DEPAPEPE, an acoustic guitar duo from Japan, is one of the most long-standing resident of my music playlist. When I first heard the song Butterfly sometime around 2006—waaay back when I was still a high school student—I was instantly hooked. The catchy tune was a perfect companion for studying, it is both upbeat AND instrumental. Fast forward to 2012, DEPAPEPE performed live at Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival. It was such a fantastic night!

After two years of no new music, DEPAPEPE released their latest album “KISS” on August and have gone on tour across Asia. I was ECSTATIC when I found out that the live show in Taipei (November 8, 2014) was within my Taiwan trip dates! (I later found out that they are going to do a show in Jakarta as well, but that’s another story) Afterwards, I tried to book a ticket and quickly found myself overwhelmed by so many questions: how exactly I could purchase a live show ticket at a city I’ve never been to before, with a language that I don’t understand at all, plus I have no friends at all in said city! The answer, mi amigo, is internet.

Before you continue reading, I want to remind you that I’m by no means an expert in ticketing and this is simply a story of my experience. Tickets that you want to buy may not be sold at the same website as mine did. I hope you find this post useful! :)

This post is broken down into two parts. The first part tells the story of purchasing the ticket and the second part tells the live show experience. If you only wanted to read the second part, it is located right after the picture of the ticket. Now, shall we?

SUMMARY

Steps on How To Purchase Tickets Online from Walkie Ticket Taiwan (FamiPort):

1. Open Walkie Ticket official website: Click Here

2. Register as member: Click Here

3. Find the show that you want to attend: Click Here

4. Click BUY NOW and follow these steps: Click Here. Take note of your ID and ticket number, they are required for step No.5.

5. Find a Family Mart convenience store, print out the receipt at the FamiPort machine, exchange the receipt for the ticket at the cashier.

And the following is the longer version of those steps, plus my rantings and frustrations. Enjoy ;)

First, I contacted DEPAPEPE’s venue THE WALL around September by e-mail, asking how I could secure a ticket from overseas. After four days, they kindly replied that the ticket can be purchased through a website called Walkie Ticket. Let’s take a moment to say OH. MY. GOD. I was shocked to see that the website was *still is* completely in Chinese, not that I didn’t expect it, but still, it was frustrating. Google Translate and a lot of imagination definitely helped, though I got stuck at some point, which I will explain soon.

I *miraculously, somehow* figured out that you need to register as a member before becoming able to purchase the ticket. Here’s the link to register as member: Click Here. Jot down your ID number and password because you’ll need them later when you pick up the real ticket. Next, find your desired show from the “Show List” link. The subsequent step is pretty easy: click the BUY NOW button.

The BUY NOW button then leads to seat selection. DEPAPEPE’s live show was a free standing event, therefore this step was an easy breezy for me. The step after this was where I got stuck. There were 3 delivery method options:

- Mobile e-ticket

- 7-11 ibon

- FamiPort

I naturally was drawn to the Mobile e-ticket. If I remember correctly, this option requires downloading the Walkie Ticket app. But guess what? I can’t freakin' select this option!! UGH. The only button available was FamiPort. I tried to use Google Translate but I still didn’t understand why I couldn’t just choose Mobile e-ticket.

Because of that, I e-mailed the venue, THE WALL, again. Hahaha. They replied after a couple of days and said that they didn’t have Mobile e-ticket option for this concert, so I couldn’t use this function. Uh Oh. That explains it. Though I could’ve sworn nothing I read at Google Translate hinted that. They also gave me an English link that describes step by step sequence on how to purchase ticket from Walkie Ticket website: Click Here. To this very second, I still wonder why I couldn’t find this link from Walkie Ticket’s home page, they should’ve put the link somewhere visible.

This time I followed the steps closely and selected the FamiPort option. After spending some more time on Google, I concluded that FamiPort is a machine where you can buy online ticket and similar things, that you can find at most Family Mart convenience stores. 7-11 ibon is a similar machine, but at 7-11 instead of Family Mart. These machines appear to originate in Japan, I suddenly remember having the same experience when I tried to buy a ticket to Ghibli Museum in Japan a couple of years ago… Why didn’t I recall this before? Here’s what a FamiPort machine looks like:

With FamiPort (or 7-11 ibon for that matter), there are two options:

1. Buy and pay the ticket directly at a FamiPort machine, which I didn’t do, meaning you can ignore this whole post. 

(+) Simpler steps 
(-) Possibility of the ticket being sold out 

2. Buy and pay the ticket online, print out the receipt at a FamiPort machine in Family Mart once you arrive in Taiwan, then exchange the receipt for a ticket at the cashier, which I did. 

(+) Pre-sale ticket price (I got mine for NT 900, on the spot price is NT1200), less possibility of the ticket being sold out 
(-) More complicated steps, requires payment with credit card. 

There is a NT 30 processing fee and 4 tickets are the maximum number of tickets you can buy in one transaction. To familiarize yourself with the machine, take a look at this Youtube video. Although I think the video is tailored for option No.1, the procedure is pretty much the same.

After completing the payment, this popped out:

I printed the above picture, took note of my member ID (passport number), and ticket number. Two months later, I arrived in Taiwan, searched a Family Mart with a working FamiPort machine, printed the receipt at the machine, gave receipt to the cashier, and received my ticket! HOORAY. The ticket looks like this:

I felt anxious at the day of the show. It may sound silly to some people, but it was actually my first experience attending a live show all by myself, plus it wasn’t in my home country. What if I got lost? What if I missed the show? What if what if what if. Blah.

The show started at 8pm, so I decided to depart from my hotel (around Taipei Main Station area) at 6pm. When I arrived at Gongguan MRT Station -the nearest MRT Station to THE WALL- I panicked because for some reasons my Google Maps was initially not working, I couldn’t tell which exit to take and which way to go (now looking back at it, perhaps my brain was the one not functioning properly). I eventually took Exit 1, followed some girls who seem to be walking towards the same direction (Thank God they really did), and arrived at the location 15 minutes later. I was relieved. Here’s what THE WALL live house looks like from the outside, the neon sign is pretty flashy and can be seen from across the street. 

It was 6.45pm and a long line of 75-100 people had formed. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the line was super neat; everyone was chatting, reading, or busy with their phones. I had bad luck in terms of the waiting situation though, I had to stood in front of some kind of blower machine that I think is an exhaust from a restaurant? Suffice to say, I smelled a bit like fried chicken after that. Fifteen to twenty minutes later the staff opened the door and everyone walked patiently to get their ticket checked, their hand stamped, and to finally enter the room… No pushing whatsoever! (I’m looking at you, Indonesians). The following picture is what the line looks like just before we entered the room. Sorry for the blurring, I took this one while walking and there wasn’t enough light.

I chose to stand 5-6 meters from the stage, right where there is a slight elevated step. I’m quite short, forcing myself to stand closer to the stage would have been pointless. The room quickly filled up and it was later announced that it was a full house. I read somewhere that the capacity of THE WALL is around 600 people. Right at 8pm, the opening act showed up and performed for 25 minutes. Their music was nice but I didn’t understand a word of it :D And after what felt like an eternity… DEPAPEPE showed!!! WOOHOO

I wasn’t sure whether we were allowed to take any videos or photographs during the concert because I saw a sign depicting No Camera in front of the room. However, I saw some people taking photos and recording parts of the performance with their phones, so I assumed that the No Camera sign was directed at professional photographers. Whatever it was, I decided to take some pictures quickly with my phone and kept my usual camera inside my bag. I was pleased to see that no one was continuously taking pictures or videos, hence it wasn’t distracting at all. 

Anyway, DEPAPEPE’s performance was great. Really great. Out of this world great. Harry Potter great. GAH. Does that make any sense? It was such a different experience from watching them at Java Jazz. This time the room was smaller, the setting was more intimate, the duration was longer, and the audience was… tamer. It felt loud and quiet at the same time, like being in a room with hundreds of people and yet feeling as if nothing else exists except the music. The atmosphere was simply magical. I could feel every note all over my body and a smile was plastered on my face throughout the whole thing!

I honestly didn’t remember all titles of the songs they played, they performed both new songs from the KISS album and some older ones. One of them was Howl of The Wolf—my favourite song from the entire new album—it sounds even greater live and I could feel more of the Latin tinge of the song. They also played KISS, Aishu no Violet, Ii Hi Datta Ne, Across The Sea (Miura-san said some pretty heartwarming speech before this song), and crowd’s favourite START.

Miura-san, the more talkative of the two, used the same communication technique that he also did in Jakarta: talking in broken Chinese while looking at notes from the paper (which always ends in laughter), some broken English, long sentences in Japanese, lots of “Xie Xie”, and finishing every sentence with “Wo Ai Taiwan”… So funny! Meanwhile, Toku-san, the leader and the cool guy, made everyone girl in the room (including yours truly) screamed whenever he said a word. He sat down during most of the performance, but towards the end of the show and during encore he stood. And smiled. SWOON. Quoting what I wrote in my Instagram post: “These two guitar wizards performed as if it was their last day on Earth and the Taiwan crowd -and I- loved every minute of it.”

After the show ended, I left in a daze. Besides the music itself, I think the surreality of the situation also owes to the fact that I went by myself. It felt weird and great at the same time, bobbing your head and clapping your hands together with people who you don’t know at all. Music brings people together may sound like a cliche, but this experience makes me truly understand the truthfulness of the statement, and this realization feels extremely great. 

Thank you for reading!

A.

THE WALL, Taipei

Nearest MRT Station: Gongguan