One Day in May…

Damn, they’re good.

So about two weeks ago – right after I arrived in China and right before I got on this “around the clock Leehom concert news” kick, I went looking for info on the concert in Shanghai, investigating how hard it would be to buy a ticket if I decided I wanted to. In the process, I stumbled upon a piece of information that I had somehow completely missed: sodagreen was playing a concert in Shanghai on September 19. As in, less than two weeks from the day I checked, and all of two hours on the train away. I was floored, and then I was mad. I had to apply for my residence permit, and my passport would be out of my hands for over a week. No passport, no trip to Shanghai. Last weekend there was a rumor that we’d get our passports back as early as Wednesday, but on Wednesday those hopes were dashed with the news that it would actually be close of business Friday – not enough time to make it to Shanghai, for sure. What a bummer (compounded by the fact that I’m worried about them going into military service while I’m in Asia and able to go see them play, like another band we know).

But then Thursday around mid-day, I got a phone call that my passport was ready and I could get it that afternoon. Hope returns! I sprang into action, and by about a half hour later, I’d gotten a ticket ordered, arranged to have round-trip train tickets delivered to my office that evening, and confirmed a hotel reservation. Aside from the fact that I was completely scandalized by how good my seat was for how late I bought the ticket (oh wait – there are masses of concerts this fall, and I imagine ticket money has far to stretch), I was thrilled. The next day – the day of the concert – I was off to Shanghai. (So how hard is it to buy a ticket? Yeah, let’s just say I haven’t completely cracked the code yet… my path to sodagreen heaven was paved with obstacles.)

If anyone out there remains uncertain – seems impossible, but still – sodagreen live is worth going far, far out of your way to see. It’s not just that the music is great, or that the band is tight (not to mention astoundingly talented), or that Qingfeng is impressively strong as a live vocalist (not plagued by pitch problems or lyric memory lapses)*; it’s so much more than that. Man, do they have stage presence.

I had never paid A-fu much attention before, but while he was on stage my eyes would be drawn over to him. His face is very expressive, and it was patently obvious he was enjoying every minute of the show. We don’t see much of Xiao Wei up in the back behind his drums (he was up on a platform, which a delighted Qingfeng marveled at), but he was the only one in the group to successfully say something in Shanghainese. A-fu tried and failed to much laughter (“So what were you trying to say?” an interested Qingfeng inquired), but Xiao Wei succeeded by speaking very quickly, sort of spitting it out. Naturally, this sent Qingfeng off on a hysterical tangent about how he could have just opened with, “Shanghai, blah blabla blah!” and everyone would have thought he was a genius at languages (erm, his own, made-up ones, anyway). Very funny stuff.

A-gong was nothing short of amazing – he may have been the last one to join the band, but it could not exist without him. He switches between piano or violin virtuoso to campy clown and back again with lightning speed; he directed the string ensemble, played an extended piano solo with extraordinary technique and musicality, then whipped off his tux jacket and entertained the crowd with his “dancing,” which vaguely resembles a cross between a seizure and jazzercise. You could always tell when he was getting ready to dance, because he’d pull up his knee guards (in shorts, his knees were always visible) and pull off his jacket, mugging to anyone in the audience who happened to be watching him. The knee guards were not pads, but like socks or leg warmers that he’d pull over his knees in preparation for some crazy knee-level dancing. Qingfeng commented on the socks, of course, which were a new addition in Shanghai.

Xinyi and Jiakai were both a bit more low-key, sort of laid back and cool. Of course, they had their entertaining moments as well. When Qingfeng went around talking to the whole band, he asked Xinyi about her wrist. This is a piece of news that I’ve been meaning to write about – sodagreen played as part of that “Turn Left, Turn Right” musical last weekend. There was a performance rescheduled because of the typhoon, but other than that it went well. Well, there was one other little mishap – Xinyi fell off the stage. As Qingfeng explained to us, one minute you saw her, the next minute A-fu was saying “where’s Xinyi?” Xinyi smiled through the story and corrected his slight exaggeration (“no, the stage was not as high as this one!”), but agreed that her wrist – injured in the fall – has healed well. You sort of get the impression that she is so used to Qingfeng, nothing he says fazes her anymore. (On a side note, I’d like to say something approving about her wardrobe – as the only girl in the band, I can imagine it would be easy to go either sorta tomboyish or really girly. But she is neither – she wears her skirts and knee boots and plays her bass and doesn’t try to conform to an archetype.)

Jiakai got a lot of flak from Qingfeng because, as the latter noted, since they’ve arrived in Shanghai, Jiakai hasn’t spent any time in his hotel room. He apparently has a lot of friends there (whereas for most the band, it was their first visit). He also asked the crowd if they have any requests for Jiakai; naturally, they (we) wanted him to remove clothing (“strip!!” they called excitedly from the back). Qingfeng gave him an option: say something in Shanghainese, or strip. Admitting that he cannot speak the local lingo, Jiakai suggested that he just take off a single article of clothing. This is all well and good until we realize that he’s taking off the vest that is over his sleeveless t-shirt. As Qingfeng observed on all of our behalf, “That doesn’t reveal anything!” Jiakai obligingly lifted his shirt and flashed his chest at us, looking quite bemused as he did so. (If I may make a comparison, Jiakai at times reminded me of Monster in demeanor and with his sleeveless shirts – except apologies to Monster, but Jiakai has more muscular arms.)

So, who’s left? Qingfeng. Ah, Qingfeng. If he ever has trouble with his singing voice, he should very seriously consider pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. After he went through and interviewed the whole band, he went through the entire string section (I counted seven women playing violins, violas and cellos). Some of them were from Taipei, some from Shanghai; the ones from Shanghai the band didn’t know well, of course, so he asked them if they’d heard sodagreen’s music before. In one case, the woman admitted that she’d only listened to a few songs online, to which Qingfeng replied indignantly, “Don’t listen online, you have to buy the actual CD!” Just before she could get embarrassed, though, he told her, confidentially, that he had an extra copy back stage that he would give her later. There was a dialogue with each and every one (we learned that one of the musicians from Taiwan had experienced her “first time” the night before – first time getting a massage, that is. “Why, what were you thinking?” asked the man innocently). Ultimately he confessed that once he gets started talking, he gets sidetracked and forgets about how long it’s going on (this much was obvious), but the truth of the matter was it was all so funny, I doubt anyone minded.

He completely killed toward the end, as he was looking out on the crowd and started laughing. (Frankly, when Qingfeng starts laughing, everyone does – without even waiting to hear what’s on his mind. You just know it’s going to be good.) See, the concert was in the Shanghai International Gymnastics Center; it’s not huge, but it’s a respectable size (they were all, by the way, thrilled and delighted by the size of the audience – and it is impressive, to think that they’ve built up this much of a base on the mainland already). But this particular venue has one little quirk: there are two long rows of tables along one side wall, probably for judges of those international gymnastics competitions. Now, you’d think they’d just close them off for a concert, but no – about two dozen fans had seats assigned to them at the tables. When the lights came on over the audience, Qingfeng spied the people at the tables (some had very resourcefully draped banners and the like over the side) and started laughing, saying that they look like they are at a meeting, not a concert. He put on his best secretary voice and said that they should “press the button to activate your microphone and provide us with your opinions.” But no, he then giggled, they don’t work. But what a strange way to watch a concert… (He actually cracked up at one other point too, and that was when this very deep, very desperate sounding male voice shouted out “Qiiiiiiiingfeeeeeeng” into a brief silence.)

Okay, I suppose I should say something about the actual music, huh? I think I wrote so much about the people because their personalities are still pretty unknown for me – all I know is what I read in the papers, so to speak; I haven’t seen them interact on TV programs or the like. But I already knew the music was fantastic. They did a good job of switching up tempos and arrangements to bring out aspects of songs I’d never really heard before. (I noticed this especially on “Oh oh oh oh,” but on many others as well.) Qingfeng treats his voice like an instrument in the band – he’s got two mics, one regular one and one with an echo effect; then he also has a voice distorter and a megaphone, which he sings through into the mic. At one juncture, he “played” the feedback in time with the song. There are a few points where the band has arranged a little choreography; all pausing to wave their arms in sync, which was cute.

They opened with a long set, then ran backstage to change. A-gong was first to return, doing his brilliant piano solo. Then Qingfeng came back, and they did a few songs with the two of them and the string section. Particularly memorable was “It’s my sea (是我的海),” where Qingfeng plays the piano as he sings to free up A-gong to play the violin. When the rest of the band came back, they played some of the songs that have orchestral accompaniment – I loved watching A-gong conduct the strings as the guy may act like a ham, but he really, really knows what he’s doing. As my sister said when I was telling her about it last night, “this band KNOWS music.” (I love that my sister said that, by the way. It’s now more than just Leehom that gets her excited!) We got to hear the a cappella version of “Little Love Song (小情歌),” which was as amazing as advertised. They covered Teresa Teng’s “I only care for you (我只在乎你),” and the Carpenters’ “Close to You,” and I have to say, I was impressed by Qingfeng’s English pronunciation, especially given how much he talks about being bad at languages. They also sang Chang Yu-sheng’s “My Future Is Not a Dream (我的未來不是夢),” during which they flashed childhood pictures of the band members on the screen (with Qingfeng pointing out who each baby picture was as they went up).

In the end, Qingfeng introduced the “last two songs,” and then did his shtick where he explains to the audience that it’s not really the end, but we’re going to play the “encore game,” okay? Of course it was… The last song before the encores was “Frequency (頻率),” before which Qingfeng asked the audience’s cooperation to let him come down off the stage and walk around the auditorium. There had been trouble with this in Beijing, remember, so he asked us all to sit down and be good, otherwise “they’ll never come back to Shanghai,” but if we were good, they’d “sing lots more songs… yeah, that’s not true. But be good!” They had about two dozen city policemen in there from that point on, and through the encores they stood in a line before the stage. (One of the them, at least, kept sneaking looks over his shoulder onto the stage, and smiling like he was enjoying the music. )

They played two encores in the end, which seems to be the way it was set up. On the last one, Qingfeng let the audience request the songs, though he first had trouble understanding what they were yelling, and then he kept forgetting which songs he said they’d do. (He kept saying “City (城市),” which is the one I was trying for, but then they ended with “Faith (相信),” which is probably how they usually end… by the way, that was also the only song where Qingfeng very obviously flubbed a lyric. He grinned at us right after he did it.) They sang the song they wrote for Jam Hsiao (at least, I think that was it – apologies, I have the album and haven’t even listened to it yet. Can you believe that?) [update: nope, not it... no clue what it was, either], thanking the crowd for supporting songs that they write for other people. (They also sang “Lover Pet (愛人動物 ),” earlier in the show which I thought got into trouble with the Chinese censors? Maybe the lyrics were changed, or there’s a difference between live and recorded music.) Qingfeng told us they were only allowed to do two more songs, but the crowd requested four, so he said he’ll just do one a cappella, a second just the music (so the audience could sing it), and then they’d play the last two songs… thereby getting around the rules quite nicely. In the end, when the proverbial curtain came down on close to three hours of sodagreen music and comedy, I think everyone walked out of there with a smile on his or her face. There are some pictures here. I, meanwhile, now MUST order the Taipei concert DVD.

Actually, I had such a nice time running off to Shanghai for the weekend, that now I’m thinking I will do the Leehom concert. It’ll be a huge contrast; sodagreen was how you do a concert when the music itself is the main attraction; Leehom’s is how you do a concert when the man and his toys are what people go to see. (Which is kind of sad to me, because I think Leehom is too strong of a musician and singer to be doing this kind of “idol” performance, though clearly no one at SonyBMG agrees with me.) Mayday/Linkin Park is out, though, because it is on a Sunday night, and I need to be back here for work early Monday morning (and I’m not going to Beijing for it, sorry). I’ll have to wait a bit longer to see Mayday on the mainland. But I did read a really fascinating article about Mayday on the train this weekend, so I’m going to try to translate that over the National Day holiday next week because I think it would make for interesting pre-album conversation.

* We love you anyway, Ashin, dangling denim suspenders and all.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under Sodagreen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.