Modern Sky Festival, a series of music events that originated from China, aims to introduce various kinds of interesting alternative music acts to the world in a showcase-style. After Asia and North America, Europe saw its first Modern Sky Festival organized in Helsinki, Finland, on August 28th and 29th, 2015. The stages were filled with lesser known artists from many types of genres including psychedelic rock, soothing electronic music, artistic indie pop and punkish noise rock. The festival had an 18-age limit of and in a way you could sense how a lot of the music and also artists themselves had a mature feel to them. There were many strong women to be seen such as the elegant ambient artist Noah from Japan, the outspoken Chinese rocker Helen Feng and Finnish artist Ronya, who sang in a little black dress. Neon Bunny, however, was an exception in a way. Both her voice and appearance are sweet and girly. Her songs are a bit on the artistic side but they also feature elements that are distinct and addictive.
On the two day festival Neon Bunny performed on the latter day, on Saturday afternoon. She started with soft songs such as A Polar Bear and Can't stop thinking about you, both a part of her debut album Seoulight. Neon Bunny writes her own songs and additionally plays the keyboard. Her music includes an electro sound in the spirit of 80s and 90s. The intensity of the retro style varies as her material alternates from romantic ballads all the way to disco-like synth pop; for example to songs like First Love and Oh My Prince, both of which she performed to the festival audience. Additionally she sang a couple of songs from her upcoming album. These songs had a dreaming feel to them.
Neon Bunny spoke fluent English, though every once in a while she stopped to think what she'd say next. I didn't pay much attention to it until she brought it up herself. She explained to everyone that since she's now been working on her new album, she hasn't performed in a while and that any awkwardness would be because of that. During the show she also introduced her band and complimented the city - she even said she'd like to move to Helsinki. As her last song Neon Bunny sang her latest single It's You, which was released last year. It'd be great to see Neon Bunny again in Finland later on. As a performer she is mesmerizing and her catchy pop managed to grab the audience. Neon Bunny's style can be placed somewhere between indie scene and mainstream pop, which I'm sure explains some of her success.
Find the retro influenced music video Oh My Prince below.
