Pattaya Music Festival

[TheWalkingMan]

If I was at a Mexican beach resort, I would expect and enjoy to see Mexican bands. Same difference here except I personally love Latin music more, you can't have everything.

I am just a dreamer~~~~

TheWalkingMan

[tropo]

I enjoy the festival and will be going all three nights. Closing off beach road does give a real festival feeling. I don't mind that the bands are mostly Thai and some pan-Asian.

Now some criticism.

I was watching earlier at the Royal Garden stage. It got rather crowded and claustrophobic and this was only earlier Friday night and the escape route onto the beach sidewalk was blocked by some kind of wood fence. A safety/stampede hazard in case of some kind of "event."

They were selling a morbid DVD called Goodbye to Santika openly on the street with big signs. Very bad taste, downright disgusting.

I think it was the artist Eden, a bald older Thai man (and very funny and talented) who in his comic riffs between songs was openly insulting FARANGS to the mostly Thai audience at the Royal Garden Stage. While my Thai is limited I picked up enough of what he was saying and the nasty way the audience roared in laughter to understand this was happening. This with big signs in view: TOURISM AUTHORITY OF THAILAND, RELAX TO ENJOY EXTREME CITY.

In other words the city and/or the national Thai government paying money to create a tourism attraction that provides a feature for international tourists and then INSULTS those very same international tourists, assuming that each and every one of them is TOO STUPID to realize it.

Now I don't favor censoring artists but sorry THAT WAS OFFENSIVE! I liken it to this. Suppose in the US you were white and went to a see a hip hop artist with a mostly black audience and the artist directly attacked the whites in the audience in strong jargon assuming the whites would not understand the language. Not a comfortable feeling!

Dont' worry about it.

How many tourists can understand Thai? None!

How many expats can understand Thai? Very few.

Surely you know by now that foreigners are not exactly exalted in Thailand. Why let it bother you?

Better you know the truth than have it covered up.

[Jingthing]

How many expats can understand Thai? Very few.

I think most any expat would have understood what I understood -- that farangs were being impolitely mocked. Our friend in Phuket Simon may go to the monkey house for being "rude" to a Thai official. Double standard?

[wileycoyote]

Disappointed !

[tropo]

How many expats can understand Thai? Very few.

I think most any expat would have understood what I understood -- that farangs were being impolitely mocked. Our friend in Phuket Simon may go to the monkey house for being "rude" to a Thai official. Double standard?

It may have been dark comedy?? For example, in Australia we mock just about everyone and everything in humour.

If you're so sure that he was being offensive, why not make an official complaint about it. There's one more night to go, maybe you could pay them back. Be sure to bring a voice or video recorder to get evidence.

[MeetJohnDoe]

Our friend in Phuket Simon may go to the monkey house for being "rude" to a Thai official. Double standard?

Do you know the details of what Phuket Simon was alleged to have said/done to cause his current distress?

The charge is that he was both rude in language to the immigration officers (use of the "F" word) and aggressive in manner (by his own admission grabbing back his passport from the officers and walking on past the immigration desk and into the departure area of the airport). These actions would definitely be grounds for detention at any airport in the world. It is also a fact that the reason Simon was initially detained was because Thai immigration were informed by the UK authorities that he was traveling on an invalid passport.

Now, this will upset the politically correct crowd, but the fact that Simon is black and traveling outside Europe and North America, he should know many locals in these parts will consider him a second-class citizen (no matter that he has a British passport) and expect that he act with appropriate deference towards them (especially government officials). The fact that he didn't is probably a major reason for his current predicament.

Also, the Thais have a real bee up their butt about use of the "F" word. It is used so much in the West that it has lost much of it's sting there, and can even be used to mean good or cool depending on context, but the Thais only understand its use to be a deep insult. They really go ballistic if it's used or directed at them. So one should never use the term when in a argument with a Thai...because, even if true as Simon claims that he was referring to the immigration procedures themselves as a "f*ckin joke" and not the Thai officers or Thailand itself, due to the language barriers, they will not understand and take it as being directed at them personally.

Edited March 22, 2009 by MeetJohnDoe

[davethailand]

Don't know about the festival but the after show party was great.

It was held in a MASSIVE house on the Beach near Royal Cliff with bowling alley, nightclub & full bar, cinema & laser quest set up in the basement, also its equipped with a full recording studio, live music stage with equipment and DJ set up, I now understand why the owner said to me that he doesn't need to go out that much , It was honestly better than some nightclubs I've been in.

Ananda, Y not 7 and Peter Corp Dyrendal were there as were Grooveriders, Cresendo, Paradox and members of the Silly Fools, they were joined by the FHM girls Coyote show.

i was blown away to say the least.