We just warned you that these three Beijing bands, touring the US for the first time starting this week, are the best. Enjoy this picture-logged recap of yesterday’s show!
Packed!
Oh, man. It was packed. Everyone wanted a sight of these guys. Kids climbed banisters, leaned over the balcony, flooded the arena’s steps. That’s a good sign for the rest of the tour!
Kids held on to the banisters of a staircase to get a better view
It was a packed house
And the bleachers filled up.
Xiao He
Xiao He played his dreamy, acoustic songs to a huge crowd
First up was the experimental indie musician Xiao He, who in a felt hat fiddled with backing tracks on an Apple laptop and then set into playing dreamy, obscure acoustic guitar over which he layered guttural weepy vocals. The effect is a kind of dreamy, surreal sound-scape — the musical equivalent of a rippling pond. But at other times, like on the track “PangPangPeiPei,” Xiao He goes a bit loopy, speeds things up — and becomes the Shugo Tokumaru of China. I had only ever seen this guy play in a courtyard garden lit exclusively by candles — and in this different atmosphere, his music seemed to invoke that setting. After a quick set — 20 minutes — he bowed out and handed things over.
The free-beer Brooklyn loft atmosphere was perhaps not best for such a cerebral musician, but he still managed to hypnotize everyone. Listen to his stuff on his MySpace. The track “Berlinmano” is absolutely heartbreaking.
Xiao He performing in London Photo Credit: Maybe Mars
Check his mad skillz on this video:
Carsick Cars
Carsick Cars play for a full house
Carsick Cars are a band every Beijinger goes to see — they have the reputation for loud indie-rock that doesn’t follow a cookie-cutter punky mold, but is instead intellectual, pondering, and sounds like no one else out there. When I asked lead singer Shou Wang if Beijing has a particular sound that Westerners haven’t heard yet, he answered with a resounding “No!”
“Beijing has so many good bands — so none of the bands sound the same. If a city has a good music culture, that’s how it is.”
Right on.
Carsick Cars can go from sounding like a loud indie-pop band to the inheritors of Joy Division’s New Wave touch, and they did both last night. The female drummer — Zhong Qiu — is a joy to watch, as she really throws her whole body into it. The lyrics to the second song, with acidic new wave basslines and monotone vocals — “We can listen / We can talk” — became even more mesmerizing with each repetition.
The band formed in ’05 at college, when they met on an online chat room because they all listed the band Suicide as one of their favorites. They liked a lot of the same stuff — Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Steve Reich — and picked it up from there.
Shou Wang on guitar, Zhong Qiu on drums.
Lead guitarist Shou Wang came played a string of solo gigs in the States and met the Brooklyn group These Are Powers, who he lured back to China and toured with. Tonight, they’ll play with them in Brooklyn on their guitars dotted with stickers that read Hao Ting.
“Good sound.”
Check out the video for Carsick Cars’ “Mogu Mogu”:
P.K. 14
Yang Hai Song is a ball of energy
And the band's sound -- tinny, big, and punky rock keeps the crowd hooked.
Yang Hai Song, screaming into the mic.
P.K. 14, in matching button-down black shirts and skinny jeans brought an immediate energy onto the stage. Besides, lead singer Yang Hai Song is our intellectual crush. (For a dayjob, he’s a freelance book reviewer and music producer, and even produced Carsick Cars’ latest album. And he’s obsessed with the beat poets!) But onstage, forget those bookish smarts; he goes crazy, gets swept up in the music, flails and fist-pumps, jumps up and down, folds his body around the microphone as if it were a rope he were attempting to climb up.
Over and over again, he sang: Renshi wo de shuo / Renshi wo de shuo!
It was a joke, kind of. “Know what I’m saying! Know what I’m saying!” he sang to an audience of New Yorkers, who didn’t know what he was saying.
The group’s sound — tinny, high-energy slapdash punk — is ferociously energetic, the kind of sound that gets you to mosh, hop-up-and-down, hug strangers.
When the group loped off after the quick set, you could hear the crowd deflate.
Llisten on their MySpace and check out their insanely-awesome video for “Tamen” below, and see why they get asked a lot of political questions by reporters…hehe.
Related info.
Again, be sure to check out these bands on their tour if you live anywhere near America’s northeast. And if you’re in China — check ‘em out! We’re jealous of your life!
Plus, check out our slideshow of photographs of the groups at Beijing club D-22. The book of these pictures, by Matthew Niederhauser, is for sale here. And it’s a deal, as it comes with a CD of the best tracks by the bands.
