Sounds & Sights of Silva - Tour Diary, Vol. 1: xiexie in China
On the road with Japanese indie rock group xiexie
On the afternoon of March 26th, I arrived early to MOM Livehouse, a concert venue in the Fortress Hill neighborhood of Hong Kong, a spot affixed in the center of an old underground marketplace right off the main street. As I stood on the sidewalk outside the venue, not even an hour after I entered Hong Kong – not even enough time to grab a milk tea! – xiexie greeted me after their morning stroll around the block.
The last time I had seen the band in full was when they performed in Taipei in a small venue, one of their first shows internationally but with a maturity about them that could have fooled me into thinking they had been playing together for a while. I was so impressed and soon thereafter we started working together.
While the band was getting set up, I walked over to Desperate Infant Records which happened to be right around the corner from the venue. The shop acts as record store, record label, and concert promoter, and does a damn good job of all three of these pillars. Their forte is emo, and I had to pick up one of their most recent cassettes – a compilation of some great younger emo and indie groups, including favorites Bennu is a Heron from Guangzhou and Wellsaid from Hong Kong.
While I was taking a brief sojourn at Megaport Festival in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the band continued on to Wuhan for the 20th Anniversary celebration of Vox Livehouse, a well-established venue in the city.
Wuhan is the home to some incredibly important groups in recent Chinese indie rock such as SMZB and Chinese Football. In China, twenty years of an establishment – especially a rock club – is almost unheard of these days, and shows the success of the venue’s management in staying true to their mission while having to operate under pretty strict conditions. Makes the celebration that much more joyous!
On Wednesday April 2nd, I rejoined the group in Shanghai at a restaurant, where we also met the opener for the next evening’s show for the first time. Food obviously is important on any ordinary day, but it’s especially important on a tour and serves so many purposes – it helps you get to know the local cuisine and style better, it’s a communal experience in a place we’re maybe not all familiar with yet, and it’s purely pleasing to the taste buds.
The opening act for the show in Shanghai was Peach Illusion 桃子假象. I’ve been listening to them for a while now so this was a dream collaboration for me, and I was very glad they agreed to join the show on the heels of their great new record. The songs are so saccharine sweet and literary in really pleasantly unexpected ways. (Side note: I was also able to catch them perform as part of a recorded taping a couple days after the show, and they excelled in both contexts.)
The Shanghai venue had so much unique charm and energy to it, decorated with so much bizarre ephemera that it actually made sense after being there for a while and soaking into the atmosphere. There was a billiards table in the middle of the dance floor, a problem I think most of us identified early on in the night as we expected over 100 attendees at the show. I went to help the security team move the table, and one of the legs broke off. I was mortified, the staff laughed in incredulity, almost as if these kinds of inconveniences happen all the time.
The unsung hero of the tour was definitely tour manager Jun (seen in the above photo) who was the band’s fearless leader on many high speed rail rides and served as multilingual lifeline when the band needed some instructions in Japanese translated into Mandarin.
Another show done, another successful evening. We all dropped off our gear at the hotel, then both bands and a few extra friends went out for a late night celebratory dinner. This also marked the first time I’ve ever tried 中国劲酒 which was an experience all unto itself. The bands shared music knowledge, personal stories, and several plates of shrimp. This kind of connection and friendship between artists is really what I live for and hope I can continue to facilitate across all the artists I have the privilege of working with.
While I’m not sure I’m built to be on the road for longer than a week or so at a time, it was an incredibly invaluable experience. Touring musicians deserve a lot of credit not just for their musical talent but also their endurance and mental/physical health to travel these long distances for our enjoyment.
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