Kolegas birthday gig photos

For once, I was daring enough to take a camera out to a gig with me, so I can share a few images with you from Saturday's stupendous 3rd birthday bash for Beijing's coolest rock venue, 2 Kolegas.

The openers were a derivative but very competent band called (I think) Nuclear - who've I've seen play a few times before on Kolegas' regular Ningxia nights (that's the same westerly province the excellent folk-rockers Buyi hail from).

The second band were even better, although I didn't catch their name, or get around to taking any pictures.

Third up were the sensational Ziyo - another blistering performance from the lovely Helen (although she was a bit too intent on twiddling the knobs on her new keyboard early on).

During their encore I was able to take several shots from right beside the stage, having spotted these guys exploiting this unexpected vantage point.

It was all a little bit too much for one young fan.
(It is amazing how late the Chinese will keep their kids out!)

Then we got angsty dole-meisters, RE-TROS (that's RE-inventing The Rights Of Statues, apparently). I still have somewhat mixed feelings about them, but they play with a lot of commitment, and they are interestingly weird, if not exactly fun. These guys weren't easy to photograph, since they look at each other the whole time rather than at the audience. And I wasn't quite excited enough by them to push my way down to the front.

And then..... oh my god, we had SUBS. I don't think I've ever seen them share a bill with Ziyo before, and I imagine there must be a fair bit of rivalry between them, since they are very similar in style, and both rely heavily on the energy and charisma of their spunky female vocalists. SUBS' Kang Mao more than rose to the challenge on this night: she's always a fair old powerhouse of hyper-kinetic rage but she'd really turned the dial up to '11' this time and absolutely tore the place apart. Breathtaking!!

But men can scream too, you know: Wu Hao gets pretty intense at times as well.

Of course, it may just have been that watching most of the set through my camera lens gave me a more-intense-than-usual concentration on Kang Mao's performance. Or it might have been that I was right down the front - practically on the stage, in fact - braving for once the mosh-pit madness that invariably breaks out at SUBS' shows. Or perhaps it was the lustful reverie inspired by that stripey dress, an inevitable reminder of Parallel Lines-era Debbie Harry (one of the great crushes of my childhood - and, surely, also of just about every straight male in the Western world who came to adolescence in the late 70s or early 80s!!). Maybe that's why I found this set so thoroughly awesome - but no, I really do rather think this was about the best damn show I've ever seen from them.

I was almost totally deaf by the end of it, of course, having been standing far too close to the speaker stack; it took nearly 24 hours before the roaring tinnitus subsided, and I rather fear I may have inflicted some permanent hearing loss on myself. Was it all worth it? Hell, yes!

The very fine Buyi were also slated to appear, and there were rumours of perhaps one or two other bands going on as well. However, since all the bands had played fairly full sets, and the changeovers hadn't been all that brisk, and we hadn't got under way at all (after one of the longest and most annoying sound-checks in history by the boys from Nuclear) until 10pm or so..... well, it must have been well after 2am when SUBS came off stage. I was exhausted. I was drunk. I was deaf. And I was feeling guilty about the presentation I had foolhardily agreed to deliver that morning. So, it was 'Pumpkin Time' for me, alas. I imagine that, as in the previous two years, the revelries at Kolegas continued until nearly dawn. My stamina is not what it once was......