China Tour Diaries Part 2..

There was a man selling Tamas Wells pirate cds outside the Majestic Theatre in Shanghai last Saturday night. We were sure that our Beijing bodyguard in black was proficient in several forms of martial arts and the bearded uncle (Nathan) suggested that maybe we send him around to have a ‘chat’ to the salesman. A martial arts sequence like that could have made for a great action film clip but we restrained ourselves and the guy kept selling his cds.

What that incident really highlights is the amazingly rapid changes in the Chinese music scene. Perhaps ten years ago Chinese kids were finding discarded Western cds and cassette tapes that had been sent to china as garbage. They liked what they heard and pretty soon there was a thriving industry in recycled tapes and cds. The opening up of the internet around 5 years ago then sent an army of new Chinese indie kids hunting for music on sites like Myspace – and now China has the largest internet using population of any country (recently passing the US). However, despite this enormous interest in music the majority of the market is still based on pirate copies and illegal downloads.

So most of the people who came to the show last Saturday night at the Majestic Theatre had either legally or illegally heard Valder Fields or another song on the internet, bought a pirate or a legal cd and then decided to come to the show. Inside the venue they could buy a 15 yuan copy of the real cd and outside they could buy a hastily photocopied version for about 8 yuan (let me know if those figures are wrong). I am not saying this with any sense of frustration. Rather I think that this is just an example of how what began as rubbish, became pirate cds and then illegal downloads - but the outcome has been that China now has one of the largest, most diverse and interesting music listening audiences in the world. Eventually piracy of music will decrease as people in China can afford to buy legal copies. In the mean time the growth in chinese music culture should be celebrated.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to meet any of the audience after the Shanghai show – the theatre had some restrictions about that apparently. But the show had been fun (the support act was great)– and theatres certainly have a very different feel to the cage fighting set up which we had at Hangzhou. Theatres are good for atmosphere and quietness but there is also something really immediate about performing in smaller cramped venues like the travellers bar. Theatres somehow seem more clinical.

I woke up the next morning and felt like I needed to go to a clinic. Some bands do 20 date tours continuously and I was starting to fall apart after 4 days ! But we made it to the plane on time and arrived in Beijing to be promptly taken to the restaurant for a lunch of peking duck (which was perfect and vastly different to what is called peking duck in seedy chinese restaurants outside of towns like albury in australia). We checked into the B&Binn, I caught up on a little agricultural history from the ancient kingdom of Yue which was on CCTV 9 (the state run language English channel) and then went across to the national library for the sound check.
Before I had arrived I was wondering a little about the choice of venue- I had not performed in a library before and most librarians I knew preferred to talk more about the dewey decimal system than alternative music. But – it turns out that the national library of china has a really nice auditorium and I don’t think any of the librarians had to attend.

So it was onto that stage that we went. Eight hundred people laughed at the bearded uncle as he missed one obvious note on the keyboard and I forgot the correct words to at least two of the songs. But people were really friendly and excused our mistakes. We got to meet a few people after the show. Cheng who had won one of our internet competitions came backstage but unfortunately got a blood nose when he left. Some other girl ran backstage straight after the show and managed to dodge security and the Beijing bodyguard to try to get a photo with us. I also met song lang a beijing based artist/illustrator who is having a show in Paris next month.

We went out for some great fried pork liver after the show with all of the Pocket records team but then suddenly it was morning and we were back at Beijing airport getting onto the flight to Chengdu.

Those broken tapes and cds that came to china ten years ago as rubbish were called – in chinese- ‘lack of’ or ‘lacking’ as they weren’t usually the complete album or songs. That chinese word sounds very similar to the chinese word for ‘Pocket’...and that is how Pocket records was born. Out of a love for those discarded things that sparked the music revolution in China. And which ultimately led to a chain of events which had us (as two Australians) playing songs to shanghai kids who had largely heard our songs on the internet and a guy standing outside in the cold selling pirate cds for 8 yuan.

China Tour Diary Part 1

There were four buttons. One said ‘very satisfied’, another ‘satisfied’, another ‘unsatisfied’ and the final one ‘very unsatisfied’. I thought he was very efficient in checking the passport so I enthusiastically pressed the ‘very satisfied’ button. And that was it, I was in Shanghai.  A city where they seem to be constructing freeways on any spare piece of land. The label manager and his girlfriend gave us amazing presents and then we sped off to the French Concession area of the city where our hotel was.

After an early morning train to Nanjing I promptly found myself sound checking for the first solo show of the tour. Nanjing is an ancient capital city and has one of the best universities in China. They also make some great flat bread and egg things and sell them on the streets in the mornings.

On my floor in the hotel there were about thirty army officers. They were either part of the tight security organised by pocket records or they were just having a conference in the hotel, i didn’t have time to ask them. I practiced a bit in my hotel room before the show , getting  nervous because I hadn’t performed the songs much in the last six months . Plus it was a solo show so I didn’t have Nathan (who apparently came to be known by the fans at the shows as  ‘the bearded uncle’ ) to back me up with his flawless stage presence.  Arriving back at the venue made more nervous as I had to push my way through the 300 people who were apparently there to see me play. I didn’t quite believe it and wondered if the crowd were also part of the army conference happening in the hotel. But soon the pocket music staff pushed me onto the stage with my capo and setlist tucked under my arm.

The crowd seemed very relaxed about the whole show so that instantly made me feel better and I proceeded to play 17 quiet songs in a row. The crowd joined in during the song ‘valder fields’ and it sounded like a gentle 300 person choir so I started to wonder whether ‘the bearded uncle’ was going to be able to reproduce that kind of sound when he arrived.

The bearded uncle arrived safely into shanghai and someone commented that he really  looked like a rock star while I just looked like I was lost. I didn’t have time to be offended though as we were up the next morning and having interviews and photo shoots and signing sessions. The Chinese media people were all great and asked us lots of questions about what part of china we liked best and what we thought of shanghai. There is certainly a sense of pride from many Chinese people about their home town so we tried to give those non committal kind of answers where we said there was lots to like about all (of the 2) places I had visited so far.

The next day was on to Hangzhou, a lunch next to the famous west lake (china’s third most visited tourist attaction), an unfortunate incident with an overflowing hotel toilet and the show at Travellers Bar. I didn’t realise so many people and digital cameras could be crammed into such a small space and the bearded uncle likened the stage set up to that of cage fighting. We were escorted through the crowd by our Beijing bodyguard and then as we got onto the stage the exit/entrance closed behind us as people pushed into the space and chairs were used as barricades. So we weren’t going anywhere. It was either play a one hour set or get torn to pieces by 300 kids from Hangzhou.

But actually apart from an incident where someone tried to steal my jacket from off the stage people in Hangzhou seemed really nice and we got to meet loads of them after the show. It was a shame to have to get back on the train the next morning and head back to Shanghai- I think we all wanted to spend another few days eating dumplings and sipping tea next to west lake.   If Nanjing and Hangzhou had had their own consumer feedback response  buttons I would have no hesitation in pressing the very satisfied one and I think the bearded uncle would agree.

sTay tuned for part 2.