The annual rock festival staged over the May Day break by Beijing's Midi Music School has long been the highlight of an otherwise drab and pointless holiday. I've been three or four times (well, probably six or seven times over four years), and it's always been a great day out in Haidian Park (although it is a hell of a long schlepp away on the north-west side of town, and taxi drivers never seem to have heard of it).
Last year, of course, it got cancelled at the last minute, because of the authorities' paranoia about unseemly public gatherings in Olympic year. A smaller version of the event was staged during the October holiday, but it was thrown together at very short notice, used obscure indoor venues, got just about no advance publicity, was bedevilled by conflicting venue information in the listings magazines, and found itself in competition with a rival festival staged by Modern Sky Records, and..... did I mention there was pretty much no advance publicity? No, it was, I fear, a bit of a disaster. Just about no-one that I know went to it. Very sad.
However, we had all been fervently hoping for a return to form this May - it looks as if the weather is going to be perfect.
Unfortunately..... well, maybe the organizers were too disheartened by their experiences last year. Maybe there are problems with the 'traditional' Haidian Park venue. Maybe the authorities are still antsy about large public gatherings, what with all the sensitive anniversaries this year (although there are two smaller music festivals going on: we have a new two-day jazz/folk event in Ditan Park, and Modern Sky is launching its Strawberry Festival - but that's in the distant suburb of Tongzhou). No Midi for us again this year. BOO!! I learned just last week that although the festival will be going ahead on a fairly big scale (not as big as two years ago, but comparable to its ambitions three or four years ago), it has moved to Zhenjiang. Where?? Well, quite. Some of my Chinese friends have never heard of it. Apparently it's in Jiangsu Province, a couple of hours' train ride south of Shanghai. That doesn't bode well for much of a laowai turnout, but hopefully there are enough local rock fans down there to make it a decent party.
Why on earth has this happened? Global Times, a new English-language newspaper here (state-run, of course, but supposedly slightly less hidebound by propaganda imperatives and therefore more 'appealing' to foreigners than the pedestrian and often laughably happy-clappy China Daily; it's a bit early to judge, since it was only launched a week ago) yesterday carried a story about the Midi Festival, celebrating its success over the past few years, and noting with regret that the capital would be missing out on it this year. However, there was no examination of the reasons for its cancellation last year, and no explanation for the change of venue this year. Is this just laziness on the part of the journalist, or is it a government decision based on 'public order' concerns and therefore unchallengeable? Your guess is as good as mine.
Well, we haven't lost Midi completely: some of the 'bigger' bands are scheduled to play evening concerts at Star Live. However, that's a bit of a charmless barn of a venue. And the whole point of Midi is that it's an open-air event. (And a big supplementary bonus, when the festival was held in the city, was that all the bands would play formal or informal gigs around the city's cosier, friendlier music bars for most of the week. Now, that was fun.)
I suppose I could check out the Modern Sky offering; but Tongzhou really is dauntingly far away, and I have no idea how to get there. The Ditan Park festival has the considerable advantages of featuring several performers I know, and being within walking distance; I've even been offered a free ticket for Saturday. Yep, I think that's likely to be my holiday entertainment. Might be worth checking out both the festival line-ups, though. (It seems like City Weekend is the best place to look; Modern Sky's website is mostly in Chinese, and I find the bloody The Beijinger website impossible to navigate! Strawberry Festival - Friday, Saturday, Sunday; Ditan Park - Friday & Saturday).
See you around, music fans. Have a fun holiday!
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