The music at the Chick Mountain festival was great. Shame about the traffic jams and the awful weather
Despite several hours of heavy rain, more than 20,000 people, mostly teens, turned out to the military training camp of Khao Chon Kai, Kanchanaburi for last Saturday's "Chick Mountain" festival, gratefully accepting the free raincoats handed out by the organisers and apparently unconcerned about the muddy terrain.
Ominous black clouds had been hanging around since daybreak and the rain started coming down in earnest during the afternoon and continued on and off throughout the night.
Chick Mountain, organiser Gayray's short version of the country's biggest music festival Big Mountain, aimed to offer more convenience and easier walk distances between "Kong Sabieng"(Provisions) and "Waythee Kai" (Chick Stage) as well as the several military-related activities and succeeded in all three.
Where the planning fell short was on traffic management, with the highway leading to the camp blocked for kilometres by a traffic jam in the afternoon and again in early morning of the following day, even before the last show came to an end at nearly 4am.
"The rain was back again during the show by rockers Paradox - the last artist before DJ Montonn Jira - and I couldn't get my car out from the parking lot because I was blocked by coaches and taxi vans, which were waiting for the crowds to go back home in Bangkok," said one lady, who had travelled up to the festival with her husband and two children. "We ended up sleeping in the car."
Worse still, Chick Mountain, or "Man Kai Mak" in Thai, had no shelter large enough to house the 20,000 battalion of fans during the heaviest of the rain and also no seating space dry enough for those wanting to rest their weary bodies during the shows. The ground was sodden and muddy.
No alcohol beverages were for sale at festival. With Pepsi as the festival's main sponsor, there were plenty of carbonated soft drinks and a few enterprising souls had smuggled in their own alcohol to mix with the soft drinks. But there were no drunken incidents.
At 6pm, Suckseed, an adhoc band from the movie of the same name was the first to step up to the stage. Despite the heavy rain and to the delight of fans, they played songs "Suckseed 1", "Thoom Yoo Nai Jai", and "Pleng Thi Chan Mai Dai Taeng".
The rain eased a bit as Jetset'er took over, chilling the crowd with "Chuea Nai Tue Chan", "Khuen Nee", "Chai Nai Fun", "L.O.V.E" and "Joob", before Scrubb revved them up again with "Thuk Yang", "Klai" and "Kham Tob".
The stage was designed like military headquarters with pieces of coloured plastic sheeting and sometimes with the name of the artist. Between shows, three radio DJs came out and cracked jokes.
Screams and applause greeted Palmy, who entertained with "Tham Pen Mai Thak", "Khwam Jeb Puad" and new tracks "Khid Mak" and "Cry Cry Cry" before segueing into her danceable numbers "Yak Rong Dang Dang" and "Tik Tok", which had the fans jumping around in the mud and fireworks shooting up in the air. Beautiful yes, but dangerous too. What if a firework had fallen into the military camp's arsenal?
The feeling of excitement continued as rocker Da Endorphine performed her hits "Phap Luangta", "Dai Yin Mai", and "Mai Roo Jak Chan Mai Roo Jak Ther", which had the audience singing along and hopping up and down.
Rockers Bodyslam took the stage with a non-stop set of tracks including "Khwam Chuea" (Belief) with another firework show. Suckseed came back too, jamming with Bodyslam during the song "Thoom Yoo Nai Jai", before leaving the rockers to wind up their set with "Sticker", "Khid Hod", "Kram" and "Yapis".
Hip-hop group Gancore Boy featuring Joey Boy, Buddha Bless and Sing Nuea Suea Tai was next up. "Why didn't our show have fireworks?" Joey Boy wanted to know.
The festival came to an end with the shows of rock band Paradox and DJ Montonn. By that time, the rain had started again and the audience was leaving, off in search of buses that would take them home.
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