I wish, with all my pious and music-fearing heart, that this blog entry served but to refute earlier speculations and rumours surrounding the much anticipated Midi Festival. Alas, the words I exchanged exclusively with Midi Festival organizer Zhang Fan this afternoon offered me no chance to reinvoke Beijingers' hopes.

"The police are responsible for public spaces such as Haidian Park, and in this case, [they say] security can't be guaranteed," deciphered Zhang. "They are being ... overly cautious." He went on to enumerate the factors behind this gross caution on behalf of the Public Security Bureau. And even the most average of Beijing Joe's could be witty enough to deduce where his fingers pointed: in the area of Bjork, in the realm of Carrefour, and ... somewhere else.

Yet Zhang waxed very empathetic: "There is no point in pointing fingers at anybody. This could happen to any festival anywhere in any country in the world." The gist of his eulogy was that the Olympics are around the corner, governments are jittery, investors are anxious, and, the timeless idiom: better safe than sorry.

"Midi is an achievement. It's about music. And this achievement has been made. Just because it doesn't happen this year, doesn't mean that it's lost. We simply have to work within the framework of the current situation," Zhang elucidated in contemplation. But what does that mean for those of us who were dying to go to every one of those six harmonious stages, who are now dying because we can't?

"The bands mostly will still come. Most of them come with a tour planned already, so there will be other shows to see." Nonetheless, as bands like Hardcore Superstar have already kicked the May-in-China bucket, and others may follow suit, people's moods can't help but capsizing. Nothing, not even an intimate gig at a musically conducive place like Mao, can reproduce what your favorite Northern European sleaze rock would have felt like with 50,000 crazy kids and 1.21 jigawatts of drum and guitar sound all wrapped around your brain. Alors?

"Midi is to be rescheduled for October. It will be better prepared, better everything. Security is not the only problem. We have loads of things that can be improved, and will be improved. Look forward to the best Midi ever."

You see? No need to be so outraged, ticket holders. In the meanwhile, we'll see if we can coax the mechanic into getting the DeLorean fixed a couple months early. .