Rock in Rio: Chinese and Asian bands feature at seven-day music festival

World Today

Bon Jovi, Muse, Red Hot Chilli Peppers- They’re all playing at this year’s Rock in Rio!, one of the world’s largest music festivals.

But as CGTN’s Lucrecia Franco reports, this year the spotlight is also shining on Asian bands.

Spectacular fireworks, a spacious venue, multiple stages, and a riot of screaming rockers. More than a festival, Rock in Rio is a playground for revelers and music lovers.

With big names like British entertainment veteran, Seal, who opened the festival, a total of 670 local and international artists are performing at the mega-event. Drake, Bon Jovi and the Red-Hot Chili Peppers are just some of the other big names involved.

But maybe the biggest novelty this year is the Rock Street area, a space that is shining the spotlight on Asia, with architectural references and musicians from China, India, and Japan.

The impressively tight Beijing-based heavy metal band “Nine Treasures,” for example, made their Latin American live debut with a novel blend of musicality, featuring unique instrumentation and a fusion of styles:  

“Our music is mixed with heavy metal music and inner Mongolian traditional music. So, we are very excited to show it here and we spent so much time to bring our music in this place,” said Askhan, the band leader and lead singer of Nine Treasures. “We are trying to get some energy to the people all around the world. It is like positive energy.”

Acoustic and electric play off against each other, and then come together as compliments. Costumes set a tone. Strings are pounded, and plucked, a crowd gathers, unable to resist the urge to move.

“This is incredible, marvelous, so different from what we see in Brazil, but what I enjoyed the most is having a taste of other cultures,” said Maria Eduarda Bastos, one of the many concert-goers

The festival is taking place at the converted, three hundred, 85,000 square meter 2016 Olympic park.

Tickets were sold out months ago, in April, at a cost of around one hundred forty dollars each for the seven days of the festival, but concert-goers told us it was worth it.

The proof: 700,000 thousand in attendance.

“It is more than the value, it is a kind of experience, sound and music that increases your soul,” said Antonio Santos, a concert goer. So, it is not because of the money. It is because of the experience.”

Organizers plan to offer a lineup of megastars and showcase a different part of the world with each successive edition because Rock in Rio is now a global business.