Band on the rung

WHEN TAIWAN ROCK group Mayday announced a two-year hiatus in 2001 for national service, fans were distraught. More than 80,000 people packed their open-air farewell concerts and those who couldn't get a ticket jostled outside.

Mayday returned in 2003, better than ever, and have since gone on to conquer greater China. Now they're preparing to play concerts in Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong later this year, and tickets for their shows in Shanghai next month are selling quickly, with the most expensive $1,280 seats already snapped up.

In Hong Kong last week as part of the first leg of a tour to promote their new album Just My Pride (Content in Chinese) the quintet were visibly drained, having had little sleep on a rigorous publicity tour. But that didn't stop them from lifting their energy levels for the cameras.

It's been a gruelling two years for the band, but vocalist Ashin (Chen Sin-hong) believes it won't take long for them to recover. 'When we make fun of each other and talk about our goals, the fatigue disappears. We have fun most of the time.'

There's plenty of buffoonery between Ashin and his bandmates - bassist Masa (Matthew Tsai Sing-yan), guitarists Monster (Wun Shang-yi) and Stone (Shih Hang-wei) and drummer Ming (Liu Yan-ming).

'We've known each other for about 14 years - from the time when we knew knowing nothing about music to learning guitar together. We've been growing and supporting each other all these years,' says Monster.