It was almost four years ago when I first saw Mayday live in concert on their first ever world tour 'Final Home' and leaving the stadium that night, I was really impressed how good they sound live. Someone once said that to truly apreciate Mayday, you have to watch them live. When I stepped out of Zhongshan Football Stadium last Sunday night, once again I was completely in awe! Two amazing Mayday concerts in their homeground. It was definitely the biggest, most touching and grandest Mayday concert I've ever attended and the number of fans who turned up totalled 100,000! Whoa!
Tickets for both Green Day [13.12 concert] and Blue Day [14.12 concert] were given away free (don't you just love Mayday?) with every purchase of their latest studio album, "Poetry of the Day After". Ticket redemption starts at 9AM at the stadium on the morning of the concert, where you'll be given a wristband to wear in order to enter the stadium.
My friend sent me a text message the day before I left for Taipei informing me that the local fans have already started camping out at the stadium since early that week. WTH!! I then packed my sleeping bag along with me to camp out on Saturday night after Green Day for Blue Day tickets. According to news report, some 5,000 fans were already at the stadium the night before Green Day *faints*
When we arrived at Yuanshan Metro station that Saturday morning at around 6:30AM, I almost passed out when I saw the massive crowd outside the stadium! It was a sight to behold.. I have never ever seen so many people at a concert venue, 13 hours before the start of the concert. Many tents had been set up by the main road and those who didn't have tents were snuggled up in their sleeping bag. Holy crap!
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| Zhongshan Football Stadium, Taipei |
Finding the end of the queue was a major headache. The place was so overcrowded we couldn't tell which was the Rock zone A or Rock zone C queue! Though ticket redemption started at 9AM, we were stuck in the queue for over 8 hours cos apparently the A and C queue got mixed up and it took the workers some time to sort out the problem. By the time I got my ticket, my legs were so numb I could barely feel them!
At Green Day, the rock zone in front of the main stage (the runway and mini stage enclosed area) was off limits to the public. Only those who had VIP tickets from the sponsors (BenQ and Sarsaparilla) were allowed in that area so we stood at the side of the stage. The pyramid stage is really massive! It was at least 4 or 5 storey high.
Concert started at about 7:20PM and it kicked off with a spectacular NT$600,000 five-minute fireworks display (which is why I've always preferred outdoor concerts) Mayday sang for 3 hours and they had a guest artist, Crowd Lu who was really funny and geeky. They sang all the songs from the new album with their old catalogue thrown in. My main disappointment was that they didn't sing "後青春期的詩[Poetry of The Day After]" but I was really happy that Ashin sang "私奔到月球[Elope To the Moon]" and "超人[Superman]". Superman sounded so good live!
The pyramid stage which took 3000 technicians over a week to set up has LED screens on it and at one point it turned into a giant Christmas tree! Ashin should have sang a Christmas song when he presented the tree to the fans hehe
Despite the concert being free, it was far better and longer than many paying concerts I've attended.
Will continue Blue Day entry in the next post ;)
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