Hello All!

Taiwan is a small country off the coast of China, yet socially, economically, and politically advanced and growing in its dynamic relationship with the rest of the world.

Taipei is the capital and a city of 2.3 million and the electronic music scene is small but growing. Beyond this, the clamor for big name acts to stop by during their Asia is becoming harder to ignore. In the past year, I have seen Tiesto, Sasha, and deadmau5 on the island - and I'm hardly an avid music follower and only a novice electronic music fan (though ever more so with each new show). Taiwan has become major stop on the Asia circuit.

I have long been a Chemical Brothers fan, though - and they are my favorite by far. I just can't believe this kind of music exists, and that with each new release there is something more unbelievable to be grateful for. So imagine my excitement when home in the US for my wedding early July my friend in Taiwan says they will be here three days after our Taiwan wedding reception - I'd talked with friends about hopping on a plane if they ever get anywhere near here (near means Thailand, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong...), and just like that, they are in our backyard, a block from Taipei 101 in the glamorous shopping and administrative district in downtown Taipei. My new wife and I will be there and will have to call it our mini-honeymoon.

I am always glad for the opportunity to talk about the country that has adopted me and with which and in which I have fallen in love. I know there are thousands of Chemical Brothers fans, new and old and many more to be made, that are going to remember always when the Brothers shared their devotion to creating mind-blowing experiences in Taipei, Taiwan in 2011.

So hopefully some more fans from Taiwan will speak up here and share a bit about the show!

They are hosted by Very Aspect for the TWinkle Rock Festival (the TW is intentionally caps to represent TaiWan - cute insertions of some name for Taiwan or another is common here). The show info is here: http://twinklerockfe...l.com./m2_1.htm and for the festival, here: http://twinklerockfestival.com./

Will try to share more after the show!

Hi Most.Fungi!

I loved reading your post. I'm sure Taiwan will never be the same after their gig!
Have fun, and looking forward to hearing from you after the gig!

Love from Amsterdam

You are in for an amazing treat, fungi! Seeing the Chems live will reshape everything and will most likely be a life changing experience!! I am so excited for you and your wife and for the many others that will be seeing Tom and Ed. Going by the brief history you gave us, many of your fellow concert-goers might be seeing them the first time right alongside you. Exciting times! I can't wait to hear about it!

TWinkle TWinkle little Rock Festival!Greetings from Dublin.Have a great time at the show and come back and tell us how it went.
And congrats on your wedding!

Have a fantastic time, amigo!!!

Exactly, have the time of your life!

Well, that was that! What an incredible show! The recent deadmau5 set here in Taipei was visually stunning as well (rubix cube LED DJ booth and massive heavily prepped and coordinated visuals as well), but this was a performance. Taiwan and Taipei were intensely excited for this show.

This is a description of the scene and my personal night. A few questions for fans in bold that you can help me with for context as this was my first show.


It was an early show, with doors opening around 9pm. The setting is downtown Taipei, right under Taipei 101 in the ritzy shopping and night district downtown. Here's a picture of 101 borrowed via google search.


This is atypical for big name electronic acts in Taipei. Late night raves tend to be relegated outside the main part of the city in some of the newer exhibition centers. It was kind of surreal having a few drinks outside the venue (no open container law in Taiwan) getting ready to be mind penetratedby the Chemical Brothers right next to where one might go to purchase some new Croc sandals (really? people where those?), check out the latest Harry Potter, play with an iPad at the mac store, or window shop for bags that make you look 2000USD poorer and that much dumber.

The location did not lend itself to a festival feeling and the vibe outside did nothing to betray what splendor awaited within. Neither did the early hour. Walking in the place was hardly crowded, a low-ceilinged expo center with a single bar along the entrance-side wall and an approachable stage. A few reserve booths were available at the far back and up a second floor, and the crowd was rather scattered.



I was with a group of six though, and all in matching shirts and I was excited, as I could tell many others in the venue were. The place continued to fill up and the anticipation in the crowd was building. The warm-up act was a dubstep? deal (wub-wub-wub, "it's like it's tickling me!" Beardyman at 26:50+) that lasted until an interim CD was put in (no live act leading up to the Brothers on stage - is this typical?). Someone I was with said the music was an improvement (more of the crowd did seem to be dancing - nothing against dubstep, but it's hard to move to). All of the sudden I looked around and realized the place was completely filled, wall-to-wall, and just like that the CD stops and the lights go down...the crowd goes wild.

All hands are in the air, and way way up there starting from the top and coming down the hanging cylinder of lights is a small green bar that grows and fades with the music, and it builds all the way until the whole bar is lit, then starts popping up and down from below. I am not going to describe the show - better people have done it (a nice Taipei Times review by a local DJ here covers some of the details like song names that some might be looking for) and better people have documented this season's live shows (suggest reading/viewing Krisper's documentation on the forum)- I was in awe and nothing but smiles all night.

There seemed to be little dancing from what I noticed, but I paid little attention to the crowd at all (different from the rave/festival feeling of looking for new friends). Everyone seemed to just be smiling, screaming, hands in the air (and cellphones in the air - a Taiwanese thing only or does this happen at other shows? It happens at all Taiwan shows. As soon as the opening song comes on, every...single...iPhone/HTC/etc. in the place is recording the same poor quality video and sound...), and focused on the visual explosion in front of them.

And just as quickly as it started...it was over. No encore and the short set had a few people talking (and complaining) afterwards. This was their first show in Taiwan and they played to 6,000 diehard fans. It might have been nice to give them something a little extra. Don't get me wrong though - their show is so complex and so compact, they understand they don't have to deliver anything but this. However, it was hardly midnight and there was no follow-up act. And they were off. People stumbled off to "Bar 7" (7-11's and other convenience stores are popular hangouts outside of clubs for cheaper drinks) or literally next door for the after-party (dull and noisy club scene that pervades Taipei), and Taipei's first Chemical experience was over.

According to the review linked to above, the sound quality was excellent. The writer is a DJ, so I'll take his word for it. But me? Could have been my bad ears, but where were the highs? The melodic interludes that make the buildups haunted and comedowns haunting? It was great dance music, because the beats were there, but I didn't catch a lot of it inbetween. I found myself thinking that musically (as opposed to the context of visuals+dance+live act) I have enjoyed them much more from my own sofa with a nice set of speakers. Some others I talked to after the show said things could have been louder too. I want to ask you if you've felt that too. Is it normally just difficult to get the more intricate and melodic bits at a massive live show or could this have been a speaker/venue issue here?

I heard from one good friend and a long time fan of the genre (though first time to see this act) that this was the best gig he'd ever been to. Lots of praise from others as well. Taiwan was grateful and I was grateful. It was amazing. Would like to see them at a festival sometime or in some other context, outside of the neon glare of Taipei 101, Taiwan's consumer hard-on. For sure I will be going back for more.

Thank you for taking the time to post such a detailed account of your first Chems gig. It seems you had a nice time and would catch the Chems again if given the chance but I do get the feeling you were a bit let down by the experience or maybe it didn't go as hoped (or hyped). It is hard to say whether the peaks and valleys of the show, and melodic intricacies of the set were marred by sound problems, venue acoustics or personal inner-ear issues - we all experience things in different ways and have our preferences, and of course some shows are undoubtedly better than others for reasons within or beyond our control. Still though, I enjoyed your review and your first hand account of the Chems first time playing in your country. I hope you get to see them again sometime!! :)

Thanks for telling us about the show, and the pictures. I was really looking forward to hearing what you thought, I was hoping you were going to be raving ecstatically about it. But when you say "just as quickly as it started ... it was over", there was an hour and a half of non-stop music in there, not a long set, but certainly not short.

Not getting the encore may be a bit disappointing but only a lucky few shows have had the extended set this year. You have to see them in a better venue some time!

Is it normally just difficult to get the more intricate and melodic bits at a massive live show or could this have been a speaker/venue issue here?
I suspect a venue issue, there was certainly no lack of audio quality at the shows I've seen, and the volume has been that loud that more people complain of being deafened than it not being loud enough.

Thanks for the responses! Absolutely right that I would go again and hope for the chance to do so soon.

I'm afraid the tone of my account wasn't fair to how much of an amazing time I had. I left out my reactions to the music and the review of the music and visuals because I meant for that to be a given - they were spectacular. I was near to tears the entire time, and my face hurt from smiling, my body sore from dancing the next day.

The jam-packed hour and a half of music was over just like that only because I was mesmerized and there was no sense of time - Time does funny things - sometimes when you are focused it slows down and lasts an eternity. I think here I was focused so intently that everything blurred together, hard to distinguish a front from an end, and so when it was over, I felt like no time had passed at all.

I suppose what felt a little different from some other shows I've been to is that this was much more upbeat, and continually so. They brought you up right away and then went from one heavy hitting track to another (I was surprised at how quickly some of the main riffs of some songs were put together in succession). There was just no lull. The exciting build-up was pre-show and then they just completely delivered for the entire set. There was just no down time the entire set.

Some of my favorite moments:
Climbing frantically up the ladder along with the hands and thinking, can I really keep going higher?
"Don't Think," this message, hitting home like never before.
Absolutely lost in the "Believe" building maze.
Dancing side-by-side and arm-in-arm with my wife and her, not a big fan of electronic music, nothing but smiles all night.

Loved the use of smoke in the venue, too. More so than other shows I've seen, the entire field of vision up front would turn from yellow to green to red, creating a really impressive sensation. It wasn't like the lights were coming from a single source in the middle, but more the entire place shifting with the music. Great ambience!

Really hope I get to see them again - but I am grateful to have this once in a lifetime experience. There is no act that compares. Shows come and go here and there is nothing as unique as what we witnessed. The venue location, early hour, everything else mentioned in my first post, really are just externalities and small issues compared with that amazing display.

Great review Most Fungi!

We haven't a had show review for quite sometime! It's good to hear someone from the other side of the globe relate to the same madness as we've witnessed! We've had similar shows where the time just freezes and slows down so we can enjoy the best moments, but we also get the opposite, meaning the second we hear 'tomorrow never knows, it's already 'love is all' !

most.fungi, on 29 July 2011 - 8:20 AM, said:

it's a global thing!

most.fungi, on 29 July 2011 - 8:20 AM, said:

That would be common for any show! But there's more positive feedback than the complaints itself!

most.fungi, on 29 July 2011 - 8:20 AM, said:

But definitely not the last!

most.fungi, on 29 July 2011 - 8:20 AM, said:

Probably a venue issue I guess!

Kind of reminds of one in particular was a show in our area, where in which Tom Chemical gave us the heads up to get closer to the speakers to get good sound! But from what I've heard, the entire crowd (even the ones in the back) thought the sound was great!

So if the Bros come back to Taipei again, you know what to do.....move just a little bit further up!

Love the begining of escape velocity (thanks chemicalmat =) )

Yeah, great one !

Local photographer has some pictures from the evening ~ Get a feeling for the crowd at the show! Album at Up Against the Wall...

Want to live that again!

More photos from the event organizers:

Very Aspect Facebook Photo Album

That show looks like it was fantastic. I would love to experience one of their Asian shows.

Bouh, on 02 August 2011 - 12:10 AM, said:

The transition bewteen Another World and Do It Again always amazes me !

By the way, I guess the opening DJ was James Holroyd ?

The bloke off the internet, on 02 August 2011 - 1:46 PM, said:

This setlist is nearly perfect. It's time for a live DVD to be recorded.

Wow Most Fungi is like the energy bunny! Thanks for coming back and continuing to share your experience. Great pictures too from both the local photog and organizers. I have to ask though, what's up with the bananas?