Sonnet have had a few great shows of late and I've been really impressed with them. Unfortunately, Saturday night wasn't one of their best gigs. I'm not really sure why to be honest. They weren't bad, but it was hard for them to reach the heights of their recent shows - especially as they were the support act. They played a decent set, the highlight of which was probably Zhu Baixi switching the gender roles for Rejection, meaning that the guy got to reject the girl for once, whilst singing largely to (or maybe as) the picture of Bruce Lee on a Zhen Gong Fu cup. Lezi was telling me that their next show, at Mao (more on them tomorrow) on Saturday, will be their last for a while. They're going to spend some time writing some new songs and working on their material and will be back once that's done. I'm sure they'll come back with a new spark and energy and I look forward to hearing the new stuff.
If Sonnet weren't quite on top form, Bigger Bang! certainly were. I used to think they were kind of a poor man's Queen Sea Big Shark, but when I saw them up at Zhangbei I realised this was unfair - they're a really good band in their own right. At Zhangbei I thought Pupi (the lead singer from Guangzhou) was a bit lost on stage - she gave a great performance but the stage seemed to big for her and the band at times. Of course, that wasn't a problem at Yuyintang and the packed crowd was able to get up nice and close. They produced a blistering set and proved themselves a class live act. They also added more weight to Dan Shapiro's fat bassist = good band theory. Ask him about it some time.
To round it all off, the drummer handed his drumstick to me at the end of the show (just before I swiped a setlist to add to my collection). I'd been talking to them just before they went on about Zhangbei and he told me afterwards that's why he gave it to me. Pupi and the rest of the band (including Tookoo's Abe) are all really nice people too and I had a good chat with them after the show. Sorry if that sounds a bit name-dropper/ligger-like but, as I think I've mentioned before here, I just like the fact that you can hang out with these bands too. Plus, it's much better to like bands who aren't c**ts (although thanks to my playful use of ** you may never know quite what I mean).
For some of my photos of Bigger Bang! on Sunday go here, for some much better photos by Tim Franco, go here. One last thing, keeping on the Sonnet and Bigger Bang theme, you can read an interview (in Chinese) with the latter by Lezi, drummer of the former, by clicking here.
This show was too much fun with two negatives only.
I don't blame them in that heat, but a bunch of moshers/jumpers gave in at the halfway mark and hit the park/bar leaving it not quite as good as the first half of the set. But still great.
Then, somewhere in the second half of the Bigger Bang set some lad with an American accent in a green tee arrived and went on a bizarre racist/superiority kick. He was shouting stuff out, presumable letting the Chinese band know that they were poor and undeveloped compared to their Western counterparts. The two that stick in my mind were (and I may not get it exactly right), "Come on, you're not the Yeah Yeah Yeahs!" and "You can't do that," when the band restarted Okkk near the beginning of the track.
He was really belting it out, between songs when he could be heard, and often repeating the advice a couple of times.
W*nker.
Jake, from my perspective you did so many kowtows to the band that you not only deserved to get the drumstick, but a free EP too...
well, he did have the perfect spot for kowtowing. and kowtows were in order. can't believe this band has been together for such a short time.
Ha ha! Yeah, it's fair to say I got quite into it. Though, like Zack says, I had the perfect spot for it. I was a bit dubious when YYT put those bars in at the front of the stage, but turns out they're great for throwing yourself backwards and forwards. Not sure that was their intention...
I don’t usually reply to posts but I will in this case. WoW