Chick Mountain Music Festival: มัน ไก่ มาก

I've become more than a bit obsessed with Thai music during the last few months. I admit that it took a while for me to get used to hearing it all the time, everywhere, but I've found some artists that I really enjoy - so when I heard that a lot of them would be performing at an all night music festival at a military training camp, I could hardly say no.

I first heard about the concert, Chick Mountain Music Festival (Man Gai Mak), from a few of my Thai friends. After looking it up and a lot of assistance from Google Translate, I discovered that tickets were not yet sold out so my friends Clare and Nell and I bought the tix. We prepped the weeks before by listening to the tunes of Bodyslam, Da Endorphine, Suckseed, Paradox and Palmy on repeat.  The concert was held in Kanchanaburi, about 30 km from the town center and started at 5pm.  We arrived to the giant field in the middle of nowhere (in military inspired hipster gear, of course) around 3, picked up our wristbands and waited in line, attracting plenty of stares and posing for a few pictures as we were some of the only farang in attendance. Since we were at a military training camp we had the opportunity to shoot guns and jump from a tower in a bungee contraption... but we opted not to!

At about 5pm it started to rain, a heavy/steady rain, thank goodness they gave everyone a free poncho at the entrance, and it did not stop for about 4 hours. The field turned into a muddy mess, but somehow it seemed the perfect setting for a music festival.  Once the show got started we gradually pushed our way to the front end of the crowd and had a great view for the main acts of the night.  The highlight was definitely Bodyslam, Thailand's premiere rock band, lead by a Suphanburi native, P'Toon! With fireworks and lights and confetti - it was an amazing performance, even better when Toon revealed his 8-pack ; )

It was really fun to see some of my favorite Thai bands live and I enjoyed the Thai music festival experience.  The show ended a little after 3am and by the time we made it back to Kanchanaburi we only had to wait around for a bit before we caught the 4:50am bus back to Suphan looking like hot messes. I'm hoping to squeeze in one more music festival this weekend starring my all-time favorite Thai band, 25Hours, here's hoping it all works out!