Live's got the power!

Over the weekend, Shanghaiist once again ventured out to Yangpu for a couple of shows at Shanghai's reigning rock haven, Live Bar. East District Power's unplugged tour, which has been randomly popping up all over eastern Shanghai for the past couple of months, was organized by Liu Jian, author of Soldier (《战士》), to bring together local musicians, writers and artists for a night of storytelling folk and acoustic rock. While we couldn't understand a lot of the lyrics (which we'll blame on the singers' thick Beijing accents), the folk seemed suitably emotional and folk-y. On the rock side of things, Zhou Yong (周勇), formerly of the Madmen (疯子乐队), was our favorite -- we particularly liked his song (apparently) entitled "AAAHHH!" Due to the lack of drums and distorted guitars, the cops didn't show up to close the place down, which was unfortunate because Liu Haishen's One, the only pop band of the evening (and the only group to use an electric keyboard), just wouldn't get off the stage. We were tempted to call 110 ourselves.

Sunday night brought a different kind of power, this time from the north: Beijing-based power metal band Ordnance was in town for two nights on the Shanghai leg of their nationwide tour. Despite the extremely thin crowd -- about six people showed up -- they put on a good first set and seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. However, after resting (read chugging pitchers of beer) for a few minutes, they decided four songs was enough and announced they were leaving. We later heard that they'd only played one set at Harley's as well, so maybe they just didn't write enough songs before deciding to go on tour.

As always, Shanghai Streets has photos of both events:
East District Power Unplugged
Ordnance