Mao Livehouse Shanghai rocks on with Crystal Butterfly
If you have read, heard or think that Crystal Butterfly has broken up think again. In fact the band is around and playing this week, granted it's only their second live gig for the year. Be that as it may, the band, Shanghai's signature rock band, is still the go to band for a comment on the landscape of today's rock scene in Shanghai.
“There are more people, and slightly better venues, but really not much else has changed aside from that in terms of Shanghai rock,” says scene veteran and Crystal Butterfly (Shuijingdie) guitarist Wang Wenwei. “Shanghai bands today are no different from our generation; bands are all the same at the beginning -- dedicated and enthusiastic. The problem is continuing and after one or two years most groups break up. They all have to go to work, to buy a house and a car.”
Such market and social pressures seem to claim most bands sooner or later, to many, Shuijingdie among them.
“We haven’t broken up!” protests singer Pangpang. “Who says we’ve broken up?”
It's been a long hiatus, but now Crystal Butterfly is taking the stage for Mao Livehouse Shanghai’s grand opening this Friday. It’s their second show this year, after they played just two gigs last year -- Ark Livehouse’s closing party, and when they joined Cui Jian and The Honeys at the Xihu Music Festival in Hangzhou.
I wish Friday’s show meant a full re-chrysalis of Crystal Butterfly, who can combine that tricky trifecta of originality, "listenability" and sheer stage presence oomph. They remain in my subjective opinion still the best band that Shanghai -- if not all of China -- has ever produced. I, of course, am biased: I used to date and currently work at Soma Records and Mao Livehouse Shanghai with their singer, used to share a flat with Wang, and am good friends with and grew up with all of the guys in the group.
“We stopped playing regularly because we’re all old, and we all have our own stuff going on,” explains Wang who dabbles in multiple musical collaborations. Meanwhile bass Qiqi keeps busy with his other band, the mainstream crossover rock group Blue Garden (Lanhua), and singer Pangpang is a producer and director at Soma. Drummer Chen Song has an advertising job
“Also, we stopped wanting to perform that often -- for a while there we were playing too much, and we got burned out,” adds Wang.
Formed out of the break-up of Brit-rock group Lunar Eclipse (Yueshi, formed 1994) in June 1998 by Wang, Chen, and Pangpang, Crystal Butterfly was one of the most active of Shanghai’s “second generation” of rock bands in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their tight, hard pop-rock songs, regular gigs, succession of demos and public repute inspired subsequent generations of bands with an idea of rock’s possibilities. They signed with Beijing’s New Bees Music in November 2000, but their album, “Magical Mystery Tour” -- and their trajectory with it -- was then put on ice until 2005, during which other groups deservedly crowded into the top.
Pangpang points out that the biggest change now is the ubiquity of the computers and the internet, allowing bands to record and distribute their songs more freely. “The motivation has changed, for us an album was all we could do. Plus the environment: there are more fans and they are more natural, viewing rock as normal entertainment … bands now are more relaxed in their attitude and towards music, more open-minded.”
“’Youth is Invincible!’” cites Wang Wenwei. “Young bands see us and are like, ‘The old farts still haven’t died!’ It’s great, they’re great, we’re all in this together.”
Crystal Butterfly joins Jason Faulkner, Mushroom and BIZ onstage Friday, 20 November, 8:30 pm at Mao Livehouse Shanghai’s Grand Opening. Admission is free.
Mao Livehouse Shanghai: 570 Huaihai Xi Lu, behind Red Town and near Kaixuan Lu and Hongqiao Lu 淮海西路570号, 近红桥路
