Hanggai @ Gulou 121 Club (7 May 2010)

Just a warning, this article is going to be less about Hanggai, and more about 121 Club.

I’ll say a bit about the band first. Hanggai are a band who I count among my favourite Chinese acts. Their combination of Mongolian folk music with elements of rock have been written about extensively. Needless to say, they put on a great show.

This was the second show to be held at 121 Club (Shanren played last week). The bar is situated just around the corner from Drum & Bell Tower along Jiugulou Dajie (number 121 unsurprisingly), and it joins the ranks of folk-orientated clubs (such as Jianghu and Jiangjinjiu) in the Dongcheng district. I arrived at the 121 just a little bit after Hanggai took the stage. In spite of the small amount of publicity the show had, the place was packed out. For the first half of the show I had to watch from behind a pylon as there was no room elsewhere in the bar.

While the interior was clearly designed for sitting with friends and having a drink as opposed to standing up and watching a gig, thought has clearly gone into the venue’s use for live shows. A crystal-clear sound system and excellent sound proofing meant that the voices of Hanggai’s three vocalists came across distortion-free. While I can’t say how good it would be for a ‘harder’ style of music, I look forward to finding out.