Modern Sky’s bid to become festival kings of China takes another significant step with the announcement that they will be heading to Xi’an with their Strawberry Festival concept. Potential headliners will be Karen Mok, Zhang Zhenyue 张震岳, Khalil Fong 方大同, Zhou Yunpeng, Dang Dynasty. Nokia (and their comes with music program) are taking on a big sponsor position at this festival.
In other news, the Hebei Camping Music Festival will be held on May 1-3. It will be hosted by the local government and tourism bureau and held in a small and relatively unknown village called Yixian in Hebei province. The price: 80/day 130/2days 180/3days, featuring artists Xie Tianxiao, Super VC, Tang Dynasty, Twisted Machine, Pink Berry etc. Most interesting was the fact that they announced that 3 foreign bands were going to be announced – Pearl Jam, Stereophonics and Stereolab were the early rumors, but more recently and realistically are Funeral For A Friends, Freestylers and MNEMIC.
Finally, Midi is returning to Shanghai after a couple of years off in the form of Mini Midi, an experimental noise festival which will be held 1-4 May at Zhujiazhou (the water town that hosted the Antidote Festival last year), Mao Livehouse and the O Art Centre. Stalwart Shanghai noise stars Torturing Nurse, Ben Houge and ETC make up an “interesting” bill…