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Festival brings rock's bad boys to conservative China
2007-09-07
Some of the most subversive and hard-hitting rock and rap acts ever to play in China will headline the Beijing Pop Festival opening Saturday amid signs Communist censors may be loosening up. Headlining the two-day outdoor event in the capital's Chaoyang Park will be such anti-establishment American bands as Nine Inch Nails and Public Enemy, along with China's legendary bad boy of rock and roll, the oft-banned Cui Jian. The Grammy-winning Nine Inch Nails, headed by driving force Trent Reznor, combines a harmonic assault with tales of alienation and angst that found an audience of millions in the 1980s and 1990s. "Basically, it was pressure from me saying 'let's get out to China and blow some people's minds'," Reznor said of the decision to play the festival, in comments posted on its website. Public Enemy, which gained rap immortality by telling their fans to "fight the powers that be," were a major force in pushing the genre from a fringe social statement to the mainstream. In promotional materials for the third annual event, the band is featured as "PE," as organisers found their full name a tough sell with politically conservative Chinese censors. After albums "The Power of the Powerless", Cui has regularly been banned from performing but festival promoters said censors unexpectedly granted him permission to take the stage on Sunday. "We've tried to get Cui Jian on the bill before. He has been a tough permit for a lot of reasons, but this time we succeeded," the festival's British promoter Jason Magnus told AFP. "No one is going to get yanked at the last minute (from the bill), but this is the reason that everyone is nervous," he added, referring to a possible change of heart from the censors. The smooth permit process comes as Beijing prepares for the 2008 Olympics, an event for which China has promised greater openness. Also sharing the festival bill are a dozen Chinese indie bands as well as Marky Ramone of punk rock pioneers The Ramones, the formerly cross-dressing New York Dolls, Russian's Mumiy Troll and Japanese bands Ra:IN and Doc Holiday and the Apache Train.
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