Lo's first China blog... and not my last...
15 shows in 8 days, 6 airports, 5 airlines, 44 hours of flying time, crossing the Date Line twice, insane jet lag plus 12-hour time difference, 16 days above 30 degrees Celcius (86 Fahrenheit), one sunburn, 13 minutes of mortal fear from horrible turbulence, 1 piece of re-warmed KFC probably taken from the garbage! newspaper & television coverage, 2 CDs sold, student model gear (if any), friends in high places, great meals, great hotels, wonderful and helpful people, unbelievably cute kids, culturally void Vegas-style spoon-fed entertainment, incredible Chinese folkloric music and dance, uncanny openness, noticeable disparity in education, financial comfort and attention spans, many heads turned! And last but not least, two weeks I will never forget!
WOW WOW WOW
What an absolutely amazing experience! One that I wouldn't trade for anything!
I didn't have many notions about what to expect in China before leaving, so I went with an open mind, ready for anything. Unlike some of the boys, I didn't take notes while we were there, so most of this will be a little disorganized (and based on the photos I took!) DISCLAIMER: anything at all that might seem like complaining is NOT... It's merely a fact, and as you will see when I reach the end of my China Tour diaries, everything was smoothed over and worked out by the end of the tour! It's not unheard of to get little surprises on the road!!! You just deal with them and do your best despite anything... Why? Because you love what you do... you love your music, and don't want it to suffer because you don't have the right gear!
We arrived on April 29th at night, checked in and went out for our first delicious meal together. We would have the next morning to relax, but had to be at soundcheck at 2PM to make sure everything was ready for us. We had been told not to bother bringing any gear (amps, drums, keyboard, etc.) because each venue would provide a full backline. We got to the club "Infinity" on time and the first thing we saw was this 5 foot high poster featuring a great photo of Dan I had sent. We were called the Magnetic Band. It was funny. Nothing was ready and none of the gear promised was there yet. We were told there were guitar and bass amps, and that the drums were on the way. While the guys waited for the drums, Dan and I went to pick up a power transformer (because this also was not there.) We were driven to a very wide street completely strewn with electronics stores on either side. It was sensory overload for me, seeing the huge signs and all those people! We picked up a small consumer sized transformer that said it was good for 100 Watts and brought it back to the club. This was 3 hours later because traffic was insane, and the store was quite far from the club. Shenzhen is a very big city. It was built only 28 years ago, so there is nothing old about it. The first 5 days we were there, we only saw 3 people over 40! When we got back to the club, the drums weren't there yet so we waited a bit more and set up the other stuff. As it turned out, there were no amplifiers, and the power transformer was over-rated. It over heated and we had to ask the club to scramble to find another one (which they thankfully did.) The drums showed up and they were Century brand, including the cymbals! The skins were new factory skins! We had a similar experience in Europe when Mike had to play on Millennium cymbals (unbelievably poor quality metal/plastic compound that sounded awful!) Anyway, the Century were not much better, luckily Mike brought his amazing Meinl hi-hats (purchased in Europe so he wouldn't have to use those horrible Millenniums!) The bass and guitar plugged in direct and we were checking by 6PM. There were no monitors so I had to rely on the sound that was coming out the speakers aimed in many directions throughout the club. This made my job a bit tough, but not as hard as Raz who couldn't hear a thing he was playing. We went for a great meal together just across the way and came back around 10PM to play. The bar had done its job, the place was filled with people eager to hear what these Canadians were offering. The show opened with a 5-minute percussion/drum solo from Mike. It was really cool,. he started out using chopsticks then moved on to brushes and finally sticks. We played two sets that night and were very well received! We sold one CD and T-shirt to a guy in a band, and many people were thrilled to hear what little Chinese I did know (there was a collective gasp followed by warm applause when I said "Ni Hao" (hello.) The place was a very modern, almost futuristic nightclub with cool décor. The bathroom area was really neat; it was a large round room at the back of the club. Each door was a mirror with a small sticker where you would push to see if it was locked. Inside was a very big stall (I guessed that because everywhere was so overcrowded, they like to have space in their private time) also covered in mirrors all round. In the middle of the big room was the communal sink with motion sensors so that when you stepped up to it, one little fountain would turn on. There was a flat screen TV so you could see what was going on in the other room on the small, tall stage. The DJ booth was very cool. It looked like a CD, the disc around the DJ had lots of visuals going on in it (it was like a TV screen) and the DJ stood in the middle of that circle and you could watch him spin! Along the back wall were many different screens with different things going on (cartoons, light shows, etc.) The bar offers a fruit plate (watermelon, apples, tomatoes and yummy little jell-o type shots) to each table and brings many beers in an ice bucket, filling glasses quite often. Oh, and yes, tomatoes are often served as dessert with sugar on them, quite delicious!
So this was our first gig in China! We packed up after midnight, and Mike held up the snare drum whose coating had mostly come off after only one gig!! Oh boy, this was not a good sign... Mike said the kick drum pedal and skin would also probably break in the next few days!! As Mitch pointed out, these drum brands that name themselves after long time periods don't usually last more than a few minutes!! haha... We went back to the hotel and out for another late night meal, very tired, but satisfied that we had done well considering we didn't have some of the crucial gear we requested on our technical list emailed weeks earlier. We hoped we would get better gear in the other venues since we were told each venue was responsible for providing a backline. We would have to rise early the next day to go check out Window of the World where we would be playing for the next 5 days.
DAY ONE done...
Photo Album
oh, and Raz posted his tour diaries with some photos as well...
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