4Month30Day –5Month2Day,2016The MIDI Music Festival is delivering a three-day musical extravaganza in Qidu Town, Wujiang, Suzhou. On the second day of performances, the Tang, Warring States, and Kid Fans stages continued to offer diverse and unique shows to tens of thousands of music lovers. Having spent a day and night immersed in the festivities, attendees at Suzhou MIDI Camp were hitting their stride, with romance, innocence, enthusiasm, and wild energy taking over the stunning lakeside meadows.
2016The annual theme of this year’s MIDI Music Festival is “Stay Away from Drugs, Get Closer to Music.” And at MIDI — a place fans regard as their “home” — countless details remind us of music’s power—not only to keep us away from drugs, but also to guide us away from danger, fear, loneliness, and indifference.
First-time visitors to MIDI might initially find the frenzied enthusiasm of the crowd a bit overwhelming — that intensity of warmth and passion, far beyond the politeness and reserve we usually show in daily life, expressed through physical collisions and the unrestrained release of instinct. But they quickly get swept up in the strong musical rhythms, shedding some of the burdens they carry in everyday life, because they realize that even if they fall during the mosh pit, someone will help them up; even if they drink until they’re completely wasted, they can still sleep soundly. At MIDI, all that “armor” is clearly unnecessary.
And so, on the second day of celebration, there was a young mother who had just given birth to her second child diving headfirst into the mosh pit under the Warring States stage, trusting the countless sturdy arms that lifted her up. Someone was looking for apogostranger standing nearby, offering mutual support, because leaving here might mean missing out on a romantic encounter. Some fans hugged and kissed the security guards—regardless of age or status, everyone felt like family under the influence of music, MIDI, and love.
All of this was made possible by rock 'n' roll. On the second day of performances, dozens of top domestic and international musicians pushed the atmosphere to an even higher level of excitement. Though the young performers on the Kid Fans stage may have been technically less polished, their enthusiasm was no less fierce. Kids chased balloons on the grass and painted with colorful crayons, turning the area into the most innocent paradise by Taihu Lake. The Warring States stage took on an increasingly hard-edged vibe on its second day, with rising Chinese metal acts like Pestilence, Different Sayings, and Black Prayer following330the call of metal music to MIDI.Never Before’s drummer turned out to be the legendary Chinese rock drummerFunkyUzuki, who gave fans a huge surprise. Hong Kong’s Mothman, Canada’sProtest the Hero, China’s most enigmatic black metal band Burial of Corpses and Lake, and the newly returned-from-Europe tour nomadic metal band SubversionMrepeatedly sent the crowd into states of delirious ecstasy.
Acts on the Tang stage offered a rich variety of styles, featuring the wine-rich blues ofBig Gunand Zhang Ling, the experimental folk of Wan Xiaoli, while international acts from the UK’sThe Harridans, Korea’sBurning Soda, and France’sTeam Ghostrepresented global standards of psychedelia, pop, and electronic music respectively.
A special highlight was the 20-year-old band Life Party. The moment their iconic bagpipes sounded, the Tang stage transformed into a sea of joy. Fireworks lit up one after another as people danced around the lights in circles. Over twenty years, Life Party has influenced an entire generation of fans and grown from a flagbearer of Wuhan punk into the undisputed leader of Chinese punk. Yesterday was also the birthday of lead singer Wu Wei. He raised his glass on stage, and that night, who knows how many joined him in getting drunk for the past twenty years of Chinese punk.
The final act was Xie Tianxiao, living up to his title as the “King of Live Performances.” Blending guzheng, reggae,Grungehe oscillated between deep intensity and wild ferocity. His larger-than-life stage presence gradually pushed the audience’s emotions to a fever pitch, as if even the waters of Taihu Lake were vibrating to his rhythm. Finally, the storm-like torrent of guitar riffs came to an abrupt halt, leaving only reverberating echoes between the audience’s eardrums and the air. (Text: Chen Xiaobei / Photos: Yan Min, Zhou Jie, Yuxuan, Yuzi, Kuangye, Xu Peng)
