Quickslants: Festivalitus, Ningxia Force, Miserable Faith and More

Another weekend, another set of quickslants and a whole lotta music going on but who’s watching? Seriously, I think poor Zhangbei is having the distinction of being the festival with the least coverage this year, at least in the Anglophone blogosphere.. Maybe just an excessive case of festivalitus, a weird China-born disease stemming from excessive amounts of festivals using the same bands and sub-standard setups? oh well!! To be fair though, this year’s lineup is not bad but they really have not learned their lesson as far as sundays go: Everyone of the past two years, Sunday headliners played to an almost non-existent audience as folks rushed to get back to Beijing. Anyways, let’s see what’s taking place:

Friday July 27th

Buyi & Lidong @ 2Kolegas
This is the party spot for the evening with two of the most talented bands out of Ningxia. Buyi has delivered on their performances for years and there is no doubting their chops. Since the release of their album, Lidong has moved up a few notches and can now claim the spot left vacant by Wu & the Side Effects while they regroup and re-record. 2 good bands, 2 Kolegas, all the buddies will be there and it’s gonna be a swell time.

Red Pirates @ Hot Cat
I like these cats and they always manage to show us a good time with their brand oh Hard Rock. Dave rocks the vox, the Drummer has one of the biggest smiles ever and the guitarist is smooth. Up and comers ” The intrepid Travelers” will be on hand to get the festivities started. They’re rumored to be working on a little LP that might be out in the next few months. Hot Cat has really picked up over the past few months with much better planning

Chaos @ Yugong Yishan
I have no idea what else to call this gig but the sheer randomness of the bands playing makes me wanna go. Me Too, Amazing Insurance Salesmen, Arrows Made of Desire and Linkoban ( Denmark).. We got European electro, emo punk, emo rock and psychedelic rock for those that like their genres. Who and how the Faxx this lineup came together is beyond me. I would love to see the dynamics of the crowd after each band comes on and they bear no similarity to the previous one.

Saturday July 28

Olympics @ 2 Kolegas
A slew of people got toghether to put this event on including The Beijing Beatles, Fish Nation, Gung Ho pizza and more. It’s quite a feat with the promise of tons of fun while watching a rerun of the Olympic opening ceremony.

Tiger Translate Final
Tango hosts Miserable Faith, Emitter and a bunch of other bands competing for the right to fly to singapore and get some notoriety overseas. This is capping off weeks of gruesome battling/voting throughout some Major Chinese cities. Could definitely be fun..

Sunday July 29

Smiling Knives @ Yugong
Never heard of these guys before but I’m just listening to their douban right now and it’s pretty awesome stuff. It’s beautiful world music with a hint of blues and some nice compositions. A perfect little show to cap off a busy weekend. Seriously, I love this. I expected i hardcore band when i saw the promo picture and the name but this is good stuff.

some cool stuff on there folks… remember Zhangbei is also on like I mentioned above but with a rainy weekend ahead, I’m not even going in there. Plenty in town to keep me busy