Asia News: The 1975 Sued; Heat Fells Dream Concert World; Pentaport Crackdown; Adele’s Flag Flap

MALAYSIA

The 1975 Sued For Fest Cancellation

Future Sound Asia, the organizer of Malaysia’s biggest international pop festival, Good Vibes, is suing the British rock band The 1975, as well as each of its members individually, over the cancellation of the festival’s 2023 edition.

Authorities closed the festival after the first day allegedly because lead singer Matty Healy criticized the government from the stage for its anti-LGBTQ policies and then kissed his bassist, Ross McDonald.

According to Variety and The Guardian, the company filed the $2.4 million lawsuit in a UK high court, claiming that the group and its management knew of various rules that were in force for anyone who performed at Good Vibes, including prohibitions against discussing politics or religion during a performance.

Malaysian authorities expressly ban “kissing, kissing a member of the audience or carrying out such action among themselves.”

The suit says that the band performed in Malaysia in 2016 under the same restrictions and “were reminded of them again several times ahead of their performance in July [2023].”
Apparently, the relevant authorities initially rejected the group’s application to perform because of Healy’s past publicized drug issues. They relented when the band promised to follow “all local guidelines and regulations.”

The suit contends the band willfully changed its mind about performing and decided to “protest the prohibitions.” It also alleges Healy brought a bottle of wine on stage and behaved in a purposely provocative manner. When the performance was halted, Healy allegedly became aggressive and required restraint from his own management.

The next day, authorities revoked the festival license, wiping out the last two days of the event. Later, according to The Guardian, Healy publicly said that the kiss was actually part of the show. “The idea that it’s incumbent upon artists to cater to the local cultural sensitivities of wherever they’ve been invited to perform sets a very dangerous precedent,” he reportedly said. The band had been paid $350,000 by the festival.

Despite the lawsuit, the Malay Mail reports that local promoters are saying that the Malaysian concert business is open for “business as usual.” Most are positive about the suit since they believe that Future Sound Asia needs to be compensated for the loss they incurred when the festival was canceled and, in any case, it doesn’t seem to have scared international artists away from Malaysia.

JAPAN

Dream Concert World Falls To Heat

Dream Concert World, a new offshoot of the very successful Dream Concert series of K-pop concerts, was set to take place at the Belluna Dome in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, Aug. 19-11, but was canceled July 31 due to “extreme heat,” as well as a recent surge in COVID-19 cases.

One of the organizers of the event told Korea’s Yonhap news agency, “We have decided to postpone the concert since it is not a suitable environment for large amounts of people to gather in one place, [what] with the Japanese government issuing [a] national heatstroke warning.”

An ongoing heat wave has covered most of Japan since mid-July, causing temperatures to reach 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees fahrenheit) in parts of Saitama Prefecture, where Belluna Dome is located.

The lineup for the concert included NewJeans, Kiss of Life, NCT Wish and TWS. Yonhap adds that the organizers are discussing rescheduling the concert but no new dates have yet been announced.

KOREA

Pentaport Cracks Down On Camping, Waiting Lists

One of Korea’s biggest music events, the Incheon Pentaport Music Festival, took place the weekend of Aug. 2-4 at the Songdo Moonlight Festival Park in the city of Incheon, a suburb of Seoul.

During the weekend, organizers announced a policy that prohibited ticketholders from staying overnight or “creating their own waiting lists in an attempt to secure better positions to see their favorite artists up close,” according to the Korea Times.

Authorities had justifiable safety concerns when they noticed early Saturday morning that some fans were organizing their own waiting lists for Sunday’s performances. Given that a heat wave had enveloped the area, organizers were afraid of the attendees’ health, not to mention the possibility of overcrowding that could result in injuries.

Since the 2022 Itaewon Halloween disaster in Seoul, where 159 people were crushed to death, police have been very wary of allowing large groups of people to gather in one place unmonitored.

Adele’s Global Flag Flap

Adele has received a mountain of criticism from her fans in Korea over visuals that play behind her during her current 10-show residency at a specially erected stage in Munich.

The singer performs in front of a 220-meter-long LED screen, whose size sets a Guinness World Record. A variety of images are flashed on the screen during the performance, and one has especially upset her Korean fans.

The image is of the rising sun flag used by the Japanese military during its colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

In Korea, the flag prompts the same reaction that the Nazi swastika does in most Western countries and, according to various local media outlets, Adele’s fans were puzzled and angered at its inclusion in the visual component of her show.

Some have reacted by saying that the inclusion only demonstrates the producers’ “ignorance,” while others wonder if the use of the flag was intentional, since “they can’t use the swastika in Germany.”

As of this writing, Adele and her management have not responded to the outrage, if, in fact, they are aware of it.