Thanks for commenting.

I have heard that the change was made on the day of the gig and was unexpected. It was, what? 12 when Carsick Cars started, past the witching hour. I didn’t really care, but it seems like a good move to catch the audience (as a younger band) when they are waiting for the heavies. I wonder whose idea it was. I’m not dissing Carsick Cars for that at all cuz they were and are great. They might just need to prevail more.

I regards to MAO, yeah, we should have expectations. There’s like at least 5 venues that I can think of in my hometown that are better run, and that’s a dinky place compared to Shanghai. The scene is always gonna be wonky, it seems. It is great to have people constantly pushing places to go in a new scene. It’s an important job because (I hope, although we’re not speaking in the dominant language) managers read and listen to these bleats.

Anybody know anything about prospective plans for the Red Town area to get bulldozed? I heard something about that today.

Regardless, I thought the bands were great on the whole. Birdstriking were unlucky (I’d like to see them again) and the others all showed why they’re held in such high regard. In fairness to Carsick Cars, I think you can either argue that they made a nice gesture by deferring to AV Okubo at the time of their album release or that that might actually have been the headlining slot. Given the times that they played at and how much of the crowd was left, Carsick Cars may have been put on third because at the time it counted as the headline slot. I think they do that in Beijing a fair bit – people go home earlier so the headlining band goes on third and then another band round out the night for those who are left.

Either way, I think you’re right that PK14 still hold the mantle in that respect, but then they have been around longer (and one could argue deserve it more) and in fairness to Zhang Shouwang, I think he’s aware of it. Ask him about PK14 and he’s just as reverent as everyone else on the scene