Over at The Subs Douban page they have a gallery with a ton of their flyers. It's really cool. And what's more, looking through I found the flyer for the Shuffle Bar gig. Shuffle Bar is now Anar Bar (via Pirates Bar) and the gig was put on by Brad Ferguson. It was a good night but both support acts are no longer with us - The Living Thin and Slit.
Flyer says it was 3.11 but what year was that? 2007? 06? It seems like ages ago but can't be that long.
Check it out:
That's from 2006, but it seems like just yesterday...
I'd been doing regular (small) band nights at Shuffle for about three months, and really wanted to bring in a bigger name band for a "real concert." The owners wouldn't put up the money, so I decided to do it myself and made a deal for the door. At the time, Another Kind of Light were popular locally, and I booked them to play on March 11th. We'd had an unwritten exclusivity agreement, but the band went ahead and agreed to play at the heavily promoted YYT (Longcao Lu) opening party scheduled for the weekend before my show. I told them if they played that show I wouldn't guarantee their (relatively high) fee, and could only give them a cut of the door. They decided to cancel. I didn't know at the time, but they were in the process of breaking up and would end up cancelling their YYT gig at the last minute.
I was still new to the scene back then, and a lot of local bands didn't know what to make of me ... plus I wanted someone BIG to draw a crowd. I contacted the SUBS through a friend of a friend, and after calculating how much I could afford to lose, offered them a ridiculously low amount of money. I still don't know why they agreed to it, but they rode hard seats on the slow train from Beijing and put on a great show. I felt bad about the money thing and promised to make it up to them ... a few months later they came back for a gig at Harley's and a private show at Shuffle. That spring/summer of 2006 was when I decided to promote rock shows full-time, and the SUBS were the band who jump-started my career (such as it is).
Back when all I had was a crappy cellphone :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msittig/111782483/
From Brad:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanghaistreets/115311876/
Another:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtt/112320038/