파란노을 (Paran Noeul) at the Asian Pop Festival 2026

We tried to go and see 파란노을, but we ended up leaving after 10 or 15 minutes because one of the amps wasn’t working properly. That is a really crappy thing to have happen during your set, but it was still kind of annoying that the band didn’t just play something anyway. They kept saying, “should we just play something on our own” (without the other guitarist), and a number of times they did start playing something. But after a few bars they would awkwardly stop and continue to complain and comment on the sound problem. Meanwhile the huge crowd is just sort of standing there. If it was the beginning of the set, I could understand, but they had already played a couple songs. Even if you can’t carry on as you normally would, you should do something. I don’t mean to compare (but I will), but during Deerhoof’s set, for example, a mechanism on the high-hat stopped working. Greg (the drummer) kept fiddling with it while he continued to shred on the song as usual, and when he realized that the mechanism couldn’t be fixed he gave up and just worked around it. Eventually, someone came out and replaced the mechanism and Greg gave a grateful thumbs up and happily continued to jam out. The difference in attitude in face of technical difficulties like this speaks volumes about the band.

Every time I have gone to see 파란노을 they have had major sound issues and seem to have a weirdly immature attitude about it. The Asian Pop Festival has had sound problems every year, and it sucks to have that happen during your set. But even so, you are still on stage with tons of people there waiting to see you play! Why not just… play? Not because you have a responsibility to do so, but because it is the fun thing that you are there to do! So what if it is different and you have to improvise a bit. That in itself is fun and could potentially turn out to be one of your most memorable sets! I think it reflects poorly on the band when instead of carrying on with some music, even for a few minutes while the problem gets sorted, they just dismissively stand around all aggro complaining about it.

I get the impression that this band is hard to work with. Every time I have seen 파란노을 their mix is terrible, and they seem annoyed by it, but at this point I am inclined to think that it is partly due to their attitude or something. I have seen lots of bands of all kinds in the same spaces where they play, and while there are sometimes issues, it is curious to me that 파란노을 always has the same kinds of problems and always seem annoyed on stage. The little bit we were able to hear of them playing this time was quite bad. My theory is that they insist on turning their amps up too lound (even though it is a sound stage where the amps have mics on them) to create a wall of noise effect. The thing is, the highs of their guitars end up feeding back which always creates this super annoying shrill squeal that overpowers everything else. If that is the intended effect, then, well… I don’t know what to say to that.

They seem to be pretty popular, and from what I can tell they make some good stuff. But I really don’t like the vibes they put out as performers. Shit happens, but ultimately we are all people just trying to make a cool festival happen so we can enjoy some live music. I really don’t like it when the vibe gets arrogated like this.