A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

Where: D-22
When: Sat 8 May, 10.00PM
How Much: 40RMB; 30RMB stu­dents
Who: Throw Me The Statue, Old Fash­ion, Mr. Grace­less, Pacaloco (More Info)
Why: This Split Works event brings Seat­tle indie pop group Throw Me The Statue all the way to D-22 to rock out in China. I often hes­i­tate to see for­eign bands per­form in China, because even though there are count­less sim­i­lar­i­ties between West­ern and Chi­nese per­form­ers of all gen­res, they often seem like fish out of water. They don’t make sense out of the West­ern con­text, and hon­estly I get a lit­tle con­fused by being able to under­stand every sin­gle word they’re say­ing. How­ever, these guys look good and I’m a sucker for a well-organized event. The Chi­nese acts are ones I’ve never seen, but noticed going around the cir­cuit. It will be good to catch a cou­ple of solid, hard­work­ing bands span­ning the indie spec­trum: Mr. Grace­less have rock cov­ered, Pacaloco are elec­tronic, and Old Fash­ion call them­selves “disco punk” and I’ve wanted to know what that means for ages.

Run­ner up gigs this week are: Uni­ver­sity Night with Poshang­cun at D-22, TONIGHT @ 8PM; punk rock­ers The Flyx & more at D-22, Fri @ 10PM; and of course the Ditan Folk Fes­ti­val on May 8 & 9 (details on Rock in China).