A Beijing-based music and gig review blog

To be per­fectly hon­est with you, I hadn’t lis­tened to Boys Climb­ing Ropes before I saw them. I’d caught them acci­den­tally at the Straw­berry Fes­ti­val in 2009, but wasn’t so impressed and so I never both­ered with them again. I didn’t let myself be swayed by that, though, and trusted my friends’ opin­ions and went along any­way. It was, as it turns out, the best deci­sion, because I was very impressed by what I saw, and this was when they were play­ing at 12:30 after four open­ing acts.

Yes you read that right, four open­ing acts. There were orig­i­nally only two, and I don’t know where Thru­outin and Cas­sette snuck in, but they did. It worked out okay, though. I only caught the end of Thruoutin’s set, but it was quite good, and a friend of mine told me he was doing some inter­est­ing things with a sitar.… Sec­ond up was X is Y, who I’d seen at D-22 this time last year, but I missed them being upstairs.

Third up was Res­i­dence A, and while I have said almost as much as I can say about them, I must note that this was an amaz­ing show for them. Their reg­u­lar bass player was back after six weeks off for a hand injury, and the entire band was in fine form. I’m not sure what it was — if it was any­thing at all — but it was clear that they were hav­ing a good night. They inter­acted with the crowd a lit­tle more, showed off a lit­tle more, per­formed a lit­tle more, and it all added up to prob­a­bly the best show of theirs I have been to.

Unfor­tu­nately, Cas­sette after them just felt lack­lus­tre and bor­ing in com­par­i­son. The female vocal­ist was clearly going for the Helen Feng effect, though instead of com­ing off as allur­ing and sexy as she played her synth, she just sort of looked like a pole dancer with a Nin­tendo con­troller. A friend noted that with her long black hair, she looked like some­thing out of a Japan­ese hor­ror film. In any case, that dis­tracted from the music so much I hon­estly don’t remem­ber what they sounded like, but I’m not sure that the first impres­sion will have me back to see them any time soon.

Finally, half an hour after mid­night, Boys Climb­ing Ropes took the stage to a small but ener­getic crowd who had all clearly been drink­ing since the first band. There was lots of crazy hip­ster danc­ing and drinks splash­ing around, but I can under­stand why. Boys Climb­ing Ropes were amaz­ing. The energy of Xiao Punk is com­pletely infec­tious, and their sound is down and dirty indie rock like we know and love it. Their lyrics are also great, and I think every­one in the crowd iden­ti­fied a lit­tle too much with “Grow Up” (“grow up grow up stop fuck­ing around” — sound famil­iar, any­one?), and I think I’ve found a new favorite to spin along­side Res­i­dence A. There’s some­thing inde­scrib­able about what hav­ing a prac­ticed West­ern hand in the music does, but you can hear it in every beat. I loved it, and I can’t wait until they’re back in Beijing.

For now, check out their Douban and enjoy the hell out of them.