The Gig of all gigs

Oh, really, that was just ridiculous.

I went out last night to the big new music bar in my 'hood, the MAO Live House (which deserves a post of its own - some time soon, but not now). What a fantastic show! There was apparently some sort of tenuous 'hippie' theme, celebrating the spirit of '67, or somesuch. That didn't really seem to have much impact on the music, though; except that headliners Ziyo kicked off their set with a bitchin' cover of California Dreaming. Whatever the pretext, it was simply a quite awesome evening.

Now, you often get some long - and bizarrely diverse - gig line-ups here in Beijing, but this..... well, it just beggared belief. They had 4 or 5 of Beijing's very best bands playing together; and a similar number of mostly very decent support acts. It threatened to go on all night. It started shortly after 9pm, and - even with every band being very disciplined about playing no more than 25 minutes, and the changeovers being, mostly, amazingly slick - there was still no end in sight when I reluctantly quit in search of my bed at 1.30am. I just had no idea how many more acts were due on. (There was at least one more 'name' band, the Ningxia folk rockers, Buyi, still to come. I was sorry to miss them, but I have seen them quite a few times before; they're something of a fixture over at 2K.)

I doubt if this could happen in any other town or city in the world. 5 top bands sharing the bill?! And all for 50 kuai (6 or 7 bucks; a little over £3 - and that's pretty expensive: a lot of gigs here are completely free, and where there is a door charge, it's generally only 30 or 40 kuai). This is why we love Beijing!

Ziyo were my main reason for going. I'd been hearing good things about them for ages; but they haven't played that many gigs around Beijing - and I have somehow contrived to miss the few they have done. However, I did once meet their lovely singer, Helen, out at Kolegas a couple of years ago, and have had a raging crush on her ever since. They're a tight little band, but she is the big selling point. She's quite gorgeous, of course (and I really don't go for Chinese girls, on the whole!). She has a beautiful voice. And - unusually amongst Beijing's rockers - she speaks really good English; good enough to enable her to sing properly in English. Hence, they might actually have a shot at a bit of international recognition.

The other big highlight for me was the opening act, Queen Sea Big Shark (now that really was a measure of how wackily over-the-top this bill was: QSBS are an excellent outfit, often the headliners - and they were only the "warm-up" here?!). Their singer is arguably even sexier than Helen. Last night she was affecting a jeans-and-leather-jacket/surly biker chick/Chrissie Hynde look; good, though not quite as devastating as that silver micro-dress she wore at the D-22 anniversary party a few months back! Great band, great gal. But, alas, her efforts to sing in English are heavily accented; really a bit mangled; probably a mistake. Ah, but who listens to the words, anyway?

Lots of other great stuff too. There was one punky band - whose name I don't know and will probably never be able to discover - who did a decently energetic version of I Fought The Law. Cowboy, you should have been there.