It was another sold out night in Yuyintang. Shanghai band The Rogue Transmission were following up their breakthrough show at Dream Factory with the timely release of their first CD.
Check out their page here.
The full line up was altered at the last minute when Nanjing psychobilly act Angry Jerks had to cancel. Luckily, goth-metal-ish new band Wang Yuezhe were on hand to fill in. I also found out that they have an official English name, Moongazer. Rounding out the bill were Mortal Fools and the headliners.
I did plan to get a bunch of videos for the Youtube channel but I was thwarted by the curse of the random flashing lights at YYT again. I uploaded one track from Mortal Fools and if you check it out you may agree with me that better bands playing there should not settle for the default flash setting. Talking of videos, Abe Deyo used one of the blog's videos in a post over at Shanghaiist - thanks Abe - which should highlight the difference in the lighting area.
Onto the bands. Wang Yuezhe have improved their set and have quite distinctive songs. But, like most new bands they lack a defined image. The singer has a hippy/goth look down but the rest of the band are 'at ease'. Tianping Dian had a similar problem. They really rocked last night with hard and heavy crossover metal but, for example, the keyboardist had on a polo shirt that wouldn't have looked out of place on a golf course. But all in good time. It's just great that a bunch of the newer bands are all starting to come through and the turnouts are back up as a result.
This was a great night for Mortal Fools. Despite the singer Frank's voice slipping a little at times, they have never sounded this good or loud. The place was packed out and eager to get moving. They puled out one of their newer ska tracks with Frank using a harmonica to double for a horn section and it worked. They got an encore and went out with a popular Ramones cover. Great set. The Rogue Transmission got on straight after and professionally made sure they got started dead on midnight. Yuyintang was at capacity and people were here to see this band. Makes you think though. With Shanghai underground bands starting to break through to the point where they can fill YYT - 250 people or more makes it bursting - it's a pity that Dream Factory is so upscale and expensive to rent. It really would be an achievement for the scene to start doing regular mid-scale shows: all without any mainstream advertising or ticketing or service structure.
Another main feature of the night was the wide range of people there. I finally met one of the Layabozi people in the flesh. It was the founder, Mache. I have just put together a playlist for their site so keep your eyes peeled over there. I think there might be someone else going on before me so it might not be for a couple of weeks. Also, I met a couple of great guys from Tasmania of all places. One of them John, admittedly very very drunk, was just the funniest guy. His huge sprawling monologue on blogs and the blogosphere convinced me that he himself must get himself one soon and make a kind of anti-blog. Anyway, he really made my night and I just have to stick his photo up. Hi, John.
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