friday night reviewed here my thoughts: xiao yoi (lead singer of pinkberry) was ill, and the crowd was clearly there for sonnet so they had trouble getting the crowd into it. candy shop had to do this terrible promotion for jaeger which killed any momentum they had. sonnet had some great danceable franz ferdinand-esque tracks which i really dug . . . a lot of experimentation with loops and dubs and electronic sounds from a sampler, which i did not dig. boys climbing ropes continue to rock and continue put on a great show. i am a huge fan.

saturday night photographed here by jenn wong and here by me. boys climbing ropes continue to rock and continue to put on a great show. i am a huge fan. st. vincent was fantastic – lots of experimental insturmentalation sounds combined with a beautiful voice.

however i’m glad chinese bands are starting to think about advocacy and doing things beyond just producing music. on the whole, it’s a positive thing and a step in the right direction. on to the actual show

i arrived in the middle of faf’s set – so was standing towards the back. but their funeral for a friend screamo/scream-core (i’m actually really bad at categorizing music beyond “hip hop” “rock” and “pop”) certainly got the crowd moving. they finished with a cover of “until the day i die” by story of the year.

after a quick break, the band i came to see (candy shop) took that stage. click on the link if you want to listen to them – i don’t really have a good description of their music. they play a bit of everything, but i think you could categorize them as nu-metal X saccharine pop. like i said, i don’t know how to categorize music well, but i do know this: they are a great band to see live.

kk with his raps and sammy with her raps and singing – the interplay between the two leads – along laid down with a metal backing along with the entire pixies/nirvana/smashing pumpkins soft/LOUD/soft combo make for a really fun band to jump along to. although with candy shop, the soft/LOUD/soft dynamic is taken to extremes with the contrast between sammy’s singing and kk’s raps.

i captured some video here – although the entire song is 4 minutes long, flickr cut it down to a minute or so. when i get around to it, i’ll upload it somewhere that will show the entire song.

while candy shop put on a great show, i’m not sure if it was the thursday night or the rain or whatever, but the crowd seemed strangely subdued, especially when contrasted with the last time i saw them. (actually i’m pretty sure it was because it was thursday night)

if you’re in shanghai, candy shop will be playing at MAO livehouse (huaihai lu at red town) on march 12th at 8pm as part of a larger show! i encourage you to go down and check them out.

arriving late, i missed most of bang bang tang’s return.

@ 0093 Record Release party by [Terence], on Flickr”>@ 0093 Record Release party” />

but i got up close for the rest of the night. the next band up was rap-rock-metal-pop candy shop (tian pin dian). their line-up now somewhat stable – with newish singer sammy, they proceed to rock out. loud and melodic, with tight hooks and great presence on stage, they really kicked ass.

next up was pinkberry. i’ve talked about pinkberry before on this blog – and they continue to be my favorite local band. great pop-punk, awesome vocals from xiao yoi and even with the lineup changes, a tight tight set.

pinkberry also debuted this music video – i can’t wait to see it on a screen that isn’t split into three parts!

next up was headliners (and 2nd to last! welcome to china, where dorms close early and college students leave en masse right at 11pm) top floor circus. i’d never seen them live, but they put on a great show. i only wish that i understood shanghainese, because, at the very least, they happen to be the funniest band in shanghai with frontman lu chen. of course they played their now infamous “shanghai bu huanying ni” (shanghai does not welcome you – a play on the olympics theme song from last year “beijing welcomes you”) with lots of lyrics about you’re only welcome if you come shopping, shanghai doesn’t have culture, but it has money.

after top floor circus played, the place cleared – seriously, it went from about 500 people to about 30 in the space of 5 minutes. and poor screamo/emo college band firefighter had to play to an empty room. they should really figure out a new way to schedule concerts so that local kids get to play in front of a crowd.

seriously – look how empty it is:

it was a great night. if shanghai and mao livehouse can continue to put together live nights like this, it won’t be long before the reputation of shanghai as a dead-end for live rock will be killed (or so we can hope).