Festival fever rocks Ansan Valley
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By David Keelaghan
When it rains it pours. That certainly appears to be the case in Korea this year, which made for some challenging conditions at the 2015 Ansan Valley M Rock Festival, held this past weekend at the Daebu Sea Breeze Theme Park in Gyeonggi Province.
There certainly wasn’t much evidence of Korea’s severe drought of the past few months as some of the world’s top live acts arrived on the peninsula.
The festival has been running in various forms since 2009, bringing international superstars to Korea each year. Last year was an exception, as the event was cancelled in the aftermath of the Sewol ferry tragedy. In previous years, the likes of Massive Attack, Basement Jaxx, The Pet Shop Boys, The Cure and Radiohead have all preformed, and this year’s lineup was no less stacked, although a little disjointed in trying to provide something for everyone. Korean artists were also well represented by Dynamic Duo, Jang Kiha and the Faces, Daybreak and Idiotape, albeit lower down the card.
On Friday, the headliners were electronic dance star deadmau5 and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds -- indicative of this year’s eclectic mix of talent. The two artists actually engaged in a spat earlier this month after Scotland’s T in the Park festival. Never short of a cutting barb, Gallagher described EDM stars Avicii and deadmau5 headlining the event as "disturbing, if a dude in a hat and a pair of fake DJ decks pressing play on a CD player is what it's all about. That's quite a bleak future." Probably good the two played different stages at Ansan then.
With the site completely waterlogged by the time people started arriving on Friday afternoon, the arena quickly became something of a quagmire. This made navigating between the festivals’ three stages pretty difficult and, combined with the hordes of mosquitoes and late-July humidity, the experience certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart.
Nevertheless, with Noel Gallagher finishing off Friday night on the main stage, those in attendance didn’t seem too troubled with the adverse conditions. The Manchester songwriter is currently in the “Paul McCartney and Wings” stage of his career. His new band has tasted plenty of success and toured the world, yet it’s clear the majority of fans at his gigs are there mostly to hear the classics of his former group. One of the more self-aware musicians out there, Noel Gallagher doesn’t disregard this, and his set at Ansan certainly provided plenty of opportunities for an Oasis sing-along. Alongside new hits from the High Flying Birds such as “In the Heat of the Moment,” and “Riverman,” Oasis anthems “Fade Away,” “Champagne Supernova,” “Half the World Away” and “Masterplan” were all featured before the fitting crescendo of his most famous ballad “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”
It was another British group that took center stage on Saturday as the Chemical Brothers headlined. Fresh from another acclaimed performance at Glastonbury in June, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are currently promoting their latest album “Born in the Echoes.” While many of the weekend’s main acts were making their debut at the festival, the electronic legends first appeared back at the 2011 event.
The Chemical Brothers have perfected the main stage electronic sound, as well as the lights and pyrotechnics to complement it. The Ansan festival didn’t quite have the crowd or budget of a Glastonbury, but the spectacle was still mighty impressive. Opening with their all-time classic “Hey Boy, Hey Girl,” the Manchester duo delighted fans with a typically up-tempo set. Mixing songs from their new album such as “Sometimes I Feel So Deserted,” with iconic anthems “Setting Sun” (unfortunately Noel Gallagher didn’t stick around to perform vocals on the track live) and “Block Rockin’ Beats,” it was a performance that ticked all the boxes and sent the thousands in attendance home happy, despite torrential rain and mud so thick you could imagine what the Somme must have been like.
On Sunday, thankfully, the rain at least decided to take a break, although the mud and mosquitoes remained as steadfast as ever. Taking the legends’ slot for the festival were English metal band Motorhead. Frontman Lemmy explained to the crowd that despite clocking up more air miles than a pilot over the band’s 40-year run, this was his first trip to Korea. The highlight of the set was undoubtedly the amazing drum solos of Mikkey Dee, who Lemmy proclaimed as the world’s best drummer.
It was a former drummer that undoubtedly stole the entire show on Sunday too. Dave Grohl, complete with guitar throne, finished off the festival alongside the rest of the Foo Fighters. The former Nirvana star was in high spirits despite appearing on stage wearing a medical boot after breaking his leg at a show in Sweden last month. That injury put his attendance in Ansan in jeopardy, but instead he performed his set sitting in a huge seat inspired by the hit HBO TV series Game of Thrones. Besides his talent as a guitarist, singer and drummer, Grohl also has a real knack for comedy. His repartee with the crowd was almost as entertaining as his hit songs, of which there were many, including “Everlong,” “These Days,” “The Pretender” before finishing off with crowd favorite “Best of You.”
It was a positive conclusion to a festival that certainly wasn’t perfect. Of course there’s not much organizers CJ E&M could have done about the weather, but given that the event was held in the middle of the Korean rainy season, more could have been done in contingency. Reports of heavy-handed security and problems with transportation to and from the site also added somewhat of a black mark. Certainly, improvements need to be made if Ansan Valley M Rock is to grow into an internationally renowned festival rather than simply a popular domestic event.