Life and Leisure

Wild music festival

By Chen Nan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-20 11:42

Crowds revel in the fun of the Strawberry Music Festival in May, Beijing. Some of the same bands will perform at the Tanglewood Festival. Photos Provided to China Daily

More than 100 musical acts will perform at a music festival set in the windswept forests of the capital's Yanqing county, through which snake many of the Great Wall's most famous stretches.

From Aug 27 to 29, the performers will take to three stages at the Great Wall Tanglewood Forest Music Festival. The site is 53 km away from Badaling Great Wall - about an hour's drive from downtown.

Mainland rockers, such as Xie Tianxiao, folk singers, such as Cao Fang, and bands, such as Buyi and Twisted Machine, will headline the event. It will also be Taiwan veteran singer/songwriter Lo Ta-yu's first performance at a mainland festival.

US singers and bands, such as The London Souls, and German musician Maximilian Hecker will also take to the stage.

The performance area will transform into nightly electronic music parties from midnight until 7 am. These after-hours jamborees come courtesy of the same production and performance team that brings Beijing the Intro Electronic Music Festival, which lured more than 20,000 fans to 798 art district for its last show.

"The more of these kinds of carnivals, the better for music fest lovers," Shen Lihui says.

Shen is founder of Modern Sky Music Festival and Strawberry Music Festival, which attracted more than 100,000 visitors last May Day holiday. The label, which carries hundreds of indie musicians and bands, will bring to the music festival young bands who are active in Beijing's live music scene.

"The festival will help shape the area's cultural identity as a music base," says Jiang Zhou, the event's co-organizer and manager of Beijing Tanglewood Tour Development Co, which invested 500 million yuan ($74 million) in the project six years ago.

"It's not far from the capital, and the temperatures are cool," Jiang says.

Visitors can camp on an area of more than 10,000 square meters outside the performance stages, he says.

Jiang says the festival borrowed its name from the Tanglewood Music Festival, which is staged every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Indoor live music venues have also been built on site to attract visitors during winter. Several indie music labels will move into the area, where recording studios and rehearsing venues will be opened, too.

The company says it has worked with the World Wildlife Fund to adopt measures that protect the area's natural resources.

"The lure of hosting a music festival in a forest retreat is the relaxing setting for entertainment," Jiang says.

"But the space won't last if its environment isn't protected."

China Daily