PS: You Rocked Me – Abaji, One Drop, Devils, Yungiema etc..

sometimes, doing reviews of whole shows can be a bit repetitive but i always wanna give the devil his due.. so unless the show is mindblowing, i think i’m gonna switch to a new format of quick reviews called “p.s: You Rocked Me” and that’s starting right now..

MIDI was pretty darn good and enjoyable if you haven’t read my review yet but there were also a bunch of other little gigs around town that had me having a good good time:

Abaji @ CD Blues | April 24th, 2013
My brother from another family, the one and only Abaji, descended on the capital for a quick little gig thanks to the Alliance Francaise who kinda forgot to inform people about it. Still, I tracked him down and went over to the new CD Blues for the first time.. and what a treat it was! The guy is still sheer genius and he had a packed venue under his charm. I got there a bit late and caught only the second part of the gig but it was one hell of a good one again

Devils at the Crossroad album release @ Temple | April 27, 2013
man.. usually, a saturday night gig can be fun, but not when you’re supposed to work on one of those fake sundays thanks to the messed up Chinese holiday system. On the bright side, having to work the next day meant i couldn’t get trashed and forget how much fun i had. and i did have fun.
Devils, playing on home turf at Temple, released Moonshine, the newest record, with help from a bunch of buddies including yours truly. We can blame Jaime Welton and Bad Mamasan for setting a precedent when they did that for their own album release last year. The new record sounded pretty good live with a semi-packed Temple digging it. Friends from Jacky Danny, Bad Mamasan, Dude, myself amongst others helped with guitars, vocals, bass and even mosh. Check out what Will over at LBM had to say and some of the videos he took and even some pictures of the gig courtesy of Foukographer

One Drop @ 2 KOlegas | May 4th, 2013
I didn’t really know what to expect from the Reggae party at 2 Kolegas but i know what myself along with a dozen capoeiristas got: One hell of a good time, especially with the One Drop band dropping some infectious groovy reggae jams on us. The Band was tight, had a good stage presence and managed to put their own spin of a lot of reggae classics. Any night that finishes at 2 Kolegas on the grass at 4 a.m is one hell of a good night in my book.

Yungiema @ Mako | May 3rd 2013
The Tibetain siren is in a league of her own when it comes to enchanting and hypnotising melodies. That night marked one of the first times i saw her with a backing band instead of duetting with Da Wang Gang’s Song Yun Zhe and it was pretty darn awesome. That said, Mako is too big of a venue for her and she would be better served at Jianghu or something of that size. Her voice kinda got a little lost in that huge cavernous space

Black Water @ JIanghu | May 8th, 2013
I decided to head there last minute on a wednesday and i did not regret it. A fun little evening with the latest incarnation of the band, rich in Irish tunes, Dez’s humour and all around good times. The band is slightly different from before but they sound earthier if it makes any sense to put it in those terms.

so yeah, PS you rocked me all.. until next time.