Saturday night in Shanghai and the Jue Festival was in Yuyintang Livehouse for the show of the week headlined by Beijing's Residence A. Here was the full line up for the night.
I hadn't seen Boys Climbing Ropes for a while and they were excellent. The new material from Summer and Winter Warfare is now at the same level live as the older favorites were last year. I really liked Grow Up and they closed with Two Dogs. There was a new song in there too, one that sounded quite Punk.
The Mushrooms back in Yuyintang on a Saturday night? This band get a lifetime pass from me for the summer of 2009. It's all in the blog have a look. But, as frontman Pupu said in a recent Timeout interview, the style has changed after working with their new label. They played well, sounded great and are definitely still Rock with a big R. But the raw energy and screamo stylings have been replaced with slick blues/pop rock and more polished vocals.
Residence A blew me away right there in the first track. They were loud, clear and tight ... and they could perform too. The music was a faster paced version of the China scene noise-indie and post-punk that most defines it - suck it, haters. This band were worthy headliners and a clear cut above most other bands. But something quite odd happened. I suppose there were a few musical hints earlier on that I let pass ... by the end of the set, the material transformed into straight guitar pop that reminded me of Beijing band Gala. Weird. Most people there didn't seem to be bothered by it, probably because the night as a whole had been so good.
That was the theme of the night, setting aside your personal tastes we had three bands who all sounded loud and clear and gave big performances: Splitworks can bring it with the local talent.
