As hap­pens with most gigs at Dos Kole­gas, the crowd at this gig was often­times far more enter­tain­ing than the artists. The gig was intended to cel­e­brate the birth­day of the inim­itable owner of Dos Kole­gas, but the party was overblown with the addi­tion of five other birth­days. With the crowd already in high spir­its by the time ten o’clock rolled around, the gig started.

The gig opened with the new­comer punk band Sum­mer Sun­shine, who sounded as though they had just stepped out of the garage and onto the stage. Look­ing at their per­for­mance his­tory, they’ve only been hit­ting venues for the last cou­ple of months, and with only a cou­ple of per­for­mances under their belts it’s no sur­prise that they still sound a lit­tle raw. How­ever, their music showed con­sid­er­able promise — a lit­tle Ashura-lite, with some faint metal sounds in the bass line — and they sound like the sort of band that could def­i­nitely grow to become some­thing bet­ter. They were endear­ingly unfa­mil­iar with the stage setup, play­ing with the sound equip­ment between almost every song. They had a short set — no more than four or five songs, I’d say — until a band who wasn’t on the lineup took the stage.

I’ve got no idea who the sec­ond band to play was, because they didn’t intro­duce them­selves the entire time and the only thing I’ve got to work off of is that they played a punk rock ver­sion of a folk song from a place that sounded like “Qian­hai”, but the lead singer mum­bled and it was dif­fi­cult to tell what he was say­ing. The lead singer/guitarist was quite tal­ented, pulling off some stun­ning solos, and his voice sounded like unprac­ticed Mon­go­lian throat singing — my lar­ynx was hurt­ing for him after the set. Oth­er­wise, the music was quite good — if not what I usu­ally lis­ten to. The beats were heavy and the sound a bit more noisy than I usu­ally like, but it made for a rich sound and some nice, long jams. It’s too bad I didn’t catch the name of the band, else I would have checked out their recorded stuff.

Next up were Nucleus (or Nuclear? I’m not sure, Douban has two trans­la­tions), which was def­i­nitely a tal­ented, mature band. The lead singer was charm­ing and put up with the antics of the crowd, as well as the person’s birth­day he was there to cel­e­brate (the bar owner got up on stage more than once dur­ing the set and attacked him affec­tion­ately, grop­ing and play­ing with his gui­tar), and the music was good. Again, a lit­tle heav­ier than I usu­ally like, but they had a few lighter songs that I could get into — check out 方 on their douban. Their act was tight, and they invited a friend up on stage — whose name I didn’t catch, but he was a char­ac­ter. With a bright blue Russ­ian ushanka and dark sun­glasses, what I remem­ber most about this guy is his gui­tar, which had a mir­rored body. That, and later he gave me and my gig part­ner some birth­day cake.

Third up was Steely Heart (钢铁之心), who I am almost con­vinced I have seen before with­out know­ing it. Their tunes were too famil­iar, espe­cially A Sexy Lie, but their stage pres­ence too dis­tinct for me to be mix­ing them up with any­one else. Before the strange sense of déjà-vu, though, I liked them the instant they started play­ing. They’re a five-piece band with a vocal­ist whose fash­ion sense harkens back to The Kinks but is prob­a­bly more influ­enced by The Strokes — casual class with a touch of the dirty city. It’s no sur­prise that their music is a lit­tle punk, a lit­tle rock, and a lot of tunes that get you up and danc­ing. And despite the crowd get­ting even more rowdy by this point — one of the nois­ier patrons took over the micro­phone for a well-intentioned sing-along dur­ing one of the songs — they man­aged a great set.

Next up was Care­less, and by this point it was nearly 1AM. Such is the prob­lem of going to a Dos Kole­gas gig for the head­liner act, and while I usu­ally wouldn’t blink at stay­ing out so long, even the dance floor was dead by this point so I had to bail halfway through their set. What I did see of it, how­ever, was more than enough to con­vince me to check them out again. Their sound reminded me of most of what’s going on around the Bei­jing indie music scene — an endear­ing mix­ture of rock and punk, which really appeals to me. They were incred­i­bly catchy, and while my eyes were clos­ing with exhaus­tion I could feel my toes tap­ping. Hope­fully the next time they play (they’ve got three gigs in Novem­ber, so it shouldn’t be hard), it won’t be so late.

And of course, I com­pletely missed Candy Mon­ster, if they ended up play­ing at 2AM or when­ever they would have got­ten on stage. I must admit it makes me feel like a bit of a grandma going home before the gig’s even over, but when the final act hasn’t even started at 1AM, I have to give up. They’re play­ing again this month, and are always around the place, so hope­fully I’ll get to see them soon. For now I’ll just set­tle for lis­ten­ing to the tracks on their MySpace.