A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Hav­ing been going to largely Chi­nese gigs in Bei­jing for the last almost-year, this gig was a bit of a shock to the sys­tem from before we even set foot in the venue. I went with a group of about ten friends (all for­eign­ers), and as we were cross­ing the road on our way over from din­ner, we ran into a lone Amer­i­can on his cell phone look­ing a lit­tle lost. When he saw the group of us, his face cleared and he said “oh, don’t worry about it, I’m in the right place.” And so began a night that was a com­plete con­trast to last week’s gig at Jiangjin­jiu: instead of being the only white faces in the room, I was sud­denly part of a major­ity of cau­casians. It doesn’t hap­pen that often at a gig in Bei­jing, and it was a bit jolting.

Racial major­ity aside, how­ever, this gig was des­tined to be amaz­ing from the get-go. Yugong Yis­han was the per­fect venue — a mix of hip­ster class and rock and roll edge — befit­ting of a man who turns a clas­si­cal vio­lin into an instru­ment of rock. The open­ing act was Hang Gai, a Mon­go­lian throat singing folk out­fit that per­forms reg­u­larly around Bei­jing. They didn’t dis­ap­point, in their own right, but it was an inter­est­ing choice for an opener. There are plenty of indie pop groups around Bei­jing who would have set a more fit­ting mood than Mon­go­lian throat singing, but I’m sure there was more at work in the choice than musi­cal com­pat­i­bil­ity. Any­how, I spent most of the pre-show upstairs wait­ing for the main act than down in the pit. 

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