Went to Linkin Park again. Ok band. Lame fans - a pogoless moshpitless uninspiring audience. Not a rock crowd.

More at lullacure.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time ever in 30 years of The Cure, the group played live on stage in China, albeit not a Mainland location, in one of their most original forms. The show featured a massively powerful Jason Cooper, a reincarnated Porl Thompson, a 1982 Simon Gallup, a classically Curish Robert Smith, and a spectacular Curecrowd. For many of the audience, including myself, who came all the way from Mainland China, the 3 hours in Hong Kong with The Cure was a dream intimately come true.

 

The verticals...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP goes to NYC. Red Hot goes to London. Linkin Park goes to Tokyo. Snoop Dogg goes to Hamberg. Sydney, Rio, Johannesburg at least have some heard names... And Shanghai proudly presents: 好男儿, 陈奕迅, 容祖儿, 许慧欣, 辛晓琪, 黄耀明, 黄晓明, 女子十二乐坊 (The 12 Girls Band what an accurately vivid translation!)...

 

Wordless.

 

A sonic revival of youth!

 

 

Sonic Youth.

 

Lee Ranaldo.

 

Thurston Moore.

 

Lee Ranaldo red-lipped by a pick.

 

The Moore couple.

 

Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon.

 

Jim O'Rourke.

 

One of Lee Ranaldo's guitars.

 

Kim Gordon with her Snoopy bass.

 

Lee Ranaldo's left pedal set.

 

Lee Ranaldo's right pedal set.

 

Thurston Moore's pedals.

 

Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.

 

Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore.

 

Kim Gordon's pedals.

 

Steve Shelley.

 

The Shanghai Concert Hall (smashed by the Sonic Youth) crowd.

 

Thurston Moore on bass.

 

Sonic Youth, I was too close... When I was at late teens with Sonic Youth as my fav, I wouldn't be wild and ambitious enough to imagine, in 10 years, I could be so close, that I can touch their shoes... Inexperienced security and great crowd make the perfect gig. This is what happened at the decent upperclass state-of-the-art blablabla Shanghai Concert Hall, a wrong place blasphemously smashed into the right one (well I'd wish the Party Chief of the Hall wasn't there that night). A youth is sonically revived and burned, before fading back to the mainstream worklife. This, unequivocally, made my best concert experience to date on this continent.

The superstars...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coldplay was one of my top wishlisted before I saw them. However, they fell below my expectation as they grow super around the world. CM is too young as a rock star. I wish I could have seen them 4 years ago...

 

Re-TROS at SXSW 2007. Austin rocked with Hang the Police. 可惜才一分多钟的时候华东就把弦弹断了，琴音全跑掉了。。 

 

 

 

Weston Park in rain.

 

The mud lovers.

 

Paul Weller.

 

A lonely chicken.

 

Paul Weller.

 

Faithless.

 

Faithless.

 

Hands and flags in the sky.

 

The old playboy strips.

 

Morrissey.

 

The Morrissey band and Oscar Wilde.

 

Morrissey.

 

Morrissey.

 

Morrissey.

 

The trip to V is one of the crazier things I did so far, as well as one of the bigger things a Radiohead fan in China would do. Definitively, the rain, cold, mud, and English crowd make V the festival exactly what I had imagined and expected.

The definitive UK festival continues.

 

The campsite.

 

The rain stops on Day 2.

 

Weston Park at live.

 

Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack.

 

The Positive Tension crowd.

 

Bloc Party.

 

Keane.

 

Can't Stop Now.

 

Tom Chaplin.

 

A technician fixes the piano broken by Tim Rice-Oxley at Somewhere Only We Know.

 

Tim Rice-Oxley.

 

The Beck puppet band.

 

Beck.

 

Beck improvises on Creep and his guys have dinner.

 

The percussion at dinner table.

 

Beck's band back to stage.

 

Radiohead opens with Airbag.

 

Thom Yorke.

 

Radiohead.

 

So when shall I set out for my next UK trip... to Glastonbury?

The definitive festival with Chinese characteristics...

 

 

Du Juan Dracula, very nice band.

 

The crowd and field security.

 

Field security armed with chairs.

 

The ladies and gentlemen of Placebo.

 

The People's Liberation Army Armed Police Troops as VIP area security.

 

Placebo half-loaded only.

 

重塑雕像的权利。

A friend. A fav. A fame for future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My best concert in Mainland China to date...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If this goes true, here is my wishlist for the Shanghai line-up...

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Foo Fighters

Bloc Party (again...)

Keane (again...)

AFI

Korn (!)

Fall Out Boy

Snow Patrol

Duran Duran

 

Al Gore is the man!

 

SuperMATTive. Explosively superb. Best show I've seen so far in Greater China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The memorying with Google Earth continues...

 

7/30/2007: The Cure

3/3/2007: Muse

7/13/2006: Coldplay

@AsiaWorld Expo, Hong Kong, China

 

2/12/2007: Roger Waters

1/20/2007: Eric Clapton

@The Grand Stage, Shanghai, China

 

10/15/2006: Lacrimosa

@He Luting Concert Hall, Shanghai, China

 

9/9/2006: Placebo, Du Juan Dracula, ...

@Beijing Pop Festival, Chaoyang Park, Beijing, China

 

8/20/2006: Radiohead, Beck, Keane, Bloc Party, ...

8/19/2006: Morrissey, Faithless, Paul Weller, Hard Fi, ...

@V Festival, Weston Park, Staffordshire, England

 

10/17/2004: Metallica, Godsmack

@MCI Center, Washington, DC, USA

 

8/6/2004: The Cure, Muse, Interpol, Auf Der Maur, The Rapture, The Cooper Temple Clause, Mogwai

@Curiosa Festival, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, Maryland, USA

 

8/1/2004: The Cure, Muse, Interpol, Thursday, The Rapture, Auf Der Maur, Mogwai

@Curiosa Festival, Tweeter Center, Camden, New Jersey, USA

 

5/22/2004: The Cure, The Offspring, Jay-Z, P.O.D., New Found Glory, Violent Femmes, Cypress Hill, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ...

@HFStival, RFK Stadium, Washington, DC, USA

 

5/16/2004: David Bowie, Stereophonics

1/16/2004: Linkin Park, P.O.D., Hoobastank, Story of the Year

@Patriot Center, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

 

5/2/2004: The Cure, The Flaming Lips, Air, Belle & Sebastian, Thursday, Muse, ...

5/1/2004: Radiohead, Kraftwerk, The Pixies, Sparta, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Death Cab for Cutie, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, ...

@Coachella Festival, Indio, California, USA

 

4/3/2004: Bob Dylan

@American University, Washington, DC, USA

 

2/28/2004: Evanescence, Default, Atomship

@DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, USA

 

3/29/2003: Zwan, Queens of the Stone Age

@Towson University, Towson, Maryland, USA