As befits a show in a ‘new territory’, the Taipei gig (or more accurately Taoyuan, I’m told) is something of a challenge. We get warning early on the load-in day that high winds and the flat site are making for a dust-bowl.
I head in late in the afternoon and we drive past billboards with neatly cut flaps to allow the wind to whip through them. Onsite, our own enormous billboard (also known as a video screen) is nowhere to be seen. Turns out it’s simply too dangerous to hang it today and the decision has been made to wait until show day when the forecast is much calmer – if a good deal wetter.
The poor video department have a horrendously early call and spend the wee hours of the morning hanging video panels in the rain. The forecast for the evening is for a full-on downpour. I’ve explained ‘swag’ before – the free clothing, bags and other miscellaneous stuff that gets given to roadies on big tours by production companies. For the production companies, it’s great PR, for said roadies, it’s free stuff. Win win! Here in Taipei it seems there are free wellington boots for all outside production. As the forecast gets grimmer, that starts to seem more appropriate by the hour.
Of course, whining about the weather is of interest to nobody – and is too cliched Englishness for words…
The point of the exercise is getting the band in front of audiences who have never seen them before. To take the music and the experience further and wider. Not every band actually *could* show up to a field in Taiwan and fill it with 40,000 enthusiastic folks. To a degree, there’s an element of *duty* to make the effort. A duty to the fans, to reach them – and for the band, a duty to themselves to get out there. There might come a time when they *can’t* do this and wouldn’t it be rubbish to look back and say “yeah, why didn’t we…..?” or “I wonder what that would have *been* like?”.
The audience themselves have been braving the rain through much of the day and stand in front of the stage patiently awaiting showtime. They’re actually almost eerily quiet compared to many other audiences on this tour. Jess Kent takes the stage though and any worries about it being a bit of a subdued night get laid to rest. With a little encouragement, she has the crowd throwing themselves into things with great enthusiasm. A very good sign.
Come changeover time, there’s a decision for the emergency roof-tents to be removed from the band gear. There’s concern, but it’s what the band want. (“If the audience get wet, then so should we….”) There’s folks running around attempting last-minute fixes on failing lighting equipment and behind the stage there’s much shouting because the ‘flower drape’ over the video screen has shifted. It’s mildly hilarious to watch huge burly men trying to re-align heavy trusses and yelling “check the flowers look right in the centre”. A brief moment of confirmation that what we do is gloriously ridiculous.
And then, it’s showtime. For a while, it looks as though maybe we’ve dodged the downpour. The show takes flight and the crowd go superbly berserk. The band power through, with Chris working as ringmaster. As Everglow finishes on the B-Stage, the rain begins. It actually looks pretty cool for the lasers in Clocks and through lots of other moments. Things stay pretty steady and the promised deluge only appears 5 minutes after the last fireworks.
One of the most gratifying things about heading out further from home and into more off-track locations is noting that people loving music and celebrating that is pretty much the same wherever you go. It’s a cliche to call music ‘the universal language’ and to say that people are basically all the same, but beyond the corny nature of such proclamations is a truth. Music *is* (or at least can be) a wonderfully uniting and universal thing. In a world where there’s so much heart-wrenchingly ugly stuff going on, creating these shared experiences all over the planet is pretty cool – regardless of the weather…..
Roadie 42.
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