Korean Job Discussion Forums

[McGenghis]

Is totally awesome. Great bunch of folks playing amazing music. What a time!

How many of you guys made it down or up to this totally needed infusion of heavy music?

[Pa Jan Jo A Hamnida]

Who played?

[oldtactics]

How many people were there? Similar to other music festivals?

[K-Dog]

It WAS good. Until around 11pm they decided to shut it down because too many people living near-by complained about the noise pollution.

Talk about bad planning. The festival gets approved by Daejeon officials, but clearly if enough neighbors complain its too noisy, thats more important. I mean really, what did they expect would happen?

They were trying to promote Daejeon... what a mess they made of that.

[brickabrack]

I guess you could call something totally awesome if you're with the right crowd. I mean, you could have a good time at a meat processing plant with some good company.

It was ok. Lot's of foreigners. No beer, well Cass. Misinformation there, but how else are you going to pull a buncha waygooks together.

The music. Hmm. I want to be nice, but I just can't. I applaud the bands who worked really hard to make this a great event, but it was not good music. At all. Thankfully, I really enjoyed my company. Since when is spaghetti and vegetables a national dish of Spain??

I might opt for the int'l food fest in Itaewon if I could do it over again.

[Benicio]

While it was a great idea, there were many problems with this event- mostly due to poor planning & execution.

I would like to see more events like this around Korea as it can be great for everyone to enjoy.

There were some good bands/music and the atmosphere was pretty cool.
It was free, too.

However, it just didn't turn out the way it should have.

-It should have started around 1PM, not 6PM. Attempting to keep a music festival going until 5AM may work in other countries, not in Korea. The only way it would work is if it is inside or out in the middle of nowhere.

-The food & beer tents should have been better prepared. There was only 1 beer tent and quite a few of the international food tents closed way early. There were many complaints about the just 1 beer tent and limited range of international beers that were advertised.

-No security whatsoever and a lack of communication about what was going on. Band schedules were not advertised/posted ahead of time.

-The bass drum head broke during Whatever That Means' set with no backup on site. That put a halt to the show for a while. Contrary to popular belief, drums are not indestructible. They break, especially after several punk/rock bands in a row. Break a bass drum, pedal or snare with no backup and the show is over. Be prepared!

-The band order should have varied more. There were different kinds of bands there, so putting on 4 ska punk bands in a row didn't really make any sense. It started sounding like the same band 4 times.

-Not getting the proper coordination with the police and local neighborhood council with a city-sponsored event was just a boneheaded move. Neighboring apartments started complaining and the police show up ordering the music to be turned down, which it was.
11:30 and the show is shut down completely with at least 4 bands left who never got to take the stage. That sucked royally!
Somebody screwed up majorly and it was a real let down.

The remaining bands got to some clubs downtown and played substitute shows and had some good times, but the general feeling of the rock fest is that is was just not planned/executed well at all.

I know that with event promotions mistakes are made with early attempts and you learn from those mistakes. If an attempt is made at a 2nd Daejeon Rock Festival, then I hope the promoters will learn from the major mistakes made this time.

[Benicio]

After thinking about it, it was just the fact that neighbors complained. This was a city-sponsored event to promote Daejeon and it was a good idea. However, as it started getting late, people complained, so the cops shut it down.
It doesn't matter that this was goverment approved. I guess the police were irritated by the complaining phone calls that were ruining their nap time.
Funny how they don't give a **** when it's drunks screaming & fighting in the street outside your apartment at 3AM!

Bottom line, this concert should have started and ended earlier.

[SNOTOSEOUL]

Sure it sucked that it got shut down... but i had a blast and i would go again. They had a good mix of fun and cool stuff to do nearby.

[Gom]

It was a great idea and I had a great time but it was riddled with poor planning.

Also, when people started knocking over tables covered in empty bottles and breaking chairs at the end of the night I couldn't help but feel pissed off. Some people need to get some sense.

However, I still had an awesome time, even if it never happens again.

- Demand is high enough though, so of course it will!

[geldedgoat]

The Spanish tent sold nothing but spaghetti, and the Mexican tent sold nothing but beef samosas. I really regret my decision to skip Weizenhaus for that lackluster festival.

[hapigokelli]

Like many events that I have attended in Korea, it was a let down.

The "international beer" consisted of Cass, Budweiser, Heineken, Guinness and San Miguel (Which was 7,000 a bottle.)

The "international food" was a disgrace. Not worth mentioning.

The bands were...all the same.

When we showed up there were no signs telling us where to find the Rock Festival and, as there were a few other festivals going on in the area we had to wander around looking for it.

Why do I get my hopes up?

[gr33n_g14n7]

They gotta start somewhere right? I had a good time, was sad to see some waygooks behaving badly (e.g. broken tables, stopping traffic to bum rides, etc.) but overall it was a good first try. Hopefully they learn from it.

We all know that "government permission" in the ROK is a very tenuous thing too eh?

[mollayo]

I'm so glad I live in Daejeon. I felt bad for all those people who came from out of town. I'm also glad it was free....because if it hadn't been...omg. The Mexico tent was the biggest let down ever. Mexico - Taco Experience....What did I find? An Indian guy selling samosas. Wtf? Just don't put a Mexico tent in there.

The music....Most of it sucked, but there were a couple of good bands.

The only reason this was enjoyable was because of the people I was with. It had nothing to do with the festival itself.

[FDNY]

So, basically I could have gotten better beer and music by going to the nearest 7-Eleven with my I-Pod. Haha.

[towl]

I think the biggest mistake of this festival was having high expectations going into it.

As much as I'd like to be positive about the experience, it really was a major let-down that was poorly organised (and incorrectly advertised) in so many ways.

Never mind the embarrassing 'world food' festival that consisted of two Itaewon kebab vendors, spaghetti & vegetables, an Indian vendor and Samoosas sold at a Mexican vendor, this I can handle as I have long lost any illusions as to the abysmal quality of international food in Korea. But what really gets me was the music.

I mean, here is an event organised, no doubt, by music enthusiasts, yet they prepared the evening as though they had never witnessed a live performance ever. I could smell trouble when at 5:30, while families were thinking about getting dinner, they throw Rammstein out of the blue at everybody, at MAX volume.

Then they put on some death-screamo band to erm... get things warmed up? Wtf. Did the organisers not consider that designing a set list is one of the highest priorities with these kind of things.

Then, and this imo was the biggest screw up, they clearly had no sound engineer to balance the levels! Everything was painfully set to volume 11. This is why the neighbourhood complained. Because it all sounded terrible.

Next time, organise your set list properly, hire a sound engineer, and yeah, choose a slightly more eclectic mix of musicians, because there actually are some good local bands in Korea, and they chose none of them!