Not long back I wrote this post claiming that new Shanghai emo bands Double Control Where and Forget and Forgive were breaking through. I just want to say that this is not like two years ago when watching new bands was twenty people in the room and it felt a bit like hipster band spotting night.
I read a couple of lists and review articles on Shanghai live music in 2009 lately and saw that they reflected what I see at these gigs, almost no ex-pats bar the 5 or so usual suspects. But the thing is, these bands are no longer the prospects or the maybes. They are filling up Yuyintang and bringing new people to the scene. Their gigs, especially the Mushrooms, are the kick-ass shows where it goes off in the crowd. And ... they are really connecting to local fans who come ready to sing along to every word.
I present to you item one, a video of FAF playing their catchy-as-fuck tune Escape in YYT recently. There is an intro medley thing at the start so please note, the song actually starts at 1.43 minutes in. Once the song starts, the sound is great, the local kids are dancing and the singer 丁丁 can even point the mic to the crowd for the chorus ... after barely 8 months since forming fully. Believe me, Youku loads fast, skip to 1.43 and be amazed. Unless you are down on Emo, of course. Ha.
Pretty friggin' awesome. Do they have a live keyboard/synth offscreen? I see a guitarist on the left that makes a couple appearances.
(And oh yeah, sing in Chinese! And get off my lawn!)
Yeah, the second guitarist and keyboard player are of the edges of the screen.
Hi,
actually (in India) I am being unable to watch the video (loading too damn slow), though with the help of Jake (thanks a lot!!!) I was able to here their song 寄生虫（未混音初版） and I have to say ...
What has Shanghai done to emo? To emocore? Is that song representive to the sound? I hope not! That's... the same thing that happened to Ego Falls last record out. It became cheesy (please excuse the word)... the growls are all in the background hidden under overtuned keyboard-like guitar riffs. The clean vocals are in the foreground with rather downtuned guitars sounding like a mixture of Crazy Town and Britney Spears doing "I love Rock'n'Roll"... I guess the band is live much better and more raw and I guess the sound gets off more hard live. Remember Ego Falls and their record "Spirit of Mongolia"? I heard their demo songs a couple of years ago as raw mp3 on democn and they were good, I mean really good, energetic, passionate, raw, fresh, brutal and when I listened to the CD on last.fm... everything was gone, an over-produced pop-hell had emerged upon that band... like if they traded their dreadlocks in for ponytails and lollypops. FaF sounds (at least in that mp3) similar. Damn Indian internet, that I can't see their live video, cause I believe that that would give the band credit. If anyone has a live version or a raw version, please send it to me, so I can give the band the credit, that I think they will deserve (from what I can imagine from their song)...
Hi Max, you area big emo fan eh?
FAF are very good. As you say, they are very catchy and accessible.
Have you listen to the DCW songs? Maybe it's more your thing. say goodbye
Hi Andy,
actually, nope, not emo, but I like the emocore music of bands such as Le Pre ou je suis mort or Thoughts paint the sky. As said, Douban and Youku are too slow for me to listen to any band, do you have any other mp3 of them that you could send me?