Gig Review: Bandapart and Emil de Waal at 4Live, Saturday March 3rd 2007
Zooma has done a great job transforming 4Live into a really decent live music venue from the nightclub that was formerly known as Fabrique. (The website is a bit dodgy as it is almost impossible to navigate!) The stage has swapped places with the bar so it could almost pass as a gym with blackout curtains. It’s great to be able to see and listen to the bands from the second floor.
Tonight’s gig featured two Danish nu jazz bands, Bandapart and Emil de Waal. I previewed this gig earlier and totally overlooked Bandapart, but they are wonderful.
They blend sparse minimal jazz and quiet post rock. Its perfect spaced out music for low key indie cinema, a point that was reinforced by keyboardist and bandleader, Soren Kjaergaard when he introduced their soundtrack for a film that has not yet been made. A song with no words can get boring very quickly if it has nothing to keep you intrigued, but Bandapart gave their set lots of feeling, imagination and atmosphere. Their music makes you want to fly and weep at the same time. They were so happy to be in Shanghai and you could tell that they love playing together. I wish that all live music sould be so passionate. The only downside was that the crowd would not shutup during their quieter songs. I paid 100 RMB to listen to this wonderful band and not to some drunken idiots. Still, I liked Bandapart so much that I bought their CD and I am going to stick my neck out and call them my favourite band of the year so far. They are definitely the finest live band to have played Shanghai since Vialka came here a year ago.
I wish I could say the same thing about Emil de Waal’s set that I was really looking forward to after checking out one of his songs. The music centred on Emil de Waal’s mastery of the drum kit. He is certainly a gifted drummer boy, but his performance was all crash-bang-whallop with no sublety or feeling. Jenny thought his display resembled an ugly fat woman wearing an expensive Versace dress. I just thought Emil de Waal was a boring headline artist who was blown away by the opening support act. The irony is that Emil’s band featured Soren Kjaergaard on the keyboards. Emil’s group just looked like peripheral musicians, employed as working sidekicks rather than as bandmembers working together for a common purpose. They seemed almost as underwhelmed as Jenny and me. We left after four songs.
Bandapart’s wonderful set revived a nagging feeling that I would love to see more low key underground live gigs in Shanghai. It’s also time that my friends in Bristol had the opportunity to play shows in Shanghai. Now that would be something very special!
4Live Address:
The Bridge 8,Bldg 7, 8 Jian Guo Zhong Lu (By Sinan Lu), Shanghai