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Club 8 Live at
Formoz Festival 2004 and Formoz Festival After Party
31th July and 2nd August 2004, Taiwan |
Club 8 diary
in Taiwan
Club 8 isnít exactly a band, which is touring around the world all the time.
People from different countries often ask us to play, but since we want it to be
special every time we almost always say no. Since we started in 1995 weíve played
9 gigs altogether! But when we were asked to play at the Formoz festival
in Taiwan we simply couldnít say no. Neither of us had been to the country before,
but we were very curious to see it, though we had no idea what to expect of from
Taiwan
July 30
We left Stockholm on July 29 and arrived in Taiwan at night on July 30. A long
trip indeed! Three girls, Katy, Christii and Dodo, were waiting to pick us up at
the airport and brought us to the hotel, which was really nice. In the hotel lobby
there were, to our surprise, already some fans waiting to get autographs. Puzzled
we signed their CDs and went to our room to unpack.
[hotel]
The girls from the airport had recommended the dish ìhotpotî so as we got
hungry we headed out to grab some of it. We found a place where they could make it
vegetarian and they spoke English quite well too. Happy about the good start we went
back to the hotel for some rehearsing. Johan opened his guitar case to his
electric Joe Pass guitar discovering that the flight company had treated it pretty
bad. The microphones were in all the wrong positions and he broke a guitar string
trying to correct them. As Club 8 plays very softly and therefore never break
guitar strings we had not brought any along. Luckily the kind stage manager of Formoz,
Wanting, was able to take us to a guitar shop the day after.
July 31
We were picked up by Wanting in the morning and brought to a good guitar shop.
Johan not only found strings for his guitar, he also found a very well sounding
nylon string guitar at a nice price and decided to buy it. Sometimes a bad thing
brings along a good thing.
This Saturday was the day we were to play at the Formoz festival and the sound check
was in the middle of the day. Weíd been longing for good weather and real warmth
for a long time (the summer in Sweden has been really cold and rainy this year) so
we should have been happy to see that it was extremely hot and sunny.
[soundcheck1.3]
But noÖ For Johan it was a bit like putting a polar bear in an oven (donít
try that at home!).
[soundcheck1.2]
He couldnít take it and almost fainted during the sound check. Karolina found
it quite comfortable, though. The sound was great and the stage- and sound engineers
were very nice. So we left the area in a good state of mind, thinking that this gig
should be great fun, and headed towards an area near the main train station where
we had heard a lot of record shops were located.
[DSC04891]
And indeed, we immediately found a whole bunch of good stores. And they were cheap
too! We bought stuff by Leonard Cohen, Kings of Convenience, Badly Drawn boy,
Johnny Cash, Nick Drake, Kathryn Williams and some other artists. We also looked
for Club 8 records, hoping that theyíd have a good stack of them as we were
playing in town. We found nothing... Later we got to know it was because most of
it was sold out!
When we showed up at the Formoz festival we placed ourselves behind the stage
where a hard rock band was playing some sing-a-long tunes that the audience all seemed
to know. Johan began to expect that this might not be the kind of people whoíd
listen to Club 8, being very laidback and not exactly sing-a-long friendly.
But after weíd been standing there for just a couple have minutes more and more people
approached us asking for autographs and wanted to have their picture taken with us.
Yet again we were pleasantly surprised. This meant some people apparently were there
to see us perform. About half an hour later we were standing on the stage looking
out at the audience.
[audience]
Just after the gig we did a short interview and a long autograph session. There was
a long line of people with Club 8 CDs in their hands waiting for us when we
arrived at the place of the signing and we spent a good 45 min signing them. Having
an autograph signing session actually at first seemed like a very odd idea for Club
8. But we must admit we really enjoyed this peculiar situation.
[aftergig]
The people were so very kind to us, giving us more appreciation than we usually get
in two months time. And that canít be a bad thing, can it?
After the gig Katy, Dodo, Christii and KK (who runs the label/record store
White Wabbit ) took us to a very good night market and brought us some great tasting
Taiwanese food. We wish weíd remember the name of it so that we could recommend it
to you in case you ever visit Taipei, but our memories are blank on this point.
August 1
The evening of the gig must have been exhausting for us, because we slept until
3 in the afternoon the day after. Then we went to have a better look at the night
market weíd been to the day before. Johan found a very nice pair of Adidas
Rekord and we both bought some presents for people at home.
[nightmarket]
Then we headed back to the hotel for a bit of relaxation. We were to do another gig,
an acoustic one, at the Formoz after party the day after so we took some time
to do a bit of rehearsing. Johan got the chance to play his brand new Nylon stringed
guitar and it sounded really good. The rehearsing went just fine, and we did not
sleep until 5 in the morning.
August 2
Weíd seen quite a bit of Taipei, but almost nothing of the surrounding
of the town. Therefore we decided to leave the town and have a look around. Someone
had recommended a place called Wulai, a mountain area one hours drive from
Taipei. We had to get up early (at nine oíclock!) since we were to meet KK and the
rest of the gang in the white wabbit shop early in the afternoon. When the alarm
clock rang, we were both thinking that there was no chance in the world weíd get
up. Still, we did, and that was a good choice! When we came to Wulai it was raining
like hell and there was flashes and thunder all over the place.
[wulai]
We sat down outdoors, but under a roof, to have dinner just across a waterfall and
an impressive mountain that was so green of trees and bushes it looked like broccoli.
The sights along with the stormy weather made it a mighty and beautiful experience.
[wulai2]
We didnít have that much time in Wulai though, but soon heading back with a local
family who had a taxi.
The white Wabbit shop was small, but with a very well selected selection of CDs and
vinyl. Karolina updated her collection of Belle & Sebastian records.
Johan got a CD by Marshmallow Kisses, a new and very good band from
Hong Kong. They sound a bit like a very twee version of early My Bloody Valentine
playing boss nova songs. He also got ìease down the roadî with Bonnie Prince
Billie, a real masterpiece.
We did a rather short sound check. We chose to use only vocals and an acoustic guitar
we borrowed from Wanting.
[soundcheck2]
Then we headed back home to get some sleep. Itís not ok to go up nine. Really. On
the way to the hotel we bought some non-Taiwanese food for the first time since we
got to Taipei; pizza. We felt like silly western people cause everybody at
the hut was white guys!
[interview2]
Around half past eight it was time to head back to The Wall, as the place
where they held the after party was called. Five magazines interviewed us at the
same time. Johan, whoíd done a great deal of interviews for Swedish magazines
and newspapers for his other band The Legends the last half year, was very
impressed and entertained by the interviewers. This was people who actually knew
something about their music and had a genuine interest in both the music and the
people behind it. When it was done we more or less went straight to the stage to
start playing.
[interview]
The atmosphere at The Wall was very relaxed. Itís a small place and there
were perhaps around a hundred people there to see us, making it all feel very intimate.
The audience was very attentive and was even singing along quietly at times. Probably
they sung quietly by respect cause we were playing very quiet. For us, this gig seemed
to reveal the true feelings of the songs even better than the gig at Formoz.
It was really all quite emotional for us and actually it was so nice we even decided
to play two extra songs. Both of us think playing extra numbers feels kind of silly,
but it seemed like the proper thing to do. Suddenly someone started the smoke machine
as we started the extra numbers. I donít know if it was a mistake. Smoke and Club
8 is not a logical mix really, but perhaps someone wanted to add an extra mysterious
touch to it all. For us, it just seemed funny.
[the wall]
After the gig some people approached to take pictures, for autographs and to have
a chat. They were all very nice, humble people, something that seems to be typical
Taiwanese ways.
[thewall2]
After a little bit of chat we headed on towards a 24 hours open book and record shop
called Eslite books. They had a great selection of pop and an impressive department
with books of modern art. Johan bought some Felt CDs he only had on
vinyl while Karolina bought a new diary. Then we decided to take a taxi back
to the hotel.
August 3
Weíd head for the airport quite early the last day so there was not time to do
very much. But we wanted to see the new centre of Taipei, which we had not yet done.
Someone told us the new centre of the town was built around the Warner Village, which
is some kind of Cinema complex, so we went there. Only to be rather disappointed
though. It was all a very boring, standardized shopping mall kind of thing with all
the big, dull American brands and chain stores there. We bought nothing but food
and went back to the hotel.
Sometime after four in the afternoon Dodo and Christii came and picked us up and
brought us to the airport. On the way we talked about little bit of this and that
like religion and the good things about Taiwan and other Asian countries weíve visited.
As always on our stay in Taiwan it was very nice and relaxed hanging out with these
people. But, as they say, all things must come to an end so we hugged and said goodbye
hoping to get back some day, and got on the plane back to Sweden.
[airport]
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