Welcome to the City of Heartbreak & Horror – Take 2!

BD and I both took the chance to get out of the city last weekend, but early morning flights didn’t stop us heading out to Friday night shows! While he was checking out AIS, Ghost Spardac & Candy Monster at the drive-in, I popped into the newly re-opened Yugong Yishan to see Daze Central favourites Rustic have a second go at launching their first album, City of Heartbreak and Horror.

I got there a little late and missed most of the warm-up band Birdstriking, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve seen then a couple of times now and they’re just not my thing. You may call it experimental, I call it three guys each playing different songs and competing to see whose instrument is louder – with screaming over the top. I’d rather listen to donkey’s …. But I have to admit they’ve got better than last time I saw them, not great, but better. It was cool to see them joined by an electric violin for the last song – but it would have been nice if we actually could have heard the violin!

Time for the main act, Rustic. These boys always put on a great show and a month touring China has improved their stagecraft no end. They’ve finally gone wireless, which means they can run around the stage without getting caught up in each other’s leads! The usual antics came out, playing between Ricky’s legs, swapping mics etc, but being wireless meant they could add a new trick to their catalogue – stage diving!! Lucifer being carried around the by no means full crowd by a small group of fans. They played the songs I love from the album, ‘Erotic Films’ and ‘Modern Love’, but highlight of the show in my eyes was ‘Wild Woman’ the song that brings out the clarinet, and Lucifer came out into the crowd to play to his girlfriend!

Ricky and Lucifier continued their usual between song banter with the crowd and at one point I heard “shenme, shenme … Joyside!” and got a little excited thinking they were Rustic’s ‘secret guest’. At the end of the set though they introduced Pet Conspiracy coming on next, so I was kinda bummed and took that as my chance to head out and make me way over to 2 Kolegas in time to see AIS. It’s not that I don’t like Pet Conpiracy – they’re great people, I’m just not into electronic music. I found out later Rustic came back on for a second set, so I’m sad I missed that. Especially since it sounds like they stepped it up a bit with the costumes! But what I did see was great and I’m sure I’ll see them again soon!

You can check out mine and BeijingDaze’s review of Rustic’s album ‘City of Heartbreak and Horror’ here. And of course, if you haven’t already – buy the album!