Drinking in Shanghai

Good news! We have recently been told that we can return to Nanjing as out work in Shanghai is coming to an end. Very happy. There was just one thing we still hadn’t done here in Shanghai, which we had been talking about for a long time and that was going out for one night into Shanghai center, no matter the cost, it’s something we had to do.

Last night was that night out! And it was pretty good. We found a couple of websites online which lists all the events happening in and around Shanghai and from signing up to there mailing list every weekend you get an email about different things that are going down. This week I received and email featuring experimental/punk bands in bar/club ‘Yu YinTang’.

Since this is our last weekend in Shanghai we decided to go to this gig. When we first got there the outside was a lot dingier and rough looking than the photos online lead to believe. GREAT! We love grot and we love dank. It was pretty cool to go to a rock bar, I haven’t been to one is so long. Their drinks list was pretty extensive and cheap! Only 20RMB for a Budweiser. Unfortunately cider doesn’t exist in China so I was reduced to drinking beers all night, with one special glass of whiskey and lemonade at the end.

The music from the first couple of bands was…interesting. The advertisement wasn’t joking when it said ‘experimental’. The support band I remember most clearly, was comprised of a little female singer and 4 guys, all of whom didn’t really have an instrument specialty, they were just swapping around. They were playing short outbursts of song that were not really in any particular tune and the girl screamed, but not in a way I’ve heard in music before. There was even a guy on the violin…I’ve never seen someone shred on the violin until now, he destroyed that thing. And on top of all this, there ‘thing’ was, I guess, standing with their backs to the audience the whole time. RUDE!

The band that followed was the headliner, I think. No one really introduced themselves…or maybe they did but they were Chinese. ‘Fading Horizon’ was a lot better, more tuneful and in sync with each other. Pretty good.

Suddenly after the band played, almost everyone left…What’s going on? I could swear I read online somewhere that there was another band playing after, ‘Boys Climbing Ropes’ who I had a little listen to on MySpaceMusic and sounded wicked, which was why I really wanted to come. Guess I was wrong, since everyone was leaving but the bar was open to 2am so we’ll just hang out till we get tired and go home. Gradually more and more western people gathered and another band started setting up on stage at about 1am. What’s going on? Is it the band I thought I read about? YES! Yes it was, I wasn’t crazy! We hung around for about another hour and half until they finally began there set. This band was made up of 3 Canadian guys and a TINY little Chinese girl who sang and played some electronic instrument like a keyboard. Excuse my ignorance. So many people had turned out to watch them, more people than came before for the headliners. And after they palyed it was clear why. They were bloody awesome and the really got the crowd going. It was a nice gig to be at cause it felt really intimate, that most people there were their friends and everyone was just playing. Great fun.

On a side note, we have had several conversation with the Chinese guys from the studio asking about if the Chinese get drunk and stumble about like us British idiots do and they said, oh no no, we just get tired. BS! There were plenty of wasted Chinese people at this gig. Maybe because it’s a different group of people. But still.

All-in-all though, a good night out in Shanghai having a casual drink and listening to some good (and god awful) music. Done.

(Totally stung by the taxi driver though…100RMB! Ouch.)