Made in Madness: Nucleus confirms, Salesmen shaky and Rustic

This show was penciled down a while back for many reasons: last AIS gig in Beijing before the GBoB finals, great lineup coming off spring festival, Nucleus playing Yugong Yishan for the firs time, Ruby threatening to put sugar in my weasel coffee etc..

Things got started around 10:00 pm with Nucleus sporting their traditional lineup. The boys didn’t look a bit phased by the big yugong yishan stage, and why would they? They’ve clocked enough gig/stage time between 2 Kolegas, Jianghu, D-22 and others so they ripped right into it. They went through the usual songs I’ve heard dozen of times by now.. while I normally might get bored hearing the same stuff from a band, it’s not the case with these guys. Li Xia’s performances keep getting better and there’s a melodic side to their grunge you don’t see everywhere. Maybe their fondness for folk has something to do with it. The song 凯林 is my favorite of theirs, hands down. Overall, the boys did amazing for the second time in a row which confirms that having Liu Miao on drums had a great positive influence… I still can’t believe how much better they’ve gotten in a year since they opened for Bad Mamasan. Keep it up boys!

The Amazing Insurance Salesmen were up next. The boys haven’t played much over the past few weeks so this was a much needed rehearsal for the upcoming finals in KL. A few of us were anxious to see what shape they’d show up in after such a long break. I’ve seen them often enough to know when they’re not spot on and that was such a night. With a band like AIS, timing is everything! You have a lead guitar, lead bass and lead drums all at once. Those 3 ingredients combine to give them a unique sound but those same ingredients can/will be their downfall… I think on Friday, they were just lacking their usual cohesion: All of them played their parts well but… it felt..how can i put it… telegraphed!
Don’t get me wrong, the audience loved them and even asked for an encore but for those of us that know them, it wasn’t the same…
On the bright side, that’s what warmups are for. Good luck in KL boys!

We were then treated to a 20mn documentary about Rustic‘s GBoB journey which felt like it was 10 mn too long before the reigning GBoB champions came on. What can I say about Rustic that i haven’t said before? They put on one hell of a performance and they make it look so good without trying. They’re Rustic and that’s all! The band keeps getting tighter and some of their songs are starting to stick even if Lucifer’s words get less intelligible as the night progresses. They had the crowd hopping, horning, shaking fists and generally in a good mood.

Overall, Made in Madness delivered what was expected of it: A Solid rock n roll night with 3 Bands working their way through a maturation process that’s not always smooth. Check out Alex’s take over at the gig guide