Words and photos: Hugh Bohane
On the weekend of March 30th and 31st, the spectacular karst mountain town of Puzhehei (普者黑), Yunnan (366 km southeast of Kunming) held a special music festival featuring 20 artists, predominantly from Yunnan, but with a few western bands based in Kunming added as well.
The artists played over two evenings on one main stage — with DJ’s playing on at after- parties on both nights aboard a beautiful wooden boat not far from where many of the attendees were staying.
Buddhafeet and Movida KM (two Kunming-based events companies) arranged this year’s festival in co-operation with Puzhehei’s local tourism bureau.
At festivals like these it’s always hard to mention all of the artists but I’ll try and highlight a good few that impressed me.
Day One
On the first night, DJ’s Zhou Zhou and CD got the crowd moving on what was an arctic and showery start to the festival.
African drumming circle Yankadi continued to get bodies moving with their captivating tribal flow.
Honglou Mengyi 红楼梦遗 followed with a chilled instrumental rock set. (These guys are definitely a band to look out for at future gigs.)
Next band was Dong Jia Yan 董家堰 from Guiyang, who continued the rock theme with their raging set.
Sea Loving Mammals 爱还的哺乳动物, an all-western rock outfit, melted plenty of faces with their boogie rock.
Muyangren yuedui 牧羊人 sent trippy world music beats into the ether.
DJ Yangqing closed the first night with some even bigger beats.
Day Two
Clearer weather and warmer temperatures made for a great start to the closing night of the festival.
Overall, there was probably around two thousand people who attended the festival over the two nights. Security was adequate and had an easy job thanks to the well-mannered crowd.
Lao Han’s Reggae Band 臭皮囊 won plenty of cheers from the crowd, getting punters to sing along with their hypnotic reggae vibes. (Chinese reggae bands are not a common sight in China and these lads pulled it off well.)
War Horse gave their blues-rock to an elated crowd and delivered a tight show.
DJ Siku from France spun some Daft Punk and tres bien remixes until late, back at the boat after-party. In the intervals, some party people couldn’t resist singing lines from the Lonely Island’s irreverent song “I’m on a boat.”
We thought the line-up of artists and the chosen location of the festival made for a most interesting weekend of musical delight. The sound quality was decent. Tickets were a very reasonable 150 yuan for entrance to the festival — accommodation and return bus tickets included. The five-yuan Snow beer was both affordable and plentiful. (For the next festival, some hot food provided on- site would give people an alternative to having only a beer meal.)
According to the organizers, it is likely that the Puzhehei Music Festival will be held annually from now on. Buddha Feet and Movida KM are planning a bigger festival between June and July this year. It aims to hold a festival in four different cities around China and hopes to put some well-known Chinese bands on the bill.
We spoke to Movida KM’s director Luca Di Somma about the variables of the festival and he said, “I don’t know if the festival was a success financially…but we got a great response from people at the festival. Now many people know how wonderful Puzhehei is and we look forward to arranging more of these festivals in some beautiful, lesser-known places in south China.”
The full list of artists that played:
March 30th
15:00——18:00 DJs Zhou Zhou & CD
18:00——18:30 Yankadi
18:40——19:10 Hong Fu Ye Ben band
19:20 ——19:50 Honglou Mengyi band
20:00——20:30 Sea Loving Mammals
20:40——21:10 Muyangren band
21:20——21:50 Dongjiayan band
22:00——22:30 Laba Wengongtuan band
23:00——0:30 So We
0:30——2:00 DJ Yangqing
March 31st
15:00——18:00 DJ Peter
18:00——18:30 Yankadi
18:40——19:10 Buda Heshang band
19:20 ——19:50 Sanweiyu band
20:00——20:30 Lao Han’s Reggae Band
20:40——21:10 Mayuan Shiren band
21:20——21:50 War Horse
22:00——22:30 Toutongfen band
23:00——0:30 DJ K5 (Buddha’s feet)
0:30——2:00 DJ Siku (FRA)
To view Hugh’s pictures from the festival click here.
A video of Lao Han’s Reggae Band performance at the festival.
There is also a stunning photo essay of the festival by Yereth Jansen at GoKunming.