Armed Youth (農村武裝青年）is one of the most famous activist rock bands in Taiwan. Established in 2007, they derived from social movements in the streets as a musical form of civil disobedience. Combining genres of rock and Taiwanese folk music, using traditional instruments like “ruan” (阮) and “yueqin (月琴),”* their songs are about the love and care toward the land, the environment, and the oppressed.
This is a video of Armed Youth’s live performance at 2021 Calling Spring Indie Festival（叫春小搖滾）in the town of Changhua, in central Taiwan. Calling Spring is a local, admission-free, crowd-funded music festival initiated by a street vendor auntie since 2016.
At the festival this is year, the main stage took place at the front court of the 300-years-old Confucius Temple. Before contemporary urban development, temples used to be the community center where music and other culture activities happened, and they were made accessible for all. The festival and the performance share the value people believe. Music and Arts are not privileges, but are basic rights of everyone. No matter it is in a concert hall or in the streets.
*”ruan” and “yueqin” are both Chinese plucked string instruments.
Armed Youth’s page (in Chinese) https://www.facebook.com/TUDIvoice The song in the video is “The Hope of Water”, sung in Taiwanese dialect, you can listen to it on Apple Music of Spotify.
Text by: Ellie Pai/Licha Stelaus Productions
Disclaimer: We are fans of great sound and music. We are not agents nor presenters of musicians featured in this post. We do not own the music, photos, and videos in this blog - Licha Stelaus Productions