Swing Dynasty at Enoteca: kicking it Gypsy Style in Beijing

Man do I love me a good surprise and last one was a particularly enjoyable one!

The evening was gonna be a quiet catchup session over red wine at Enoteca with a friend i had not seen in a while and turned into a jumping jiving shaking strumming gypsy sounding French evening courtesy of Shanghai’s Swing Dynasty playing a surprise gig!

The band includes Gauthier Roubichou (Lions of Puxi fame) who is one of my favorite performers in the local scene. That kid is too good to be residing in Shanghai and wasting his talents there… we definitely need to get him and his bands up to Beijing.

Cool Swinging Cats

As you can see from the picture, it was an intimate unplugged affair with 3 guitars keeping the fun coming. They played a whole bunch of French classic goodies with the occasional Spanish or English song, even some Italian. They were also good sports about requests and played 3 full sets which is a lot more than some so called “professional” artists that get tired after 1/2 hour…. (ahem ahem that famous throat singing band).

The evening was a bit surreal considering it was Beijing but we were listening to live French Gypsy Jazz, sipping some of Enoteca’s fantastic Minervoix ( a bargain at RMB153/bottle) and conversing in French as well…

Thomas, who took over as manager this past summer, has really raised the stakes there and I love what he is doing with the place. The wine is affordable, the menu much improved and it remains, along with Ginkgo, one of the more low key places to catch good easy going melodies for free.

Swing Dynasty is also playing Salud in Nanluoguxiang Tonight for Gypsy Night (Jan 15, 2010)