Following on from Carsick Cars on the Friday night was another Beijing band on Saturday, Casino Demon. Before reading on, be sure to go their Douban page and listen to their songs. I recommend Wa Ha Ha.
Casino Demon were here towards the end of November last year. Read about that here. It was a good show, and I was won over by the band. Now they return to Shanghai for a 'debut album release party'. Well, yes, let's get to that before we go into the show itself.
There was not a CD in sight all night long. Also, the show seemed to be badly organised. The band had an indifferent sound and there was no support act on the bill. The Snot Rockets did their usual rent-a-support emergency service. When we talked to the band after the gig, they said they had a manager and they called him to see when he was bringing the CDs over. It turned out that the manager was drunk at a house party in another part of town, and after initially promising to get down in half an hour (after the band had already finished) he finally never showed.
The show itself was solid but not sparkling. Casino Demon are good enough, and have enough presence and song quality that they will never be bad. We bobbed about to the punchy Libertines style rock and tried to spot people who might be there for the Free The Robots after party later on. That is, people who look out of place in a rock venue. I dunno, they were probably all, mercifully, at Free The Robots at that point. The band didn't come back out for an encore and Jake Newby grabbed the set list and confirmed that we were thus robbed of hearing the best track, Wa Ha Ha.
A mini-thread on it all here, including a photo of said setlist