What does one do when you’re a party promoter in Shanghai, and the supposedly A-list DJ you just blew a shitload of money on to fly in from halfway around the globe decides not to werk the crowd like she’s supposed to but instead gets herself completely sh*t-faced at the party?
That’s the unenviable position local promoters Four Leaves Productions found themselves in when they got the so-called “electropop goddess”, singer and socialite Uffie to play at Mao Livehouse over the weekend. The 24-year-old Paris-based musician, also known as Anna-Catherine Hartley, made a complete fool of herself at her first ever China gig, and angered a bunch of her fans who paid 300RMB to hear her play.
The promoters themselves were apparently taken aback by Uffie’s unprofessional behaviour. Here’s what they told SmartShanghai:
The whole thing was a total joke. Uffie was booked to DJ. It said in her contract that she would DJ but in fact she came with a support DJ and just handed the DJ CDs to play. When we realized she wasn’t going to be DJing herself, we thought she was going to sing like she always does, with the DJ supporting her in the background. But she refused to sing. She got absolutely intoxicated and spent the whole time on stage just walking around doing nothing. We couldn’t do anything about it. When she finished I complained to her but she didn’t seem to realize that she has done anything bad. So basically right after the show they left through the back door. Before she started, the place was getting busy and with good vibes. It could have been a great night but then everybody started calling friends about what was happenning and people [stopped] at the door and turned back. After that embarrasing show all the public were very disappointed and started leaving and complaining to us. It’s been a complete nightmare and a total joke.
Now we are trying to put together as much evidence as we can to send to the agent and try to get something back. The only thing we can do is to apologize to everybody in Shanghai.
Uh oh. With a debut appearance like that, guess Uffie’s not going to return to Shanghai anytime soon.
Below a sampling of the angry messages left on Uffie’s Facebook page. We’ll let those fans speak for themselves:
And finally, here’s some of Uffie’s music when she’s not getting herself shitfaced:
UPDATE: Trainwreck DJ Uffie apologises to Shanghai fans for non-performance