The 2011 gigging year

Beijing Daze's indefatigable Badr did a post at the end of last week on his favourite (and least favourite) gigs of the past year: an interesting selection.

Although we share an enthusiasm for the idea of live music, our specific tastes don't seem to coincide much, even in those areas (heavy rock) that we both like. In general, he's into the very heavy end of things, mosh-pit metal and punk, and tends to be a bit contemptuous of anything too melodically 'poppy'; I quite like pop-punk type stuff, things with a bit less aggression and a bit more tunefulness; but these days, in fact, I'm leaning mostly towards acoustic shows, jazz and folk. So... between the two of us, we've got just about everything covered!

Abaji's appearance at Jianghu last March was about the only thing that made it into both of our lists (my music rundown of the year was at the start of my '2011 Bar Awards' post). And even there, I think I was a little less bowled over than Badr; I felt the Armenian multi-instrumentalist was trying just a little too hard to be ingratiating, and, while it was an extremely entertaining evening, for me, the music didn't quite take off and fly.

I think I would have liked the performance of Norwegian band The Black Snakes, who everyone assures me were the highlight of Badr's superb summer party at 2 Kolegas, the 'dazeFEAST (which we must beg him to make an annual event)... but unfortunately I had to miss them because I was working early the next day.

It's very useful to have BD covering so much of the Beijing (and China) music scene for us, and that Review of the Year of his is well worth a look.

I suspect we're both going to be at the big folk show at Mako this Wednesday (it's a benefit gig for a young Kazakh guy who's been seriously injured in a traffic accident and can't pay his hospital bills). See you there too?