Vaudeville in Chaoyang Park

[kaizor]

Last night's show we played at the Chaoyang Park Pop Music Festival brought back memories of the old days, when I first started playing rock in China. We were part of the evening's entertainment on the 'small stage,' with some three thousand people watching at my best estimate, and they ranged in age from the very young to the decrepit. First up for the evening was a Russian dance troupe that did a Gypsy number, a Flamenco performance, and some weird Egypto-Arab performance to a thumping disco beat that would have had Edward Said storming the stage in rage. Then there was this Russian singer who first performed a Chinese pop song -- not one I was familiar with -- in Chinese, reading from a laminated pinyinlyric sheet she held before her. We went on next, performing eight songs that all seemed to go over quite well. Except for the part when Yang Meng sang the first line to the chorus in "A New Day" (新的一天) off by some bizarre disconcordant interval -- he'd gotten too excited and moved forward well beyond the monitors -- it went pretty well. After us there was some pop singer a la Liu Huan. And to finish off, it was the band Jimo Xiari (寂寞夏日), which is one of my favorite Beijing bands.

We play again tonight at the New Get Lucky (新豪云) at 9:00 and we have another Chaoyang Park gig on the 6th.