This weekend is Rock in Taichung. It's an annual rock festival and one of the two main free festivals organised by the local government. The other one is the jazz festival which I'll be going to at the end of October.
Rock in Taichung runs over two days and they have five stages at the venue. The bands are mainly local bands from Taiwan but they also invite overseas bands. This year there are bands from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, Australia and UK. The UK band is Mama's Gun, a London based rock band. It's not a band that I'm familiar with as I'm not much of a rock girl.
I arrived mid afternoon and wandered around the venue to listen to the different bands. I think a lot of these are indie bands, particularly the local ones and they have a group of loyal supporters. Although these stages were pretty small, that didn't seem to dampen anyone's mood, and certainly it seem to create a much more intimate atmosphere.
There were some food stalls selling a lot of local snacks and some sort of vintage market. What I noticed missing was beer. I haven't been many festivals before, but I don't think I've been to one or heard of one when no beer is sold. Not that it mattered to me much, but it seemed kind of odd as festival and beer seem to go hand in hand. I think that's because the official sponsor at Rock in Taichung is Monster Energy, the power drink because they had quite a big stand outside the main stage.
I went over to the main stage at around five thirty. This is an open arena and I'm not sure how many it sits. What you see in the photo below is about 60% of the audience. There were performances on throughout the day, each session lasting 40 minutes with 40 minutes intermissions. I watched the last three performances which included Mamas Gun, of course!! Boy, they were good. They were the penultimate band tonight, and the two bands before and after were local Taiwanese bands. All three drew in a full crowd who were bursting with energy.
I took some videos of the bands and once I edit them, I'll share them with everyone so you can feel the atmosphere at the festival.
一年一度的搖滾台中這個週末又舉行。 這個音樂節和台中爵士音樂節，都是市政府舉辦的免費節目。 今年搖滾台中，除了有不少本地樂隊參加，還邀請來自日本，韓國，馬來西亞，泰國，越南，香港，澳門，澳洲和英國的樂隊。
我在下午到達。場內有不少賣小吃的攤檔，還有一個賣古著和飾物的小市場。搖滾台中一共有五個舞台。 我先到較小的舞台欣賞表演。 這裏的樂隊雖然沒有在主舞台的樂隊那麼有知名度，但他們仍然有一班非常熱情的粉絲。
大概五時半，我進入主舞台去欣賞表演。 這是一個戶外舞台， 整天都有不同樂隊在演出。每一場表演長達40分鐘， 我一共看了三場 。 其中當然有我來自我家鄉的英國樂隊Mama's Gun! 另外兩隊是台灣樂隊宇宙人和八三夭。 老實說，兩隊我都未聽過，因為我較少聽搖滾樂。但兩隊都曾經在台北小巨蛋演出過，所以我相信知名度也不低，只是我孤陋寡聞吧😊。
我拍了不少表演的精彩片段，整理好之後一定和大家分享場內熱鬧的狀況。
Check out all my travel posts here on Steemit Worldmap, and also my latest project @LadiesOfAsia where we share fun and cultural diversity across Asia Pacific.
View this post on TravelFeed for the best experience.
