Thursday night and oddly three decent shows on. A rock opera at Mao - I shit you not, an annoying glorified advert at Shanhai and the Wooozy night at Yuyintang.
I love both the Beijing bands appearing at said advert too. Retros and White+. Coincidentally, I saw them at Uptown buying vinyl earlier in the evening. Vinyl is crack for Beijing musos I'm told. Uptown is full of it, and also affordable players too.
So, this was the third Wooozy.cn night at Yuyintang. The aim is to have a monthly show that brings in a new and upcoming Chinese band from another city. This time:
Wuhan's Xiao Huo Che Xin
Shanghai's Next Year's Love
There was just about enough people in as things got going. Next Year's Love now have a decent set and some good new tunes. They seem to have kept an equal balance between the retro-shouty uptempo tunes and the dis-chordant experimental tracks. Xiao Huo Che Xin were really interesting. I don't think they had the best night for sound or performance but every song had a completely different stylistic approach. They had everything from retro electronica to Gish era Smashing Pumpkins style moody plodding. It was linked together by humorous Chinese samples and recorded clip conversations. By the end of the set you felt you'd been on a journey with the band.
The team behind this night are doing a good job and this is fast becoming my go to night for something different and surprising.