We hate to sound like we're shilling for Live Bar, but with ten shows in the five weeks since they officially opened, the Yangpu dive is fast becoming the number one venue for live rock music in Shanghai. Three consecutive concerts this past weekend meant six long cab rides, 13 bands, and innumerable (20-kuai!) pitchers of beer.
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Last weekend was quite a stunner, what with Japanese punk, Korean horror-movie music, and a new addition to the C's revival (better than "200 people turning up to DKD wearing mp3 players and dancing in their own heads all night"); but we live in the city where 酒不醉人人自醉 ("people, rather than alcohol, enebriate") and with a population of 13 million, the party doesn't stop so easily. Read on for this week's contributions to our city's tradition of bacchanalia.
It’s official, Xintiandi is the most popular entertainment street (even though it's not really a street) in the city according to 80 percent of respondents in a survey. Thirteen thousand votes were taken by mail, Internet and telephone from locals as well as “people from other places,” according to Shanghai Star (Nov. 10 print edition). We’re not sure if that means tourists, foreigners or aliens, but we do get a sneaking suspicion that the people surveyed were either a) relatively wealthy or b) mesmerized by the beauty of McCafe. The top streets also included Nanjing pedestrian street, most likely chosen by the “people from other places”; Binjiang Dadao, along the Huangpu River in Pudong; Duolun Lu, which houses art, old books, coffee shops and buildings from the early 20th century; the Bund and cultural streets like Meichuan Lu, North Street in Zhujiajiao (also known as the town where they throw goldfish over a bridge), Qibao Old Street and Fangbang Zhong Lu, near Yu Garden. We’d like to take this moment to thank those who gave the survey for providing us with a complete list of places to avoid during the next public holiday.
While most of the city's dive-bar demons were at home recovering from the weekend's festivities, a few goblins and ghouls gathered for Live Bar's Halloween bash on Sunday night. Organized by the Shanghai Underground Music Network, the event was billed as a continuation of the National Day "music festival" that literally drew less than 20 people and was cancelled before the first night was over. Sunday night's concert did considerably better with about a hundred people in attendance, although that number dropped significantly as many students headed back to their dorms around 9 pm.
Get your Hipster Bingo cards ready, Shanghai's fledgling underground music scene will flex its puny indie-rock muscles this Saturday at Hong Dou Dou Music Bar near Shanghai Stadium. If Shanghaiist decides to go, that's four bingo spaces filled right there. (We'll let you figure out which ones.) Maybe five if we smuggle some PBRs in our pockets. Or, since we're in Shanghai, would REEB count? A can of REEB and a mirror equals hours of hipster fun.

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