Sometimes it's hard to believe that Big Mountain Music Festival (BMMF) is six-years-old. In dog years, that's already quite a feat. Over the weekend, the festival celebrated its sixth anniversary with a facelift in terms of stage decorations, site alterations and new additions tucked away at Khao Yai.
The main stage.
Every year, music lovers take a three-hour drive (or longer, due to heavy traffic caused by the festival) to the mountainous terrain to be a part of the festival — one of the biggest, most crowded music events of Thailand. During its first few years, BMMF generated a great buzz that drew in creative talent, but it hasn't exactly been the same since, to say the least.
Older revellers have made ways for youngsters, who have now completely taken over BMMF. The festival, this year in particular, was littered with high school and junior high school kids, which made it less attractive to a lot of people as these kids couldn't exercise self-control when it came to excessive partying and underage drinking.
The traffic was as bad as the first year due to the small roads and high volume of cars, but the festival looked much better due to a few adjustments made to the set up. Some stages underwent cosmetic changes, therefore looking more coherent. Pak Chong stage — a place for up-and-coming bands — received a complete overhaul, and it was refreshing to see that new bands were not overlooked. Its position, in the middle of a walkway, was already not ideal. The main stage looked visually stunning with the new light installations.
The number of attendees seemed to expand once again. If this trend continues, BMMF will reach its full capacity very soon, and that might not be the prettiest sight to behold. Like any other music event, Thai festivalgoers really need to learn how to clean up after themselves. Binge drinking and smoking are bad for your own health, but binge littering is bad for everyone. Hopefully, there will soon be some sort of awareness campaign to rectify such behaviour.
I'm not quite sure if it's my own imagination, but the line-up looked to be a repeat of last year, with a few additional international artists such as Jagwar Ma (Australia), Buffalo Daughter (Japan) and Scarecrow (France), among a few others. It still perplexes me why bands with singles out this year weren't booked to perform. I don't have a problem with whoever they booked this year — as I understand Thailand is hardly a breeding ground for new, interesting artists — but a switch-around would keep up excitement levels for BMMF.
As usual, not many people paid attention to international bands. Maybe it was because of the age of the crowd and their musical interests, but it saddened me to think that kids didn't even want to take the time to see something new. Then again, they probably spent most of their time loitering around the main stage, from the overcrowded look of it. BMMF might want to look at locking down one bigger international band for each day, rather than having numbers of small ones. This could ensure a more mature, clued-up crowd in years to come.
Legendary Carabao returned again to a rapturous welcome, and when Lomosonic, The Yers, Sweet Mullet and Retrospect played in sequence, it was one big musical orgy with mosh pits and body surfing. Retrospect took to the stage at close to 4am, and for those who stuck around (and many did), it was a true delight to see seasoned musicians giving it their all to rouse the crowd.
A new stage, Godzilla, was a welcome addition. Hosted by rapper Joey Boy, proceedings were dedicated to the art of luk thung music with a mixture of Thai hip hop over familiar beats. It was something innately Thai, and just plain fun. Another addition to please the generation of EDM lovers was Dome Pakorn Lum's T.E.D stage, where the "bear" construction was a sight to behold. Thumping beats that lasted until 6am did the trick for individuals whose inclinations lean towards EDM.
The overall sound system worked much better, while crowd control was good. It was an accomplishment for organisers to keep everything in line. We can only hope that BMMF7 will experiment with the line-up, and maybe cater to a more mature crowd.
Pae Arak.
Luk thung starlet Ying Lee.
Carabao.
Getsunova.
Potato.
