Queen Sea Big Shark, Reflector And Unstoppable Young Powers

Tiger Translate Battle of Bands had its first two rounds on the weekend. The commercialized atmosphere took me quite some time to adapt to, but thanks to that, the underground amateur bands are getting incredible opportunities to impress the mainstream that bands wouldn’t have dreamed of just a few years ago.

The first match was hold at MAO Livehouse on Friday, I was so overwhelmed when I walked in: the normally very dark indie place was covered by fancy big posters, and there were Tiger Beer girls walking around in tight suits, a huge screen shining at the back of the stage, more spot lights making the venue much brighter than usual. There was even a tiny VIP zone at the very back of the room. When the hosts walked on stage, it almost became a mini version of American Idol. And yes, there were quite a few TV channels recording. Just it might be hard for the first three bands to make it on TV. The last battler was Gao Feng & G-Eleven, an R&B/ jazz band which was formed last year but has been quite active in the live scene lately. When their funky tunes got started, the event finally started to look more like a party. The party climaxed when Queen Sea Big Shark came out: Back To The Future, Comxxpuda, Glow In The Dark, etc. All brilliant songs from their latest album.

The second night, which was at Yugong Yishan started much more pleasantly, even though it was already the second band playing when I arrived, as I wouldn’t believe a music show would actually start on time. It was Fuzzy Mood playing; their set of dreamy post rock tunes wandering around synthesizers was probably the only one I would pay money to see among this weekend’s battlers. Too bad that the audience were more sold to heavier beats, that old school rockers, Emitter won the second heat.

When I walked out of Yugong. I was very satisfied by pleasant new sounds and my favorite Beijing pop punk band Reflector. Plus, stage diving, body surfing, running circles, nothing was missed that night, or should I say that evening? As it was only 10:30pm when it ends. I hope you didn’t just arrive then. Anyway, if I was quite suspicious about the whole battle of bands thing before, now I’m actually looking forward to its upcoming shows. Let’s get more out of Beijing.

Photos by Michelle Dai