This year’s Pentaport Rock Festival didn’t quite live up to 2006, but it was a great time nonetheless. Some of the improvements over last year were:

  • Much better weather. As opposed to last year’s torrential downpour on the first day, leading to a three-day mudfest (not that that was entirely bad), this year’s weather was mainly overcast with only a few brief showers. In short, nearly perfect.
  • A wider selection in food. The food last year, while quite tasty, was mainly limited to pizza and barbequed chicken (or Korean food…primarily stews…which doesn’t exactly go well with beer). This year, in addition to the pizza and chicken, vendors sold burritos, cheesesteaks, bangers and mash, and an assortment of other goodies.
  • More scantily-clad models and narrator models. A likely result of the better weather.

The only thing that didn’t come close to last year was the line-up of bands. Unfortunately, this was a very big thing.

On Friday night you had OK Go, who were actually pretty good. They were followed by The Chemical Brothers, who were fun to watch but, while certainly among the best at what they do, are a poor choice to headline at a LIVE music festival. Give me guitars, drums, and vocalists, thank you very much. Save the canned music for the clubs (or full-moon festivals).

Saturday night was even worse. First up was Ocean Colour Scene who, despite somewhat high expectations based on positive reviews of their music from festival-goers, failed horribly to impress. They were fine if you are sitting at a table having a beer, but to watch live…ugh. No stage presence whatsoever. They were followed by Japanese glam band L’arc en Ciel who were okay but - c’mon! - we are talking about the HEADLINE ACT here. Compare this to last year’s Saturday night line-up of the Black Eyed Peas and Placebo. Sorry, you can’t.

Sunday night’s line-up of Crying Nut and Muse was good, though it would have been better had it been Northern Irish band Ash (who performed one act earlier) rather than Crying Nut. I know Crying Nut has a huge following in Korea, but their accordion-influenced rock sound comes across as too much schtick. One could even argue that Muse’s show, which was brilliant, couldn’t quite measure up in terms of fun to the party atmosphere created by last year’s final act Franz Ferdinand.

In spite of my complaints, the festival was still worth the price of admission, which was 165,000 won for a three-day pass.

Part of the fun of attending a festival like Pentaport is discovering some of the local talent. For every shit band you have the displeasure to be exposed to (ie. Vassline), you come across two or three pretty good ones. The bands I was most impressed by were glam-rock band 내귀에 도청장치 (Nae Gwee-ay Do Chung Jang Chi - Wiretap in My Ear) - clad in faux bloody bandages - and rock band Sugar Donut, who were a fill-in for Hellogoodbye. Both bands deserve a main stage slot next year (in place of, say, Vassline). Another group that has potential is The Melody. They need a bit of refinement, however. The lead singer, though occassionally off pitch, has a good voice and is as cute as a button.

Here is the first of many videos taken at the festival. I’m producing them chronologically as I shot them, so the first three acts are Korean bands Diablo, 사랑 과 평화 (Sarang Gwa Pyunghwa - Love and Peace), and 내귀에 도청장치 (Wiretap in My Ear). Please forgive my camera’s crappy mic.

Next up is Ok Go (and a couple of hot cigarette-selling girls).

Here we have some partying “missy” ajummas, fireworks, some screaming/dancing girls, The Chemical Brothers, and, oh yes, a dancing chicken.

Moving on to Saturday, the next video contains the events of the entire day, including long-legged models, cutie tv hosts, whirlpooling rockers (including that chicken again), girls getting their hair done, a Swiss rock band called 69 Chambers (featuring a Paris Hilton-lookalike lead singer), Ocean Colour Scene, and the Japanese band L’Arc en Ciel.

The highlights of the next video were shot early Sunday afternoon. They include The Melody (including the sweetie singer) and Sugar Donut.

Part six includes the group Asian Kung-fu Generation, people in the midst of a variety of activities, some very short shorts, a helicopter, an extremely off-key singer, the band Ash, a girl who I was fortunate enough to get to know a bit, a guy whose pants nearly fell down, and finally, Crying Nut kicking off the evening session.

The final act of the festival was Muse, and this video is devoted to them. I must admit I was getting mildly pissed off waiting for the concert to begin. Finally, about an hour after the scheduled start time, the band started playing Knights of Cydonia and all was well. Muse puts on a fantastic show and Matthew Bellamy is a guitar virtuoso. Definitely worth checking out if you ever get a chance. In the meantime, ignore the shit mic and enjoy the video.

See you next year. I’m guessing August 1-3.