RIP: Tang Hui (the sequel)

Trev hit the nail on the head. Tanghui was just a wannabe, would-be if they could-be masturbatorium.

The old Tanghui was neither cool nor 'underground'.

EVERYONE knew about it. It featured mediocre musicians, and a crowd who were desperate to go there just to feel 'cool'. They tried to make more money out of the name 'tanghui' - an easy feat seeing as expats and westernised-Chinese will follow all trends they feel that they 'should' - but they even failed at that.

... and the riff-raff hasn't stopped.

I keep hearing these comments but I just dont get it...

The old Tanghui was not a dive bar, nor a live music venue. It was a nice little bar that happened to have good honest music, sometimes DJs, sometimes live on a small side stage. It was decorated intelligently with antiques and alt culture posters in frames.

The new bar at TH's old location -- Logo Bar -- is even more successful than the old Tanghui was, and doing so with equally good honest music. It is busy most nights of the week, and packed at least 2 or 3 nights a week, often until 7 in the morning!

Shanghai is also a defecating-outside town, a polluted town, and a terrible-food town...we aspire for greater things than motherfuckin' electro.

The place was crap from day 1. Death to crap live music and crap live music venues! This is an electro town.

For the record, the new Tang Hui looked like the marketing department at Starbucks took-over (so sterile); the old one was 1000x better. The old Tang Hui was authentic; the new Tang Hui was just another bar.

Do you think that the owner of the old location could possibly have come under pressure from the police. I mean, with all of the open... er, riff-raff that went on there? I've seen the new bar at TH's old location, and it doesn't seem to be doing much business.

the old tanghui was kidnapped by a greedy landlord ... the owners worked hard to find a new location ... it wasn't ever some sort of "sell-out" intention.

Finally, the new location was to blame, certainly not anything wrong with the intentions or marketing or whatever. The new Tanghui rocked! It was awesome and busy until the cops kept shutting it.

It serves them right for ruining Shanghai's only club with a lick of character. Trying to turn a genuinely cool, underground Chinese rock bar (the old Tang Hui) into "Zapata's Jr" was just stupid. But I do like the way the manager tries to lay blame on the location.

For the time being at least, you can relive your Tang Hui memories at their website.