canadians Abe, Sean and Chris with Irish brothers James and Mark] had spent most of the weekend drinking, smoking and having a good time; pretty much like they all day everyday... so we were all surprised by the quality of music that flowed forth from the stage. The first song included a rap piss-take of themselves and their rise to stardom: The Idiots from Changhua! The overall sound was quite blues-like. For more info http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=151512306

The Dolittles were on straight after, but as fate would have it, a rain cloud drove in and scared off the Taiwanese contingent in the crowd for half the set. Despite the weather the set went down really well. http://www.myspace.com/thedolittles and as a result Andy was asked to support a band in Taipei the following weekend.

Gemma and Vicky went back into Kenting but I decided to stick around and see the bands playing that evening in the resort.

Of note were:

this crazy band from NYC using 2 accordians and a clava-something... (electrical instrument controlled by waving your hands about) a very Hungarian folk sounding band;

Atash - a band with members from all over the world - Arabian feel to the music. The lead singer was in his 50s and drove the crowds wild by dancing waving a white hankie in the air.

The Anglers: funk/reggea band with brass galore!

Faye, a girl who had been on the coach with us with her guitarist and percussionist; she had a great voice and a nice country sound. The rain came pouring down while she was singing, but we didn't mind getting wet for it.

At the end of the night there was an Air Guitar competition to win guitars, a drum kit and a keyboard. The hopefuls varied in style and skill. Then suddenly Puppet gets up on the stage and had RJ playing Smells like Teen Spirit... the crowd loved it and for a while we thought he was going to win, but the judge said you couldnt use props... that didnt stop two blokes taking the stage seconds later jumping around with real dogs.

One crazy evening. One crazy weekend.

http://www.springscream.com/