A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Where: Yugong Yis­han
When: Sat 03 Apr, 9.00PM
How Much: 120RMB; 80RMB pre-sale
Who: New Pants, Sulumi, Re-TROS, DH & Chi­nese Hell­cats, big­ger bang!, Brain Fail­ure (More Info)
Why: Put on by X405FACTORY, this gig is largely to pro­mote Chi­nese indie fash­ion brands, but the acts they have got to pro­mote them are some of the biggest in the realm. The artists will be wear­ing pieces from the fash­ion seg­ment, so that the mix of pro­mo­tion and rock music should be seam­less. It should be an inter­est­ing setup, as some of the pro­mo­tional music events I’ve seen before include cheesy activ­i­ties which are fun but break up the music flow. We’ll see how this one goes. If all else fails, the bands will be good. With vet­er­ans New Pants, Sulumi and Re-TROS join­ing up-and-comers DH & Chi­nese Hell­cats, big­ger bang! and Brain Fail­ure, there’s no way this couldn’t be a good gig.

Check out a promo video:

Run­ners up are: Rock Your Spirit @ D-22 gig, Sat @ 10PM, 40RMB or Kurt Cobain Memo­r­ial gig at Mao Live, Sun @ 8.30PM, 50RMB.

If I didn’t already think that the JUE fes­ti­val was a great idea, this gig bring­ing one of Shanghai’s best bands to the cap­i­tal sealed the deal. It’s not often that Bei­jing and Shang­hai coop­er­ate and let their tal­ent cross the other city’s bor­ders, but that’s part of what makes JUE such a great con­cept. Shang­hai has a lot of tal­ent to offer, and if this gig was any­thing to go by, it makes me want to head to the Paris of the East for a week­end just to check out their under­ground scene.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

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Where: Mao Live­house
When: Sun 21 Mar, 8.00PM
How Much: 150RMB; 100RMB pre-sale (lim­ited to 200 tick­ets)
Who: BearBabes, Kur­tyqc (More Info)
Why: BearBabes are a Tai­wanese indie folk group that I have only recently been intro­duced to through the won­ders of Douban. This three-piece is really quite cute, with the breathy female vocal­ist you’d usu­ally find with a pop group. But if record­ings are any­thing to go by, they’re a tighter act than most of the mean­der­ing indie folk around there. Their sup­port act, Kur­tyqc, is a sim­i­lar sound, though with­out the pol­ished edges of an estab­lished group like BearBabes.

The run­ners up are: if you can make it out tonight, check out The Ther­mals and Hedge­hog/B-Side Lovers at Mao Live @ 8PM, 120RMB; Thurs­day has Lonely China Day back on stage at Yugong Yis­han after a sig­nif­i­cant break at 9PM, 50RMB; finally, there’s the afore­men­tioned JUE gig with TooKoo and Big­ger Bang Fri­day at Mao Live @ 8.30PM, 60RMB.

While I prob­a­bly say this a lot, last night’s gig was amaz­ing. In fact, I’m think­ing about hav­ing a Top Four instead of a Top Three gigs list, because this one was really up there. It was the right mix of amaz­ing music, a good (and inter­est­ing) crowd, great com­pany, and impres­sive per­for­mances that makes a gig really worth going to. Plus, it always helps when the lead singer of your favorite band just hap­pens to be a guest of the head­liner act.…

I did arrive late to the party, and in doing so missed Alt Senior. I will have to check them out another time, because I do like what’s on their Douban, but it was not to be this time. I did, how­ever, arrive just in time to see the end of Sparrow’s sound­check and their amaz­ing act. Read more

The gen­eral atmos­phere at this gig was one of great excite­ment, and I can’t say that it’s unex­pected. Not only were the bands at this gig huge, and all in one place at the same time, but for both local and for­eign fans alike, the fact that they’re head­ing over to South by South­west (SXSW), America’s largest indie music fes­ti­val, is noth­ing short of impres­sive. Maybe Mars has sent con­tin­gents over to Amer­ica pre­vi­ously, but there’s just some­thing about SXSW that’s excit­ing, and a show­case like this see­ing off the bands reflected that completely.

I arrived very much on time, to a largely Chi­nese crowd, and was very pleased to find a free CD in my hand on the way through the door. A com­pi­la­tion CD high­light­ing the bands play­ing at the gig, as well as “bonus” tracks from three of Maybe Mars’ other acts, it was titled The China Inva­sion Tour 2010, what they’re dub­bing the trip to the United States, and it’s a per­fect com­pan­ion to the show. If you didn’t make it, though, check out the down­loads sec­tion at Maybe Mars for some sam­ples. I have to say that I have often been dis­ap­pointed with the lack of energy in recorded songs here in Bei­jing, but hav­ing seen these acts live it imbues the record­ings with an energy that makes me love them rather than just like them.

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