Beijing Music Festival Face Off: Did Midi Make the Grade?

Still wondering whether you went to the right festival? Or whether you should kick yourself for being too lazy to trudge all the way out to Pingu? As with last year, here's a breakdown of what we thought were some of the best and worst things about Midi.

Lineup – D

A bit thin on the ground when it came to renowned Western acts – especially compared with this year’s Strawberry line up. Cold Cave and The Ghost Inside might have played great sets, but if you were looking for household names you probably opted to see Deerhoof and Travis at Strawberry instead.

This said, if you’re into Chinese music that’s on the heavier side of things Midi was the place to be. Alas, the Middle Kindgom’s godfather of rock, Cui Jian, didn’t turn up this year, but veterans Miserable Faith and SMZB put on a fantastic show.

Younger acts that are making waves in the indie and metal scene – Residence A and Four Five (respectively) – were pretty fun, too.

Ticket price – B

At RMB 240 for three days, Midi was a lot kinder to the pocket than Strawberry, who raised their price to RMB 400.

Crowd atmosphere – B

A predominantly metal/punk/rock crowd this year meant there was an awful lot of moshing, pogoing and wall-of-death-ing which made for a vibrant spectacle. SMZB’s audience was by far the most energetic, with a number of mo-hawked crowd-surfers tumbling head first onto the ground only to spring to their feet within seconds and repeat the experience.

Unlike most festival experiences, there wasn’t an infuriatingly large number of punters, so all that pushing and shoving was confined to the circle pits, leaving plenty of space for the more static revelers to do their thing at the sidelines.

Sound quality - C

As with last year, the sound was decent, though we did walk past one Western band who sounded truly awful. We couldn’t decide whether this was because the frontman was failing miserably at channeling Bruce Dickenson or if a sound checker had done something horribly wrong. While the volume was just right over at the Vans Tang Stage, they could have done with cranking it up a bit over at Tiger Song.

Like last year, sets were a bit shorter than they should have been owing to long soundchecks.

Alcohol availability – B

Last year we complained that there weren’t that many options besides Tiger beer and Jaegermeister. This time around, School bar was offering four box-standard cocktails which were rather watery. But they did start giving out free drinks towards the end of the last day, which was very nice of them.

Queuing time – A

Midi gets top marks in this category as I don’t think we ever had to wait longer than five minutes for anything. This is my most fuss-free festival to date.

Refreshments - C

In terms of quality and options, food and soft drinks were pretty much the same as last year – water and sugary tea were on offer but not much else. Food was pricey but pretty decent – a large skewer of chuan’r went for 20RMB, which cost the same as a bowl of cold tofu noodles.

Bathrooms – C

Having failed to make the grade last year, Midi has raised its game somewhat. What were once “grim toilets” can now be described as “moderately bearable” – or at least, some of them were. It was the same row of portaloos with the same lack of hygiene, but at least this year no queuing was involved, nor did all the loos smell like fermenting hamsters.

Site security – A

Very little to complain about here, as with last year. There were rows of uniformed guards at the entrance, but they played a pretty unobtrusive role inside the festival grounds. Many seemed to be enjoying themselves almost as much as the punters and weren’t quite as stone-faced as one might expect.

Final grade – B

Midi retains its B grade from last year – as where it improved slightly in the loo and queuing department – the line-up was a bit of a let-down for any non hard-rock die-hard.

For more photos of Midi, check out our gallery.

Stay tuned for part two: Strawberry Music Festival.