A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

If you’ll allow me, I first have a bit of per­sonal his­tory to divulge. When I first moved to Syd­ney, I had just turned nine­teen and wasn’t much of a gig goer. I liked music, but hadn’t caught the gig bug. My first friend at Syd­ney Uni­ver­sity was a girl named Leah who was big into ska and reg­gae at the time, and so my first gig was in a sub­urb of the city I don’t even remem­ber, at a tiny lit­tle pub, and it was some sort of mini ska fes­ti­val. This was before there were smok­ing restric­tions (or before they were strictly enforced), so what I remem­ber is a smoky pub, cheap beer, and a bunch of peo­ple doing a funny dance I later learned to be called skank­ing to some great ska music.

Fast for­ward seven years and last night was almost exactly the same, apart from the for­get­table sub­urb part. Tem­ple Live­house is smack in the mid­dle of Gulou East Street, inside a com­plex I didn’t real­ize had become so built up over the last year (when I was there last, it was a tem­po­rary art gallery and largely empty). It hasn’t been open long, but already has the feel of a grungy live­house, with sticky tables and thick smoky atmos­phere and every­thing. The bar at the back is exten­sive, and while the stage is small, it seems to project a much big­ger feel. There are couches and long wooden tables with chairs, and it feels like the sort of space that is eas­ily both a music venue and a bar. The only thing I would say is that when a show is billed as a dance party like this one was, get rid of some of the tables.

But what really brought me back to my first gig in Syd­ney was the music and the danc­ing. Skarv­ing is a great party band, and they have rounded out an evening at Dos Kole­gas more times than I can offi­cially remem­ber. They got a large por­tion of the peo­ple off of the couches and out of their seats and onto the dance floor, which is an impres­sive feat in China. (You should have seen the stoic crowd dur­ing Buyi last week at Dos Kole­gas… it was bizarre.) They really have an infec­tious sound, and it’s nigh impos­si­ble to keep still while they’re play­ing. How­ever, as much as I love the band, and really liked the venue… some­times, a band is just bet­ter at a cer­tain venue, and Skarv­ing will always be a Dos Kole­gas band for me.