Midi Music Festival marks 20 years of nurturing talent

Nearly 20 years ago, young musicians in 30 Chinese rock bands performed at the Midi School of Music in Shangdi, in northern Beijing's Haidian district. The school, founded in 1993, was China's first school of contemporary music.

Although the bands were relatively unknown, their performances on the first two days of May 2000 attracted about 2,000 fans, filling the 500-seat auditorium and spilling into public spaces outside, where the music could still be heard.

Shan Wei, a 26-year-old music journalist from China Radio International, was told about the shows by friends and spent three hours on the bus to join the audience.

"The shows were free and very crowded. I stood near a window outside the auditorium to watch them," said Shan, noting that one of the bands was Tongue, from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

"The audience was mainly composed of students from the school, along with rock music lovers from Beijing and nearby areas," Shan said. "Between acts, free beer was provided. I soon made new friends, and we sat on the ground drinking outside the venue.

"The weather was great and the music was very loud. It felt like going to a high school reunion and being part of a huge community."

Later, the two-day event was officially named the Midi Music Festival.

Over the past 19 years, the festival has been staged 38 times in cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Known as "China's Woodstock", a reference to the legendary music festival in the United States, it has propelled many rock bands to fame. Nearly all the country's rock stars have performed at the event, including Cui Jian and Tang Dynasty, one of the first Chinese heavy metal bands.

With this year marking the festival's 20th anniversary, a number of commemorative activities are planned.

Shan, now 45, who was born and raised in Suzhou and graduated from Renmin University of China in 1997 with a degree in political science and international affairs, is now the festival director, having joined the organizing team in 2009.

This year, the event will be staged in cities including Chengdu, Sichuan province, and Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Venues in Shandong, Fujian and Hebei provinces will also hold performances, Shan said. Lineups will be announced soon.

"We will not only celebrate the Midi Music Festival's 20th anniversary, but also the country's rock music scene during the past two decades. It's a collective memory," Shan said.

He added that some of the bands who performed at the first festival in 2000 will be invited to join the celebrations, including Tongue, Miserable Faith and Muma, all of which have risen to become leading performers in China.

In 2009, when the festival celebrated its 10th birthday, it was staged over three days in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, a small city about three hours from Shanghai by train. It was the first time that the event had been held away from Beijing, and it attracted more than 30,000 fans.

"It was challenging to launch a large-scale music festival in a fresh city, watched by new fans. I remember that many of them traveled to Zhenjiang from Beijing and other parts of the country, making the event that year a great success," Shan said.

He added that due to this, the local government invited the festival to return to the city the following year, when it attracted audiences of 120,000 over four days.

This development saw the festival start to spread its wings further, and last year, cities staging the event included Suzhou, Chengdu and Dezhou, Shandong.

In 2009, Wu Shanshan, an art teacher in Beijing, attended the event when it was staged in Zhenjiang, describing it as "the best outdoor rock festival" she had ever experienced.

She traveled with a group of friends from the capital, not only to see pioneering musician Cui Jian, considered the godfather of China's rock music scene, but to watch Second Hand Rose, a band she never expected to warm to.

"I was never really a fan of Second Hand Rose, but they really rocked that day," Wu said."When they came onto the stage, their outlandish costumes lit up the night and their music featured errenzhuan (a type of folk singing and dancing from Northeast China)."

Wu, who has attended many music festivals, added: "The best thing about going to them is that you can watch your favorite artists and also be surprised by new acts. Basically, as a fan, you're paying for the diversity you're exposed to."

Now, more than 100 music festivals are held nationwide every year, offering rock bands more opportunities to perform. The younger generation of music lovers is more open to different styles and can also afford to travel overseas to attend performances.

Shan said:"The rock music scene is getting better and more diverse. The Midi Music Festival is not only the oldest in China, but also injects new blood by discovering and inviting emerging bands to perform."

In 2010, an offshoot of the festival, the Midi Kids Band Competition was staged, aimed at discovering and showcasing child bands from across the country.

In 2018, Cloud, a seven-piece band formed by children from Xichang, Sichuan, with an average age of 12, stood out at the competition. Last year, the band performed reggae at the Midi Music Festival in Suzhou and also appeared at the Wild Mint Festival in Moscow, Russia, at the end of June.

Shan said the Midi Music Festival's success owes a lot to the Midi School of Music.

Now located in Changping district, northern Beijing, the school is attended by about 400 students from across the country. Founded by Zhang Fan, who is still its president, it is considered the "Whampoa (Huangpu) Military Academy of rock music", a reference to one of the country's best-known modern military institutions.

Gao Hu, lead vocalist and songwriter with Miserable Faith, one of the country's most popular indie bands, said:"Many bands have been formed at the school, but 20 years ago we didn't have much opportunity to perform onstage, which was depressing. The school offered us a chance to realize our dreams."

Gao became interested in rock music during high school, teaching himself to play guitar. In 1997, he began studying at the Midi School of Music, where he met Zhang Jing, now the band's bassist. Miserable Faith was founded two years later.

"We lived in a place called Shucun, near the school, which was also home to many of the other students. Lots of bands were bursting on to the music scene. We loved different styles," Gao said, adding that the rent was 200 yuan a month.

Last summer, the popular reality show The Big Band brought Chinese indie rock into the mainstream for the first time. Acts such as Miserable Faith, The Face and New Pants appeared on the show, which has built up a large fan base.

Li Guobiao, vice-president of the Midi School of Music, said:"It takes solitude, sleepless nights and even starvation to achieve success as an indie rock band. The success of the show encourages young bands to pursue their dreams."

Roommates Huang Xiangyu and Zhu Yuanwu, both 22, have been studying electronic guitar at the Midi School of Music since 2018.

Zhu, born and raised in Jilin province, said: "I fell in love with rock music when I was 6 years old. I went to a record store in my hometown that sold music by Cui Jian and Black Panther. I instantly loved the songs because the lyrics sounded different and the melodies were full of energy."

To study music in Beijing in the hope of becoming a full-time rock performer, he dropped out of a medical school at home.

"My parents were totally against my idea of learning music. To earn tuition fees, I worked at a local musical instrument store," Zhu said.

Huang also paid his own tuition fees, even though his parents objected to his plans. He said he learned about the Midi School of Music online and paid it a visit before applying to enroll.

Zhu added, "I enjoy the atmosphere at the school, because all the students join it due to their passion for music."

On Dec 27, the school closed for the winter vacation, but neither Zhu or Huang returned home, choosing instead to remain in Beijing to find work to pay for their tuition fees for the next semester.

"Our goal is simple. We practice at least three hours a day, in the hope of making a living from music," Zhu said.