Boys Climbing Ropes support Handsome Furs, Yuyintang

Before I get into last night's concert, I want to draw your attention to this article right here. It's an interview with Split Works' head honcho Archie Hamilton and it's a great read. I bring that up for a couple of reasons - one, last night was a Split Works-organised event; two, it's written by Morgan Short - bassist in Boys Climbing Ropes, who were the opening band last night. So it seems to have double relevance. If you've seen SmartShanghai you'll know that Morgan is a great writer and if you've seen Boys Climbing Ropes you'll know he's a great bassist, but what you might not know is that he also has some great DJ tips (as a DJ himself under the name Desert Fuck Eagle). His advice to me at Not Me on Thursday was as follows: "the trick is to turn it way the fuck up". I suggest you try that with Boys Climbing Ropes' EP too - you can get it here and download some tracks from their Douban artist page, linked above.

Anyway, last night's gig. Yuyintang was predictably rammed, though with a different crowd to those who usually pack it out (and I assume to who will come out for Glorious Pharmacy tonight). Despite there being a few people in the audience who clearly knew members of Boys Climbing Ropes, the crowd was largely pretty still for their set. They weren't unappreciative of the band - each song was met with a roar and there were long calls for an encore (until Morgan pointed out that there was such a thing as etiquette and that, as support act, they wouldn't be doing an encore). But more jumping from more people would have been good. Maybe that's just me though.

Boys Climbing Ropes were excellent regardless. They played some new material as well as some classic old tracks from the aforementioned EP. Little Punk looked a touch nervous at the start - not an emotion I'd usually associate with her - but she seemed to settle more as the gig went on and the whole band were on top form to produce a cracking set. Let's have that new album soon please.

Then the headliners took the stage. I've got to admit I was always more into Wolf Parade than Handsome Furs, but I've still been listening to their stuff for a while and was excited to see them coming to China. They didn't disappoint, producing an outstanding and memorable performance that sent the crowd crazy - on-stage snogging, crowd-surfing and all. They were brilliant.