Mayday Festivals 2011 in Beijing: Final Roundup before the weekend

The weekend is not even here yet and I’m already all festival-ed out. The coverage is all over the spectrum on the expat magazines (Beijinger’s Michelle Dai | City Weekend ..) one could argue we’re over-saturated with coverage and no one really needs another blog post to help but here comes anyways.

The Tongzhou police department weibo account released a map of Strawberry layout for the 2011 edition. Much like in 2010, there is only 1 entrance listed! Now, the emotional hardship from the clusterfuck that was day1 strawberry last year is still vivid in my memories and no matter how freaking amazing their lineup is, I don’t believe they can organize their way out of a paper bag, at least not on day 1. I’m definitely headed to MIDI for that!
Day 2 at Strawberry is IMHO the strongest day of any festival this year (discounting the presence of Mr. Big) and might be worth a visit, provided the feedback from those who went on day 1 is good. If not, screw that shit!

MIDI is putting on one hell of a fight this year against Modern Sky and losing. In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of their traditional acts are playing in Tongzhou only this year. There is insider talk of malpractice all around music circles. Considering how they treated the bands last year, their utter disregard for public safety and the public problems with Carsick Cars amongst others, it’s nothing short of a musical coup that they’ve pulled out….. some deep deep pockets in there folks!
I’m finding it hard not to support MIDI. They’ve managed to put together a 3rd stage in cooperation with Hot Cat Club that is more experimental for young and upcoming bands. That’s a pretty cool thing to do. Let’s also not forget that they’re really trying to raise awareness about the moon bear issues which is commendable… and looking at the pictures on their weibo makes me wanna go check it out.. mountains, green grass, fresh air… oh yeah!

If you’re not really up for trekking to Hebei, you do have plenty of musical options in town:

– Chaoyang pop Festival is right smack downtown with an assortment of pop/electro international acts that doesn’t sound bad at all. Definitely a worthy contender if you don’t care about the music and would like a day in the park.
– Ningxia Fest at 2 Kolegas on sunday is one hell of good event from what I’ve seen: The Zhao family, buyi, wu and all the other usual suspects are in the house. not to mention tons of Ningxia food… having tasted some of it at Xixia Fengxiang, I’m tempting to just stick in town for this.

There you got it folks… I would talk about Pinggu but its location makes tongzhou and haidian seem like they’re next door. I reall ywish them luck.