what’s the story? Rustic Glory!

I’ve been threatening to venture out to the Obiwan side of town since they announced their re-branding as a live music venue with a new drink menu designed by the Q bar gang. How could it be bad? decent live music by the lake with great cocktails! I’m not yet ready to pass verdict on the bar but it ended up being one hell of a show:

As with most live shows in Beijing, it started late! The flyers specified 9:00 pm but the first band – B side lovers– came on a little after 10.
For those who don’t know it, B-Side Lovers is basically Hedgehog minus the bass player playing more experimental music. I’ve seen them twice now and this was probably not their best show so far. I can’t really put my finger on the reasons but the show seemed a bit off as far as vocals went. Atom‘s drumming was amazing as usual and she’s a bit shorter than I remembered her being. On this particular night, the vocals were more mumbled than usual. It seemed like Zo ( guitar/vox) was going out of his way to sound like Cobain except on one song where he let loose and his voice got to shine. His guitar ability on the other hand was as good as ever. B-Side Lovers played about 45 minutes to a decent audience and it was worthwhile.

Golden driver, who I had never seen before, was up next. I don’t think I’l be going out of my way to catch them and neither will most people in that audience! The best way to describe them would be uninspired show fillers steadily swimming along the current of musical mediocrity. They spent the bit of their set that saw worried about the form instead of the delivery. I’m not a fan… There was no interaction with the audience or whatsoever.

Finally, it was time for Beijing’s new kings of sleaze: Rustic! To their credit, rustic were there early on and not only watched the opening bands but were hanging out with them. How can I describe this trio?
Motley Crue meets Green Day with a side serving of Ramones!

The band looks like rock stars already and acts the part! Their English is functional enough to interact in the most cliche of ways with the audience ( including a French groupie that night) and it looked like they have gone over every cliche 80’s live antic including high kicks, beer spitting, hair bleaching, leather pants and glitter tops etc..

They wasted no time opening things up with a few screams and F-bombs before launching into a blistering set of punk rock.
At some point, Lucifer ( vox/guitar) just dropped his instrument on stage and walked away to grab a beer. At the same time. Rikki knelt next to said guitar using his tongue to play it while playing his Bass with his hands.

somewhere in Hebei, 3 mothers are wondering about where did things go so wrong

To be fair, their music was more greeday-ish that 80’s but their attitude was a direct product of Motley Crue; when your bass player is named “Rikki Sixx“, you kinda expect it! This is not music that will change the world, far from it… but going to a Rustic show is guaranteed fun!