PK14, Carsick Cars and These Are Powers

I'm going to do a few posts about what I got up to last night (musicwise I mean) and this first one is, confusingly, the last part of the night as far as the gigs were concerned. I'd been down at 0093 checking out Coverpeople (more on her in a minute) so didn't get to the Dream Factory until about ten. That meant I missed Hot and Cold, which was a shame. I wasn't the only one to miss them. Ben Houge, who told me he'd met them up in Beijing last week, was gutted to have not seen them as well. I'd only found out about them playing from Han Han at YYT on Friday - there was no mention of them on the flyers or any of the promotional stuff, which was odd.

Anyway, Carsick Cars went on after them and did a bunch of stuff from their new album as well as a couple of classics including 中南海 and its requisite cigarette shower. I'm glad Carsick Cars have a new album out. I feel like their live show had gotten a little stale. They're really good live and always worth checking out, but when you've seen the same set a few times it starts to lose its edge. Some new material was definitely needed and it was a good set. That said (just to contradict myself), I was disappointed that there was no 广场.

Next up were These Are Powers, which threw everyone a bit as we'd all assumed they were the headliners. According to Archie, they had insisted on PK14 headlining. A nice touch as he said, but I have to admit that at that point I was thinking the line-up had been a bit skewed. With Carsick Cars having a new album out I'd have thought if either of the Chinese bands was going to headline, it'd be them. Archie said he thinks they'll come and do a proper album release show in Shanghai soon anyway, but the other reason I felt this way was because I'd simply forgotten how good PK14 are live.

It'd been a while since I last saw them. In fact I think the last time was when they played two gigs in the same night - one at YYT before jumping in a taxi (literally, I was on the street with them hailing it) and heading over to 4Live for the other. They took a little while to get going last night, playing some stuff off City Weather Sailing. But once they hit their stride and started smashing out the classics, there was no stopping them. As soon as I heard the opening riff of 她丢失信仰 I was down at the front and jumping around like a loon until they closed the set out. I was reminded just how good they are and exactly why they deserved to be the headliners.