Jisan Valley Rock Festival

To kick off our vacation right, we attended a three-day festival in a little resort-town southeast of Seoul called 지산 (Jisan). The line-up looked pretty sweet, with Weezer headlining the friday night, Basement Jaxx the saturday, and Oasis on Sunday. The trip to get there was a little difficult, as we were carrying supplies to camp out for three nights on our backs.

A little history of the festival...there is none. It's the first year that they have held it, so there were some functionality-issues to work out, but all in all, they did a pretty good job. The organizers actually were involved with the Pentaport festival in previous years, which was the biggest annual festival in Korea. However, there was a dispute, and the two separated, creating two festivals on the same weekend competing for fans. Which is unfortunate, as the Deftones were on stage on the Pentaport festival at the same time.

We arrived late into the day on friday, as we both had to go to work in the morning to ask permission to leave early. We walked into the concert grounds in the middle of Fallout Boy's set. I'm not a big fan of their music, so I wasn't that impressed from what I did hear, but I'm biased. We set up our new tent for the first time (or attempted to set it up), and went in to meet up with Ryan Hillstead and Lisa Styles who were also attending the festival for the weekend. The attendance seemed surprisingly small. It's hard to really estimate, but on the Friday night, I'd guess between 8-10,000 people in the whole grounds. This would increase by Sunday, but at that point, it was a welcome intimate show. Weezer hit the stage at 9:30, and we were easily able to walk up to a good vantage point to watch the show.

The thing with Korean crowds, that is a great attribute in my opinion, is that the people who mosh, jump up and down, and dance, as opposed to the violent arm-swinging slam-dancing. Now, not to betray my metal and punk roots, I do like the slam dancing on a limited basis, as well as crowd surfing, however, I think things have gone too far in the last five or six years. Moshing used to be about collective energy and emotional discharge, but it's become a violent organism that results in serious injury, and isn't something you can opt out of. Korean festivals are a welcome respite.

Anyhow, Weezer rocked the house, debuting some new tracks, rocking some old tracks, and taking from the range of their 15-year body of work. I'm not really that big of a fan of their newer work, as it's starting to become recycled and stagnant, however, they played such a great range, it's impossible to not enjoy. Josh Freese was on the drums, freeing up Pat to play lead guitar and lead vocals. Very surprising and impressive. Rivers did a lot of preparation for the Korean show, I've been here for almost two years and it seems he knows more Korean than I do. The crowd loved it, and chanted for the encore. "WEE-ZAH! WEE-ZAH! ANG-CORE! ANG-CORE!"

Day two was very relaxing. As we were exhausted from traveling and working the day before, we had gone to bed fairly early, avoiding the all-night electronica parties. We hung out on the grassy common for most of the day. We were lucky, the clouds overhead kept the temperature down most of the day. There were some notable Korean acts throughout the day, the most notable being called Deli Spice, a rock/hard-rock act that looks like a bunch of blue-collar Korean workers, but kicked out amazing tunes. The headliner Basement Jaxx didn't disappoint. They have an amazing stage show, and for a mostly electronic act, they use a lot of analog instruments, drums, trumpets, guitars, and so on. The singers and dancers were amazing with multiple costume changes. I'd say that this was probably the peak performance of the show, with an unmatched energy.

The last day was a scorcher. Hot and sunny, the only way to cool off was to go hang out in the "cool down" zone, which was a bunch of mist jets and fans that brought the temperature down quite a bit. We saw a Korean band Dr. Core 911 who were the first Korean hardcore band that I've seen. We caught up with them in the cool down zone and talked in broken english and broken korean for a few minutes. This day actually had an amazing amount of talent. The B-Stage had some more independent, edgy Korean rock and punk, and Patti Smith graced the main-stage with her extremely charismatic and powerful hippy presence.

Oasis...(or should I say "Oh-ashes" as the Koreans do), why do people like you? Well, one reason is because they're a solid stadium-anthem rock band. The songs are catchy, easy to remember, and they're constant ripping off of the beatles, from riffs to cover songs. Korea loves them, it's the second time in six months they've had a performance here. The attendance was easily double what it had been for the previous two days by the time they went on. Everyone knew all the words to all the songs, and despite Liam's childish behavior, I don't think any of them were disappointed. However, Liam's attitude and the way he spit out the vocals with so much contempt and sarcasm, it's hard to respect the band. "I don't really know the area, I don't even know the name of the festival, but you've been the bollocks..." Maybe Noel is a good guy, or maybe it's just in comparison to such an asshole, but he made the show watchable. He played some good guitar, he complimented the crowd, and actually looked like he was enjoying it.

The night finished off with a display of fireworks better than anything I've seen in Canada, and people slowly walked out of the concert. Ryan and Lisa and their friends had to work the next day, so they attempted to take the shuttle bus home, although it was a doomed venture. Fortunately they caught a ride home with some friendly Koreans, and were home by 1:30am. Kat and I went to our tent and were fast asleep before 12. Festivals are very tiring. The next day we went to Wonju to pick up our rental car to continue on with our vacation. More on that to follow.

All in all it was a blast, and we have another festival (only one day) on August 15. Headliner: Nine Inch Nails. I'm pumped.

You can check out some pictures from the weekend HERE. Click on the Jisan folder to see them. Also, there's this guy who videotaped the entire Weezer set, and if you're a fan, it's worth watching. I'll try to post that in the next day or two.

Until next time, keep fit and have fun.
rob