Report: Korea Slowly Opening Its Doors To Heavy Metal
April 17, 2011, 13 years ago
Korea's JoongAng Daily is reporting:
Way back in 1998, a local promoter was determined to bring one of the world’s biggest heavy metal bands, METALLICA, to South Korea. Unfortunately, the Culture Ministry, whose permission he required, didn’t share his enthusiasm.
“The guy in charge had some guidelines on his desk saying that ‘metal’ and ‘rock’ are absolutely not allowed,” Kim Hong-ki, the head of XS Entertainment, said in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency. “To overcome his objections, I had to insist that Metallica was not metal music, so I played the opening of ‘One,’ a relatively quiet Metallica song, and persuaded the guy that they were in fact a ballads band. By doing that, I finally got permission.”Suffice to say, things have changed a bit since then. Over the past few years, a growing number of foreign bands have visited Korea, culminating in a procession of modern and vintage stars playing here this year alone. The past few months have seen Sting, Santana, Iron Maiden perform and, for younger crowds, Ne-Yo and Ke$ha put on raucously received gigs on the Korean Peninsula.
Thankfully for fans in Korea, concert promoters no longer need to plead their case to officious civil servants. But that change in itself isn’t enough to explain the vast growth in Korea’s international concert scene.
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