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).

but this past weekend screwed up my sleep for at least the next few days as a number of things lined up right next to each other from saturday through sunday.

saturday 2pm: ran 5km in 28 minutes at the gym, then lifted weights
saturday 4pm: shopped for dinner at city shop in times square
saturday 7pm: cooked dinner (baked chicken, organic salad with olive oil and lemon dressing, and a grilled cheese sandwich)
saturday 7pm: watched 3 episodes of curb your enthusiasm – this season is pret-ty good. pret-ty good.
saturday midnight: left the house to shanghai superclub m1nt. i find the whole idea of a shareholders club dumb, and was not really a fan of the layout of the place (terrible traffic flow) and the sound system was tuned all wrong. additionally, it suffered from what every other chinese club suffered from, meaning no dance floor and way too many tables with bottle service. i understand that’s what pays the bills, but its not as much fun.
however, the people there were attractive, the space was HUGE and decorated well – although the much hyped shark tank was eh.

in any case, my good friend from hong kong dj dim sum was djing at m1nt so i went to support him and meet up with other friends who were there.

here’s dj crazy and dj dim sum on the 1′s and 2′s across the crowded club.

from there, it was to mcdonald’s at 3am (“sorry – we only have drinks right now”) to home where the cal vs. washington state game was starting at 4:30am

Go Bears! Yeaaah Jahvid!

i only remember bits and pieces of the game as i listened to joe starkey on the radio, but soon my sleep was interrupted as i had my fantasty basketball draft at 10am . .. and then from there to my weekly pick-up basketball game then i decided post lunch that i would ride my bike around shanghai for a couple of hours.

whew! i need a weekend to rest from my weekend.

xiao long bao at maryann’s – it’s a cleaned up, slightly designed, foreigner friendly steamed dumpling place on changle lu near ruijin lu (next door to xinwang and bifangtang). prices are slightly more expensive than other steamed dumpling places around town, the taste is pretty good (especially the soup with the the tofu skin wrapper).

kobe bryant appeared at lu wan stadium. nike did a great job. kobe connected with the fans. it was fun.

kobe appears at lu wan

dance party!

a bunch of wankels