So, after a seven-year break, Korea is once again trying to break into the world of the summer rock festival: Pentaport
You might recall that the last time Korea attempted this — the muddy failure that was Triport — a typhoon blew through town, cancelling most of the acts that were supposed to perform. Somehow, despite the wind and rain, the sinking stage, the electrocution dangers, and other fun, a few bands actually played, including Deep Purple, Dream Theater, James and Korea’s Crash. The organizers lost a bundle of money and that was about the last we heard of rock festivals for a few years (not counting the occassional K-Pop fun time).
So, if three ports were not enough for you, this time, we have FIVE - it’s Pentaport. Running July 28-30, there are some pretty decent bands coming here, including Franz Ferdinand, Placebo, and the Strokes (and current favorites of mine, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). For the more dance-minded, there will also be Junkie XL (”I’ve Got a Xerox to Copy” is damn catchy, imho). For Korean music fans, we have Nell, Sugar Donut, Crash (again) and the Oh! Brothers (yeah!). There will be a few Japanese bands, too.
Is Korea becoming the center of the musical universe? Hardly. Most of the bands of coming from Fuji Rock. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I am just happy to see Korea getting some decent international bands coming here. I just hope people will support an event that might actually be a lot of fun (even for an old fogie like me) instead of sitting around and complaining there is nothing to do in Korea.
Now if only Radiohead or Sigur Ros could make the leap across the East/Japan Sea after one of their many gigs in Japan…
9 Comments
A friend of mine mentioned this to me the other day, though she’d heard radiohead was coming. Looking forward to this, at any rate - the last music festival I went to here was the Ssamzie sound festival five years ago. I’ve heard rave reviews of last year’s Jaraseom Jazz Festival, so I’ll have to check it out this year.
Btw Haisan, I hadn’t known about the Oh Brothers, and I’ve always appreciated your taste in music - any other recommendations? I just found out 우리는 속옷도 생겼고 여자도 늘었다네 just put out a new cd (er… 3 months ago), so that’s my music-related excitement for this week…
Haisan,
A fantastic and useful contribution as a guest blogger to The Marmot’s Hole.
(Just wanted to point that out.)
Yup. And yup, this event could be some fun.
— some great girl-watching at it, i’ll bet! —
Thanks for the nice words.
Bulgasari - The Oh! Brothers are an instrumental surf-rock band. Not the greatest band in the world, but they are fun and the band of Lee Seong-mun, the owner of Cavare Records, Korea’s best indie label (www.cavare.co.kr). Cavare was responsible for a lot of good music, including Bolbalgan, Witch Hill, the Peppertones and the very demented Yoonki (who had a decent following in Japan at one point).
And Lee is just a hell of a nice guy. He used to spin the tunes at Woodstock in Shinchon on Monday to Wednesday (or Sunday to Tuesday, I cannot recall), despite being a complete tea-totaler.
Gahh… speaking of Radiohead, I had tickets to see them here but had to give them up because I’ll be going to Korea…
But I’m pretty suprised that there are pretty big names coming, especially the Black Eyed Peas: responsible for the most annoying and overplayed song of 2006.\
I’m also planning to stalk the Strokes while they’re in Korea, even though their new album is awful.
“The organizers lost a bundle of money and that was about the last we heard of rock festivals for a few years (not counting the occassional K-Pop fun time).”
What about Busan Rock Fest? (http://www.rockfestival.co.kr)
It’s been an annual event since 2000 and the closest thing we metalheads have to an international metal fest (last year Deicide came). Not as many trendy foreigner bands as Pentaport, but they pull together a decent festival with similar acts (several Japanese bands, Crash and Oh Brothers have both played BIROF).
> What about Busan Rock Fest?
I snobbily did not include Ssamzie Fest, Busan Rock or a couple others due to scale, taste and/or other reasons. I just think Pentaport is a major step up in significance, both for developing the Korean music scene internally and getting Korea on the international music map.
Can’t remember exactly when, but Sigur Ros has played Seoul (a year ago?) - part of some performance art piece to accompany dance (and, incidently, Radiohead performed in the same piece on dates at other venues worldwide).
Well I’ll be damned… April 15, 2004. Sigur Ros. At the Sejong Center. Now I’m depressed.