2013 May Festival Madness: Strawberry Lineup, MIDI Dates, Folk Moves

It’s still a bit on the chilly side in old smoggy but relief is just around the corner, or so i hope! Thoughts of sitting on the grass, sipping on some mean cocktails and enjoying some rock n roll under the sun are giving me the strength to endure this freaking long winter. And while i’m most likely to end up at MIDI, I do keep an eye on what Modern Sky is doing with Strawberry 2013. Their little brother, the Folk festival, is rumored to be moving to Chaoyang park this year so we’re gonna be keeping tabs on that one as well. Let’s see where we stand:

Strawberry Music Festival 2013 ( April 29 – May 1)
Cao_Mei_Hai_Bao_Ban_

They’re sticking to their traditional home in Tongzhou so i’m expecting a dry one again. As usual, they are set with a good old mean lineup of bands so far and it’s really begging the question of who’s left to play MIDI, especially with Modern Sky pulling double duty by having one in shanghai at the same time.

Foreign headliners include the Scottish band Travis along with Deerhoof from San Francisco. Dutch electro-pop group Monokino, Australian Lenka and Immanu El ( Sweden) have also been rumoured to preform.
On the Chinese side we have: Xie Tian Xiao, Omnipotent Youth Society as well as Hedgehog. Brain Failure, A Boys, Reflector, Queen Sea Big Shark,Four Five and the post-rock darlings, Glow Curve. No word yet as far as Escape Plan goes.

MIDI Music Festival 2013: ( April 29 – May 1)
midi2013
This is a special one for MIDI as the school turns 20 so here’s hoping they get their act together and make something worthwhile. The dates have been announced but as usual, the location is TBD. I wish they just stick around to the same one they had last year. I actually enjoyed that one and thought the layout was perfect. So far, the only names that have leaked out are Dark wave quartet Cold Cave and Denmark’s D-A-D (Disneyland After Dark). I’m sure we can expect the usual suspects like Miserable Faith, CMCB, SUBS and Suffocated. That’s all we got for now but expect some more news and announcements from them later this week..

Ditan Folk Festival
Details are still a bit shaky on this one but i’m hearing that there might a relocation in the works with Chaoyang Park listed as a potential venue. I’m not sure how i feel about that given that Ditan has traditionally been perfect IMHO. Let’s see what old DOng pulls out of this magic bag for this year.

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5 Responses

  1. Chinabuzz says:

    Can we at least have some wagering here on which foreign acts will be announced and then cancelled?

  2. Beijing Daze says:

    haha.. we can wait for the full announcements first. MIDI has some pretty good stuff in the pipeline but they are not gonna say anything until it’s all dotted and stamped

  3. I agree that Ditan was perfect for the Folk Festival! I missed MIDI last year but was kind of hoping that they would return to Haidian Park since it’s so close to my house.

  4. Jack says:

    Can you camp over night? I have gone for the past two years and love it that there is a decent Music Festival, I would love to stay for two days and save travelling.