A walled rock garden
Like all legendary rock venues, The Wall began with a passion and an idea.
In 2003 Freddy Lim, lead vocalist of Taiwanese metal band CthoniC, discovered that the basement of the Broadway Theater, in the Gongguan area and not far from National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Chengchi University, was for rent, and cheaply at that. He talked to a couple of like-minded friends, convincing them to work with him to scrape together NT$3 million and transform the space into a venue capable of holding 500 people.
They called it “The Wall.” Many people think the name comes from the Pink Floyd classic, but in fact it was originally inspired by the wall they put up to divide the basement space into a performance area and a commercial area.
But this boldness and passion alone weren’t going to ensure their success. Although as early as 1998, Luantan Ascent proclaimed at the Golden Melody Awards, “The age of the rock band is here!” and the following year Mayday’s debut album blew up the sales charts, drawing new attention to Taiwan’s blossoming “underground” music scene, an initial lack of identity meant The Wall’s first three years were rough.
In 2005, Lim sought out Orbis Fu, who had just finished his national service, to help as a planner. The following year, Fu took over management of the Gongguan venue, and today the 34-year-old is director of The Wall.
“The lack of identity was the result of different opinions and tastes among the various stakeholders, so from the start I knew I would have to be firm,” says Fu, with the directness characteristic of a Kaohsiung native and a firmness rare among young artistic types. A music fan, although not a musician himself, Fu has become one of the sharpest managers in Taiwanese music.
The moment he took the reins, Fu instituted radical reforms. He moved performance times forward, and took inspiration from the Japanese live house booking model, which requires scheduled bands to take responsibility for selling a certain portion of tickets themselves. This took some of the pressure off The Wall, but also led to many bands complaining about how “inflexible” The Wall could be. In just two years, however, Fu was able to reverse the nearly NT$3 million in debt the venue had incurred through renovations and restructuring, ultimately getting The Wall back on track and into a period of sustained growth.
In 2013, The Wall Music was the main organizer behind the return of the Formoz Festival, making it bigger and higher-budget than ever before, with the hope of making it a truly world-class music festival.