A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

I started the year out with Happy Avenue, a band I had heard good things about from a friend. I’d lis­tened to some of their music online, and it was pretty good indie folk-pop, so I was inclined to enjoy it. When we got to Mako, and the beloved Wu Hongfei took the stage, I couldn’t really believe it. The woman was nuts. Cer­ti­fi­able. In addi­tion to wear­ing a dress that was way too short and being caked in makeup, she for­got most of the lyrics and was a com­plete diva about get­ting some water. I still don’t know if I dis­liked her or her syco­phan­tic fans more…

We left before the encore (we only stayed that long because it was sort of like watch­ing a train­wreck), and headed to Dos Kole­gas’ Ningxia Night. We’d missed a bunch, but we got what we came for: re-formed Wu & The Side Effects. With a new (Chi­nese drum­mer), they felt awk­wardly new, but still emi­nently enjoy­able. Props to them, and I can’t wait to see them again.

My last gig of the week pick for Jan­u­ary was Cao Qin & Starry, which didn’t dis­ap­point. I’d seen him play acoustic nearly three years ago at one of the first shows I went to in Bei­jing at SOHO Shangdu’s Tiny Salt Cafe, and this time he played Mao Live­house with his whole band for their debut album launch. It shows you just how long it takes to get to mak­ing an album in this city. The show was great, and reminded me why I had remem­bered his name after such a long time, but the one thing I would have changed was all the thank­ing. I felt like I was watch­ing the Oscars…

Then, finally, it was time to start say­ing good­bye to D-22. I first saw Res­i­dence A at D-22, so when I knew that they were play­ing there just before it closed, I had to go see it. It was a chill evening, but busier than it might have oth­er­wise been, and four bands added them­selves to the lineup. Unfor­tu­nately, they were not bands I wanted to see (though also see­ing White Stripes wannabe band Youxi again was a nice full-circle moment), but I hung out for Res­i­dence A. And they were bet­ter than ever.

The final Zoomin’ Night was, for many D-22 old hands and fans, the real last night of the venue’s reign. Not to say that Mohanik was a bad show, just that Zoomin’ Night was what D-22 embod­ied: a place for any band to come, play and hang out. This was it. Unfor­tu­nately for me, I had already been at my extremely boozy annual din­ner, so I was wrecked by 11 and only saw a cou­ple of bands. This pic­ture is Low Bow col­lab­o­rat­ing with some­one else, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you who.

Finally, it was the last night that any­one would ever play D-22. And it was a night pop­u­lated with out-of-towners. Sen­ti­ment aside, it was a great show. I wasn’t super fond of the screaming-singing of Shanghai’s Moon Tyrant, but Mohanik cer­tainly banged out what was a great set, despite the fact that they were drink­ing some sort of Mon­go­lian moon­shine out of the bot­tle. They were very gra­cious, and amus­ingly spent most of the gig speak­ing in Eng­lish and singing in Mon­go­lian, that just made it more enter­tain­ing for the mish-mash of a crowd. It was a great night for music, but then of course we stuck around for a while. I fin­ished off the bar’s gin, while a friend of mine took the last (and warm) beer. We took pho­tos of the bath­room walls and ran around try­ing to see if there was any­thing we could steal, some part of D-22 we could take. But of course, as the true sen­ti­men­tal would know, the best thing we will take from D-22 is memories.