2nd Episode of the Taiwan tour diary – Ho Hai Yan festival. Hard to believe it was only last week. Awesome.

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First Part of our Taiwan video tour diary below – Melbourne to Taipei & the lead up to the Ho Hai Yan festival.

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Just got in. So tired. No sleep since Saturday night. Back on the horse this fine Melbourne Monday morning.

Ho-Hai-Yan festival Wednesday last week in Taipei.

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Typhoon Soulik passed last night. We got caught in some heavy stuff on the way home from last night’s show at Revolver Bar. Trees down all over the road & torrential rain. Relieved to be back at the hotel. We fly back home tomorrow.

Ho-Hai-Yan Festival 10th July 2013.

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Playing a show at Revolver Bar in Taipei tonight. That is, if Typhoon Soulik doesn’t stop us. The category 3 typhoon is expected to hit Taipei in about half an hour, gusting winds up to 200km/hr. It’s apparently serious enough for schools & some businesses to close for the day. The 3-day Ho-Hai-Yan festival we played on day one, Wednesday, has also been shut down & re-scheduled. The guy at hotel reception said we’d better get food now because there’s no going outside when this thing hits. Gotta get back to the hotel.

Wednesday at Ho-Hai-Yan festival, Taiwan.

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An amazing day yesterday at Ho-Hai-Yan festival in Taipei. We arrived early at 10am for sound-check. Clear blue skies on the beach-front main stage, it already felt like 40 degrees. Sound-check done we had about 7 hours til show time. Tried sleeping back-stage but it was too hot in the band tent. Went for a swim to cool off late in the afternoon. We hit the stage at 6pm. Probably the best festival show we’ve ever done. So much fun. Sky Caves In was a personal highlight. Turned into an epic 12 minute journey with a huge building techno jam in the middle – Max on hands and knees poised over her keys, in Hendrix-style instrument worship. Totally nuts. Crowd went ballistic.

Ho-Hai-Yan festival – Taipei, Taiwan 10th July 2013.

We’re both high on the whole thing today. What a wild show. We’ve got some incredible footage & still shots, and the whole thing was filmed for television. When we finally got back to the hotel last night, there was some amazing first vision on the news. Apparently, they’re editing the show for national broadcast later this week.

We’ll be posting pics and video soon as we can.

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Final rehearsal today for the Ho-Hai-Yan Festival tomorrow. A little tired now & back at the hotel. Resting up. Easy one tonight. Big big day tomorrow. We’ve got the sunset time-slot on the main stage. Should be brilliant.

Buddhist Temple Taipei yesterday morning.

Yesterday we got up early & went down to a Buddhist temple in Taipei. Awesome. Took a whole bunch of video for the tour diaries. Locals crowded in there for Monday morning prayers.

Adrenaline running for tomorrow.

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Arrived in Taipei yesterday around 3pm. Jet-lagged like crazy for the rest of the afternoon. Met Kent for a moment at the hotel before crashing for an hour. Went out to get a ‘step up’ transformer from a technology night-market a few train stations away. Got lucky straight away & found exactly what we needed. Voltage here is 110 (like the US) & some equipment (like guitar pedals & in-ear monitors with Aussie transformers) don’t work unless you get a converter. The night market was awesome, tech-heaven for computer geeks… Back to the hotel to rest. Tour manager Tom knocked on our door later in the evening.

Taipei skyline, yesterday.

Rehearsed for about 4 hours today. Sounding great. Took ages to get going. Maybe the Jet-lag or the heat. It’s like Darwin here. Humid & searing. Just got back from seeing the city from the observation deck at ‘Taipei 101’ which used to be the world’s tallest building. Now it’s a mere third, standing over 500 metres & 90 odd floors high.

 Rehearsal again tomorrow.

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Taiwan flight tonight. Last minute packing. Everything seems to be in order. Only thing remaining – a ‘step up’ transformer to convert Taiwanese voltage from 110 to 240. Have to get one when we arrive. Couldn’t get it here. We’ll arrive in Taipei tomorrow, via Kuala Lumpur. Rehearse for 3 days, Sunday to Tuesday. Ho-Hai-Yan festival in Taipei on Wednesday. Side show at Revolver Bar on Friday (details on the Shows page). We’ll be filming another tour diary as we go. Check in here for daily updates & video.

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Live Video Tuesday (on this Wednesday). Little known here in Australia, and most places outside their homeland, Danish band Kashmir first came to my attention about 8 years ago when they released their 6th album ‘No Balance Palace’. David Bowie appeared on one of the singles from the record. It was hard to believe I’d never heard of them – such an awesome band, amazing songwriting.  I actually had the pleasure of seeing them at Hi Fi Bar in Melbourne, supporting Something For Kate a few years ago. When you meet a Danish person, ask them about Kashmir – the band is often a source of national pride. The video below was taken at Roskilde Festival in 2003 – an epic and moving song, ‘The Aftermath’.

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