Incheon | Pentaport Rock Festival

Every so often an American or English-singing band will have a tour stop in Korea to/from Japan, although usually that happens in Seoul, on a weeknight. In the past year and a half since we have lived in Daegu, I can recall two bands/singers who came to Daegu: Maroon 5 (hell no) and Richard Marx. Though it’s possible I could be confusing Richard Marx with Michael Bolton or Kenny G. In other words, we haven’t attended any concerts since moving to Korea.

Music festivals are our best bet for watching live music by American/English-speaking bands and there have been a few festivals, including the Pentaport Rock Festival, on our summer to-do list for some time. I don’t think we really considered how hot a summer concert would be – especially one in August — when we purchased tickets for the Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival sometime back in April. We certainly weren’t expecting record-breaking temperatures.

We left Daegu later than anticipated, drove through the eerily brand new pop-up city of Incheon (that also seemed more like an American space-age town than a Korean city), checked into our hotel, and walked to the concert. Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and ended up on a road with a sign that read “no pedestrians.” it was too hot to turn around and retrace our steps, so we snuck onto an air conditioned shuttle bus and rode the remaining few blocks to the festival.

As late afternoon approached early evening, the heat still felt unbearable.Walkng the short distance from our hotel to the festival left us absolutely drenched in sweat, as if we had showered while wearing our clothes. We were so thankful for our slow morning and that we decided to attend the concert later than planned. I couldn’t even imagine how torturous it must have felt earlier in the day with the sun beaming down directly overhead.

it’s nice to see hippie drum circles have made their way to Korea

Our first impressions of the Pentaport Rock Festival (besides that it was so damn hot) was that it wasn’t as gritty as an American festival, which was different, but in many ways good. Our second impression was that “rock” music encapsulated all sub-genres of rock, from heavy metal to indie. Also, Koreans seem to really be into heavy metal, but we’ll get to that later…

Naturally, we booked it straight to the food court the moment we arrived and were surprised by all of the amazing food options, and not just dumbed-down greasy fried things on a stick, but carefully prepared, heaping dishes of food. And not just Korean food either. A pop up convenience store sold drinks and snacks, all at normal, non-inflated-because-it’s-a-festival prices.

We opted for the booth without a line and split a plate of succulent tandoori chicken, drizzled with both a cooling yogurt sauce and a spicy, Korean-ish pepper sauce, with cole slaw on the side. As all the picnic tables were occupied, we opted to eat our plate of chicken while sitting on the curb beside one of the cooling mist tunnels. Our tandoori chicken probably wasn’t the most authentic tandoori chicken in the world, but it tasted damn good. By the end of the festival, we ate two more plates of chicken and slaw.

After stuffing our faces, we set out to explore the festival grounds.

beer pong and a swimming pool

Eventually we made our way into an airplane hangar with zero ventilation to watch our first show, At the Drive-In. I think I had the first At the Drive-in album waaaaayyy back when, but I couldn’t name any of their songs. In this case, it was enough that they were singing in English, and while I couldn’t really make out any of the lyrics, they put on a really good show.

As I’ll no doubt keep mentioning throughout this post, it was so damn hot. And now we were stuck in a glorified green house with about a zillion people, and no air circulation. Meanwhile, the band members were going nuts on stage, all while wearing long sleeved-henleys and super skinny jeans. I have no idea how nobody died of heat stroke while performing.

Also – there were mosh pits, people waving various fan club flags attached to tall poles (I guess this is the thing to do at festivals?), and plenty of crowd surfing by the band. It was hot, sweaty, chaotic, loud, and extremely fun.

matching banana shirts

We took things down a notch at our second concert of the evening, the indie rock band, Grouplove.

The crowd consisted of more hipsters than headbangers, but that didn’t stop the lead singers from crowd surfing! Everyone danced and sang along to the songs, sang along at the top of their lungs, and waved their fan flags furiously.We also surprised ourselves by how many of their songs we actually knew. As Sly said, “wasn’t this song in a car commercial recently?”

I couldn’t resist posting this little video. This guy = my hero.

we just purchased a selfie stick – tripod hybrid so we were going nuts with the selfies. 

In between sets we hung out on the grassy lawn in front of the main stage. Until we were told we couldn’t sit down there, which made no sense as other people were sitting on the lawn, and also because nobody was playing on stage.

After being told twice (very politely) to find another place to sit, we relocated to a different section of the grassy lawn and set up camp , ate some more tandoori chicken, and waited for Weezer to come onstage.

But first, Crossfaith. Ever heard of them? Neither had we, but we should have known what we were in for when banners painted with skulls and lightning bolts were raised in the background as part of Crossfaith’s stage decorations…

Crossfaith, as we later discovered, is a “a Japanese electronicore band” who sings in English. They first gained notoriety by covering bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit but are also influenced by EDM groups such as Chemical Brothers and Prodigy. Talk about a bizarre combo of music styles.

Crossfaith’s set began with a pretty intense show of seizure-inducing lights which at times almost felt rave-like. Even though our old peoples’ ears were bleeding, we were completely transfixed by the performance…and the lights…and it’s highly possible that we were fed some satanic subliminal messages while watching the show… My favorite part was when the lead singer yelled to the audience, “get on your f***in knees, RIGHT NOW! Get on the f’***in ground!” And then we watched as people got on their knees and kneeled on the ground… Koreans, or at least the ones at this concert, were extremely into the music, the heavier the metal, the better.

I think I might be a little too old for this kind of music.

Finally it was time for the final act, Weezer. Their songs brought back so many memories for us, and once again, we found that we knew the lyrics to nearly every song. Even the youngsters around us, who we determined were probably not even alive when Weezer’s first album came out, drank, danced and sang along well into the night.

And then, when Weezer sang a song in Korean, the crowd lost its mind.

enjoy my mad shaky cam skills

The name of the song translates to “Becoming Dust” or “I Become Dust,” written by famous Daegu singer/songwriter, Kim Kwong-seok. Like most Korean songs, the lyrics are bittersweet, filled with longing, and beautiful.

I gather my small heart together
And write a poem, but it’s not enough to describe you
I’ll become dust and fly away
Fly away in the wind, to your side

Sadly, I’m pretty sure Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, speaks (sings?) better Korean than me…

After singing “Becoming Dust,” Weezer closed the show with “Buddy Holly.” I don’t know what’s more surreal: hearing an American band cover a Korean song, or listening to Koreans sing along to an American song at the top of their lungs.

We stayed until they turned the lights off at the main stadium, and then walked back through a city that felt almost more American than Korean, to our hotel. The cluster of people leaving the festival still sang songs from the day’s concerts, and we did too.

Sidenote: the morning after the concert, we drove to Korea’s only Ikea to see if we could pick up a few things for our apartment. Holy crap what a mistake. At just 30 minutes after opening, the line to JUST GET INTO THE PARKING LOT was massive. We waited for 45 minutes in the parking lot line and weren’t even half-way there. Eventually we gave up. Nothing at IKEA is worth waiting 2hrs just to find parking. I can only imagine the mayhem of checking out.

DETAILS

Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival  | DESCRIPTION: Three day rock festival that incorporates all genres of rock music, with both Korean and English bands.  The festival grounds are fairly expansive and included several stages, a food area, vendor booths (including a swimming pool and beer pong), a weird waterfall/volcano thing, a camping section, mist tunnels, and  a VIP area. We didn’t really get the VIP area. Sure it had seats and blowing fans, but at night, the tented area was completely lit by fluorescent lights, which in my opinion, totally ruined the festival mood. On top of that, it’s not like the location of the VIP booth was all that great, as it was well off to the side. Initially, we considered camping at the festival grounds, but after surveying the area, were pretty glad we didn’t. First off, the heat would have been challenging. Second, even though it’s close to downtown Incheon (the business district) there’s basically nothing around the fairgrounds, and walking to/from restaurants probably wouldn’t happen. I’m guessing the campers brought their own food and drink, but I’m not sure what they did about water. We didn’t really explore the campgrounds, but they were located right behind the food zone so I’m assuming they used the same (mostly porta potty) festival bathrooms. To top it all off, the sites seemed to be first come first serve, with no real designated or assigned spaces, so the tents were butted up one against the other.  If you’re looking for a budget option close to the festival, then it’s probably a decent one, and if you don’t have gear, you can rent it/purchase it at the time you purchase your ticket.  We decided to stay at a hotel because we knew we would be hot and sweaty and figured that since it was only for a night that we would “splurge” on a nicer place…with A/C.  TIP: Purchase tickets early to get the maximum discount. | VERDICT: Really clean grounds, plenty of bathrooms, lots of food options, and a pretty good line-up. The price of a one-day pass, even purchased in advance is kind of pricey considering we weren’t necessarily there to listen to Korean bands. The multi-day passes were definitely a better value, but as we were coming from out of town and didn’t want to take more than a weekend off, the one-day pass made the most sense for us.

Holiday Inn Incheon Songdo | COST: ~$110-$150/night  | DESCRIPTION: We don’t usually stay at chain hotels in Korea because there are so many great, locally-run, cheaper, accommodations to choose from. In this case, we reasoned that we would end up paying the same amount if we stayed at a cheaper hotel/guesthouse and took cabs everywhere/paid for parking. The Holiday Inn was one of the cheapest hotel options in the Incheon Business District, was within walking distance to the concert, shops, and restaurants, and offered free parking. If you’re riding the subway, there’s an entrance right in front of the hotel. It was also probably one of the nicest Holiday Inns we have ever stayed at with a killer view and lounge area at the top floor reception area. It definitely felt more like a boutique hotel than a cookie cutter motel. We would definitely stay here again.