[HanCinema's Korea Diaries] "Jecheon" August 13th-14th

Outside of the giant flashy ampitheater venues, most of the musical action at the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival took place at this simple outdoor sidewalk area near the local Megabox. People filtered in and out of this area mostly at random, in between film screenings and the like. Jecheon is murderously hot at this time of year, to the point I'm surprised anyone willingly performed at all.

But perform they did! This is Yule. You can tell because their shirts helpfully mention the band's name. Although that precaution was probably not necessary. There was also a nice sign.

A very chipper looking sign, I must say. These are the kinds of basics that are all too easy to miss at poorly planned events. This made it very easy for people to figure out the names of bands they especially liked.

Like Cubanism! They're an all-woman mambo band. Not exactly the first thought that comes to mind when you think "Independent Korean Music Scene", but they really do manage to rock their genre. It helps that they're all so well-dressed. But their enthusiasm for the music is nothing to slouch at either. This is the kind of audience participation they were able to inspire, through sheer force of will.

And here's your proof of concept. Aside from the magical power of the mambo what manner of wizardry could compel a guy like that to dance in front of so many cameras?

...All right, hm, I can see the point there although that really just keeps going to the enthusiasm level. Cubanism was not satisfied with just performing. They were completely determined to pull the crowd into this scene by whatever means necessary.

And they have so much fun doing it, too! Look at those expressions! The environment was infectious in a way that simply cannot be properly expressed through photography and words, however much I try.

Perhaps this picture can be of some brief illustration to the point. This crowd consists of pretty much every single person who was passing by the area at that time. Not a whole lot of them, admittedly, but again, it was really hot outside. I was surprised anyone was outside at all.

Following an inevitable encore Cubanism takes a well-deserved break. Good on them- they certainly earned it. For me this was the single most memorable event of the festival.

Don't get me wrong- the whole festival was pretty fun. But the problem with the ampitheater events is that too often it's easy to run into events like this- where huge mechanical monstrosities are such an obvious part of the backdrop that it hurts the sense of overall immersion. You know, everyone seems to have cell phone videos these days, but it's always worth remembering. You really want a good picture, you're going to have mess around with something huge and clunky.

Enough about the music. What does a person eat at an International Music and Film Festival? Well, for the most part it's the same food as anywhere else, except that the hot weather didn't put me in a mood for wandering around looking for weird restaurants at random (my usual technique), so I just ate at a nearby...what are these places even called anyway? The ones that sell fried food, chopped meat in cups, tteokbokki, ramen, and of course kimchi, because everyone always has to have kimchi lying around somewhere. Fast food would be appropriate- you can get in and out fast, after all, but that implies stuff like hamburgers.

Well anyway, the point is, the food is delicious, and it's what's served anywhere you see employees standing around like this at all times. In that awful weather? Yeesh- true Korean heroes, that.

Article by William Schwartz

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