Spring Scream music festival is something to shout about

In 1995, the first Spring Scream music festival took place on an improvised stage at a little-known beach in southern Taiwan. It was still two years before the first Fuji Rock Festival was held in Japan, or any other major music festival in East Asia, for that matter. Australia's Big Day Out had only arrived three years earlier, in 1992. In the eastern hemisphere, the era of the massive music festival hardly looked imminent.

"Now, Spring Scream is a tradition, just like the annual Mazu [sea goddess] pilgrimage," says Tan Pey-yun, an entertainment agent representing several TV stars and the band Murmur Show, who will perform at this year's Spring Scream. "It is a fixture in Taiwan. Thousands of people go every year."

The festival, to be held from April 3 to 7 in a grassy park near the beach town of Kenting on Taiwan's southern tip, is now in its 19th year. There will be seven music stages and 260 bands and DJs playing, selected from about 600 applicants. Young bands from Singapore to Japan - and some from even farther - will pay their own costs to play here.

For the sheer volume of performances, its dedication as a stage for unknowns and its "everybody come and play" philosophy, Spring Scream may be Asia's closest answer to the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. It is also a camping festival with a bit of a Woodstock vibe, where hippies mix easily with rockers.

If one thing has not changed, Spring Scream organiser Jimi Moe says, it is that "we focus on the music community. This is still a festival held by musicians and for musicians. So it is the musicians who really create the direction for the festival, and because of that it is sustainable. Having that community is why we have lasted so long."

Last year's audience was put at about 6,000, but police estimated around 100,000 flooded Kenting for related parties and other events.