Blog - BKK #15: Soi Music Festival

BKK #15: Soi Music Festival

When we planned our trip to Bangkok, we had no idea about Soi Music Festival. It's our friend Mai who made us realize that we had picked just the right time to be able to be able to see Cornelius, Spank Happy live, and also Thai(-based) artists like Futon, and many more. What a coincidence!
This ended up being one of the most fun parts of our trip.

The festival's live shows were held at the cool theatre House located on RCA, where we had seen the great "Super Size Me" a few days earlier.

The coolest thing is that in Japan it normally costs about ¥6000 to only see Cornelius in Tokyo, but Soi Music Festival in Bangkok was only 501฿ (not even ¥1500) per night, and Cornelius was even playing both nights!

Day 1 - House

On the first day of Soi Music Festival we went to House and saw some Thai artists followed by Cornelius' great set, accompanied by Araki Yūko (aka Migu).
Cornelius performed a few songs from several of his albums, but the coolest of his show was certainly his live video mixing using images from Thai TV and also clips of the audience being filmed live! The sound from Thai TV remained and was used to make a unique result, but additionally there was a Cornelius beat. This reminded me a bit of Coldcut, although Cornelius' performance was probably using a lot more random clips.

Cornelius' set went as follows (approximately):
- live mixing of video from Thai TV and audience
- Eyes (viewable online at The Big Idea)
- I Hate Hate
- Drop
- Count 5 or 6
- Brand New Season, featuring a theremin solo performed by a random person from the audience (their hand controlled by Cornelius)
- Star Fruit Surf Rider

Day 1 - Met Bar

After then, we got back to our hotel, The Metropolitan, and as we had heard some hint that there would be an after-party at the hotel's classy Met Bar. We quickly dumped our stuff in our room and headed there.
Met Bar was really packed, and the live shows hadn't started yet, so we had a few drinks at the bar. Unlike anywhere we had been in Bangkok so far, the drinks were quite expensive, similar to Tokyo prices.

Then, someone tapped my shoulder and asked me to go with him closer to the stage, and... there was Cornelius, and also Migu and friends! The person who had caught my attention was Susukita-san of the defunct Maximum Joy, who remembered seeing me at his shop (and who I didn't recognize right away).
I had the chance to talk a little bit with Cornelius, but being so surprised I could hardly find my words and of course it's only later that I remembered all what I'd have liked to ask him. Nevertheless it was a great pleasure to meet him after all these years of admiration!
They left their spot before the shows started, except for Susukita-san who watched the whole show with a lot of enthusiasm.

First to play was Futon, a Bangkok-based band with members from Japan and the UK. Futon's very energetic and fun set included a cover of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (which I coincidentally just saw being performed by Plastics Sex a few days ago) and many original songs, all very fun and sort of 80's sounding with a club feel.
We had the chance to talk a little with Momoko after the show, who we didn't know was Japanese until then.

Next on stage was Spank Happy. I heard that the female singer was supposed to be the new Dominique, but she apparently couldn't make it and was replaced by someone else who had never been on stage. Spank Happy's shows are all lip sync anyway, so it doesn't matter so much.
They played a few songs from their album "Vendôme, la sick kaiseki" (Amazon) such as "Chic", David Bowie's "Fame" and Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", and also several songs I didn't know (either older songs or new ones). Kikuchi-san was controlling the CDJ player, and sometimes did some scratching in order to skip the end of a long-ish track without cutting it abruptly.

That night, to go from that cool club to our room, all we had to do was take the elevator! :)

Day 2 - House

The next day we headed for House again for the 2nd night of Soi Music Festival.
We saw a few Thai bands again, then Futon, Spank Happy once more.
Then was a special unannounced performance of Spank Happy's Kikuchi Naruyoshi on saxophone with Ohno Yumiko, playing improvized jazz.

Last but not least was Cornelius again, doing the same set as the previous night but using different images from Thai TV.
This time our friend Mai who we had met at the beginning of our trip was able to make it, so we were able to say goodbye properly.

Soi Music Festival continues in Tokyo at the end of the month.

This was also our last night in Bangkok, so we went back to the hotel not too late. We packed and slept for a few hours until about 4am, since our plane was at about 7am.

This entry concludes the series about our trip to Bangkok.

To Bangkok index

Posted on October 24, 2004 at 00:44 | Tweet |

---

Trackback

---

Comments RSS

---

© 2003-2024, chi­pple­.n­et