So I decided to go check out the Channel One summer music series today. It's basically eight local bands playing a string of shows in a shopping mall over the next few weeks, organised by Soma. You might have read about it in the Shanghai Daily:"Channel 1 is a new fashion, dining and entertainment center catering to local hip and trendy demographic. Most of the bands are rather young and fresh, [...] with a hip and naughty style appealing mostly to their own generation born after 1980 or even 1990."Hmm. Or maybe you saw it in this week's Access Asia update where they admitted they didn't know any of the bands who were playing and included a photo of Pinkberry with the caption "One of the bands (honestly, we have no idea which one)"*.
Ok, so the press coverage hasn't been great. But there are some good local bands on show there and I was curious so, putting aside my uneasiness about seeing rock bands in a shopping mall, I went to watch Hard Queen.
The band gave a good performance despite a far from ideal set up and
attracted a decent sized crowd for their set. They seemed to win over
some new fans (I had people ask me where they played normally), which I
guess is part of the point from the bands' point of view.
Something
that I found interesting though, was the listening booths that Channel
One had dotted around the mall. These were large stands with a little
information about the bands on them as well as headphones and mini MP3
players with a selection of tracks to listen to. They were mostly near
escalators and lifts, although Brad Ferguson told me that Hard Queen's
one was tucked away in the back of a shop somewhere, which is a shame.
I don't expect this to convert the masses to Shanghai's underground
rock scene, but it's an interesting idea.
Ultimately though, it's still indie rock bands playing in a shopping mall. Anyone wanting to see these bands should go watch them at a proper music venue.
If you do fancy going along however, here's the rest of the schedule after Candy Shop tonight:
Sunday, July 26: Candy Shop, Little Nature
Saturday, August 8: Little Nature, Sonnet
Sunday, August 9: Da Fresh, Momo
Saturday, August 15: Hard Queen, Pinkberry
Sunday, August 16: The Mushrooms, Sonnet
*In fairness to Access Asia, they're a market research company and weren't trying to write about the music specifically, they were making a commercial argument. But still.
Something
that I found interesting though, was the listening booths that Channel
One had dotted around the mall. These were large stands with a little
information about the bands on them as well as headphones and mini MP3
players with a selection of tracks to listen to. They were mostly near
escalators and lifts, although Brad Ferguson told me that Hard Queen's
one was tucked away in the back of a shop somewhere, which is a shame.
I don't expect this to convert the masses to Shanghai's underground
rock scene, but it's an interesting idea.Ultimately though, it's still indie rock bands playing in a shopping mall. Anyone wanting to see these bands should go watch them at a proper music venue.
If you do fancy going along however, here's the rest of the schedule after Candy Shop tonight:
Sunday, July 26: Candy Shop, Little Nature
Saturday, August 8: Little Nature, Sonnet
Sunday, August 9: Da Fresh, Momo
Saturday, August 15: Hard Queen, Pinkberry
Sunday, August 16: The Mushrooms, Sonnet
The first band on each day will play at 1:30pm, the second at 6pm.
Channel One, 155 Changshou Lu, near Shaanxi Bei Lu, 长寿路155号近陕西北路
*In fairness to Access Asia, they're a market research company and weren't trying to write about the music specifically, they were making a commercial argument. But still.
Yeah, was talking to Tianpin Dian (Candy Shop) about their mall show out the back of YYT tonight between bands. I don't want to get ppl into to trouble but members of the band has very ... err ... colourful things to say about it.
Yeah, indie rock bands in a mall. A mall.
A mall.
These days I'm just happy to have YYT. Tonight, Mortal Fools and The Mushrooms were great and it was just a great night. It's enough.