[Ansan Valley Rock Festival 2015 - Day 1] Guckkasten, Ride, Noel Gallagher and etc.

July 24th, 2015 continued...

 After eating lunch, Jin and I took 123 bus bound for Daebudo in front of the Jungwang E-Mart.

 We got off at Daebu Bangameori stop.
and when we walked past the parking lot that was at the other side of the street.

We had arrived at Daebu Bada hyanggi Theme Park.

 and there, we were also able to spot some Ansan M Valley Rock Festival signs.

 We walked along the boardwalk

 and arrived at this place.

which is where people purchase, retrieve their tickets, and also exchange the tickets for a pass bracelet.

 Jin and I already had our 3 day-tickets (which we bought with early-bird discount), so we just went ahead and exchanged our tickets for a 3-day pass bracelet.

 This booth is where they verify that you're old enough to drink / use adult exclusive facilities.

I got both bracelets, because why not?

However, the adult bracelet turned out to be completely useless because Jin and I didn't drink, and there were no adult-only lounges.

Way to host a music festival, CJ!

 We entered the gate(?).

 and the festival site was still far away.

 almost there!

These are the pest repellent dispenser that CJ were bragging about through their facebook.
 Some found it very useful, others found it completely ineffective.

Jin and I didn't use any form of bug repellent, and was told to have gotten all the love from mosquitos all throughout the festival.

 Anyway, we had arrived!
but, the ground seemed to be in a not-so-great shape already...
wait till you see what happened later.
haha....
........

This is why I hate rainy weather on music festivals.

 Out of all of the burger franchises, they had this, Lotteria.
This is like McDonalds of Korea, but way worse in taste (in my personal opinion, that is.)

 Since this festival is hosted by CJ group, there were an awful lot of CJ logos and advertisements.

 I did see a lot of booths, but it was extremely difficult to find absolute necessities like water.
They were selling a crap ton of beer, but no water? Come on!

This is when I started to miss Sonic Rock booths from Summer Sonic Osaka.
Those were everywhere within Summer Sonic, and had pretty much anything (by that I meant non-alcoholic beverages).

Yes, my experience in Summer Sonic Osaka 2013 has spoiled my standards of a music festival.

 Anyway, Jin and I decided to have a look at the 2nd stage, which was closer, first.

 The stage was callled "Green Stage."
It was slightly larger than I've expected.

second stage of the last music festival I went in Korea (Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival 2011) was a lot smaller than this one.

 Grass!
It was nice to see grass.
However, they did not last long.

These were the booths where they sold official merchandise.

This is where they sold artist merchandise.
Best part(?) about Korean music festivals is that it's not as crowded as those in any other countries, primarily because Koreans don't like paying for music, not have diverse taste in music.

At least I didn't have to wait hours in a line to purchase some t-shirts.

By the way, the merchandise booth was pretty close to the main stage.

 but before heading over to the main stage, Jin and I decided to take some pictures of the time table.

 That was for this day.

 and that was for Sunday, which was the most important day out of the three for us!
Saturday..... uh... we didn't really plan much for Saturday.

Anyway, we've arrived at the main stage, "Big Top Stage"
but, goodness...
that has got to be the worst fence arrangement that I have ever seen in my life!

CJ group no care 'bout no audience.

anyway, Jin and I entered the frontmost, "rectangular" space in front of the Big Top Stage.
We called it a "Chicken Coop," because it was such a small space.

 Jin and I were anticipating a lot from this festival, because of our good memories from Summer Sonic Osaka.
but this is not Summer Sonic, this is Ansan M Valley Rock Festival.

 Few minutes later, the first act of Big Top Stage, showed up.

It was a Korean reggae band called "Seoul Redeem Super Club"
Their music and their performance was pretty fun!

 After Seoul Redeem Super Club's gig.

 Jin and I headed over to Green Stage for the next concert.

I don't know if this is more of a good thing or a bad thing.
but Korean music festivals are small.
That means there are fewer stages.
This Ansan M Valley Rock Festival was no exception, despite the fact that it was the largest Korean music festival of 2015.
It had a total of 3 stages, but most of them were held on Big Top Stage and Green Stage.
On top of that, the concert time table for both of those stages don't overlap at all, so if you migrate(?) between the stages after each gig, you can pretty much see concerts non-stop.

The good thing about this is that you can see a lot of gigs.
The bad thing is that it gets pretty exhausting later on.

When Jin and I arrived at Green Stage,  the staff were finishing setting things up.

 and Alexandros' concert began!

Alexandros was a Japanese band.
but it kind of seemed like their English was much better than their Japanese.

Their music was fun

Like I mentioned above, Jin and I migrated(?) back to Big Top Stage immediately after Alexandros' gig.

The band that just started performing was called "Fire Moth Star Sausage Club"



Their gig and music was pretty cool too.

by 4 PM, the number of people at the festival seemed to have had a significant increase.

Any way, Jin and I made our way back to Green Stage.

The Fence arrangement of Green Stage was waaaaaay more audience friendly than that of Big Top Stage.

Shortly, Benjamin Booker performed.

However, we were getting a bit hungry in the middle of the gig, so we decided to explore the festival site a little bit, and eat something while we were at it.

This thing was really attention-grabbing.
I would never be able to do anything like this.

but, dang. Look at all those obnoxious CJ advertisements...
Yeah, CJ group. I get it that you're hosting this festival....

Even with the increase in the number of people, the crowd still seemed small to the eyes of Jin and me.
.....
We're too spoiled by the massive crowd of Summer Sonic.

Jin and I found this place that sold some grilled chicken skewers.

and had one.
I love these!

But gosh darn it, is it hard to find a place that sells water!

After having a grilled chicken skewer for snack, we headed to the Big Top Stage.

Where a lot of people were waiting for the next act.

which was "Ride"



Ride was a band that does this kind of music.

It was really popular for some reason.
I did hear that one of the members was once a member of Oasis.
and you know, Koreans freakin' love Oasis.

There were some problems in this gig.
Well, I can't any of the problems were because of the band themselves.
There was a technical issue of the master sound just getting turned off.
and there was also some security agents picking on a fight with a two female audience.
tsk tsk tsk.

and I thought security agents' job was to ensure that the audience have a good time.

Jin and I returned back to Green Stage after Ride's gig.
Like I said earlier in this post, Korean music festivals are non-stop, there's always a gig somewhere else right after another concert.

and here, a lot of the people were waiting for Guckkasten.
Some of the people I knew, talked about how good Guckkasten is live.
So, I had a bit of a high expectation on these guys.



...but you know what?
THESE GUYS WERE AMAZING!
They were far beyond my expectations!!!
Their live is really good.
Their songs are fun and powerful, with some psychedelic side to it as well.

That was an excerpt of a song called "Mirror" by Guckkasten, by the way.
It's on Youtube, and it's one hell of a song!

but most importantly!

there was a mosh pit!
HELL YES!!


This is one of the two things I love the most about rock concerts!
Seriously, I personally think that rock concerts would never be as fun without some of these!

After having a blast at Guckkasten's gig, Jin and I returned to the Big Top Stage.
There were a lot of people on the right side of the stage, so we decided to go around to the other side.

...aaaand, we spotted this fella.
who was making a parody of the flaming guitarist from Mad Max : Fury Road, on a Swedish food truck!

The god-awful fence arrangement of the Big Top Stage made it very difficult for us to find a nice place to see the stage.

and then, with a cool video on the screen...

began Kiha and the Faces' concert!


This is is a song, that could be translated as "The Moon is Full, Let's Go!"
It's one of their most popular songs, and it's a heck of a song to sing along to!


This one is one of their most recent songs.
It's related to something Koreans say on New Year, but it's kind of funny because Kiha said he wanted to play this song at summer.

Their music isn't hard or heavy or anything.
but their songs and their lyrics are very fun and catchy.

Kiha seems to be caught on camera the most frequently.

unfortunately...
There was a dark future ahead of him.....
(but he does end up doing something very important)

After Kiha and the Faces' gig, Jin and I came to this booth to have some dinner.

This was the most popular food booth,
because they made cupbaps

Uh, this might not be the best example of what a cupbap is...
but it's basically rice and other dishes mixed within a big "cup"

It's quite nice and delicious, not to mention easy to eat.
It was the best food I've eaten throughout the 3 days at this festival.

After dinner, I came to this poster, and took a picture of some of my favorite artist posters!

The reason why I came home this summer #1.

The reason why I came home this summer #2.
I kind of wanted to take a picture of myself posing in front of the poster
but, I don't like taking pictures of myself.

After that, Jin and I decided to drop by Green Stage.

Deadmau5 was performing there with a lot of stunning visual effects!


That looked really cool.

but we left Green Stage and went our way.
It's partly because I quickly get tired of EDM, so I believe I came out at the right time.

and also, we had to wait for the headliner of the night at Big Top Stage!
It was the artist my friend, Justin, recommended me, by the way.

......
Well, looks like I'm not going in there.

Again, nice job Ansan Valley, with your brilliant fence arrangement.

Jin and I just decided to stay on the right side of the stage.

Look! On the screen!
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds!!

That's a lot of people!
That's the popularity of Noel Gallagher, I'm guessing.

and then...


With a really cool intro and Everybody's on the Run began Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' gig!
The center screen was beautiful with all of the cool but calm visual graphics!



and then NGHFBs continued with Lock All the Doors!
This is one of my favorite songs on their 2nd record.
I love energetic / fast songs!


Then they performed In the Heat of the Moment.
It's such a cool song.
The part where they go "Nanananana~Nana Nanananana~Nana~" is a very memorable trademark(?) of this song.

but wow, his song pitches are pretty high.
My voice cracked while singing along.


then they did their first Oasis cover!
Well, Noel himself wrote pretty much all of the Oasis songs, so it wasn't that surprising.

This song was Fade Away.
I like the original version, but wow, the acoustic versions sounded really good too!

Wow
That's one awesome looking stage!

and then....

NGHFB performed another Oasis cover song, Champagne Supernova.
and during this song...

the crowd took out their cell phones, turned on the flash light, and waved them all together!
It was sooooooo epic!

Frequently, Noel switched between his acoustic guitar

and his electric guitar.
As I remember, most of the NGHFB songs were played on the electric, while most of the Oasis covers were played on the acoustic.


and after a while..
Noel Gallagher told the crowd that he'll be playing "one more f**king song."
which was....


Don't Look Back in Anger!!!
It was Koreans' Oasis anthem(?)
Everybody there was singing along as loud as they could!
It was such an epic sing along that almost brought tears to my eyes.

It was so beautiful.
It was great.

and then, they left without an encore.
because he had to fly to Japan for his gig at Fuji Rock on Sunday.

Jin and I were about to take the shuttle bus to Oido station, so that we can go back to our hotel.

...and here comes another part about Ansan Valley Rock Festival that pissed off a lot of people.
Transportation!

First of all, the number of shuttle buses were insufficient.
In addition, the shuttle buses that were supposed to go to Jungang station were all cut off right after midnight for some reason.
Many people who booked hotel near Jungang station were very VERY pissed.
It's already too late, so there were no means of public transportation other than taxis, which are awfully expensive, available.

The shuttles to Oido station weren't that awesome for us either, because Jin and I still had to walk at least 1 and a half hour to our hotel.

what a badly run festival...
I mean, if you know the public transportation won't be running late, then start the concerts early and end them early!
WHY CAN'T THE CJ GROUP THINK OF SOMETHING THIS SIMPLE???

Anyway, Jin and I got off at Oido station, walked more than an hour to our hotel.
then we took a shower, washed our shoes, ate some late night snacks and went to bed around 3 AM.

Ain't that great.


But that wasn't the end of Ansan Valley Rock Festival's BS.
There was more to come. (which were somewhat cancelled out thanks to the awesomeness of the crowd and the artists)


to be continued...