Shanghai, China
I don't know whether it's insomnia, jetlag or just the general state of Chinese television but they don't half have a whole world of weird on in the early hours of the morning. Disturbed and unwell from a mixture of exhaustion and last night's dinner I end up awake and flicking through 70 channels of sheer insanity including histrionic soaps, non stop adverts, a synchronised JCB digger 'ballet' and relentless light entertainment including China's Got Talent which has a British Chinese Girl who yodels to mass applause and a pageant involving the Queen and Prince Philip.
The most amusing of all seems to be Juziee Pop, a gameshow full of day glo drama and the campest contestants on the planet. All in all it's the most bizarrely materialistic TV of any country I've seen, making American television seem positively spiritual by comparison.
I must have fallen back into a doze because I wake up again at 7am with the TV off and the alarm sounding its usual unwelcome clarion summoning me to breakfast. Already downstairs are Alex and half our party, bags packed and ready to go, and some other Western guests at a nearby table.
Turns out it's Peter Murphy and his band, with the dark legend himself looking distinctly ordinary in the dawn light. Like us yesterday they have an early festival soundcheck to contend with and we all get talking, offering tips on what they can expect.
Mel and Olga are hurrying us along, forcing us on board a shuttle bus in pouring rain, much to our bemusement. We presumed we'd be back on a big coach for our long drive back to Shanghai, but we set off with all our gear stowed around us and travel right into the heart of Hangzhou in the kind of rains that seem positively biblical before stopping in front of a random building at 9am
Seems that we are now transferring between buses but our new transport is nowhere to be seen. It's all gone a bit Pete Chong! In the torrential downpour everyone huddles together for a fag while I explore the building behind in which an art exhibition is taking place and children are painting paper fans. Opposite us is a coffee shop so we all wander across there, and then traipse further up the road getting drenched to find a little shop to buy water from a wizened old man.
Finally at 10am our transfer bus arrives and a German death metal band called Krypteria alight to take our shuttle bus to the festival, while we take the coach back to Shanghai. Mel cannot understand why nine exhausted English people are less than pleased to have been forced to get up so early only to stand around for an hour getting soaked, and we can't understand how the Chinese run their logistics so ridiculously inefficiently.
There's stress, tiredness and tension as we transfer luggage between vehicles, getting thoroughly drenched in the process. Finally we set off and with two and a half hours to kill Alex sets up a little
interview section at the back of the bus and Josh, Lee and Andy take various stints chatting to him as we travel.
After an hour we stop at a motorway service station for a 'comfort break'. While everyone else sparks up I wander round the little supermarket, fascinated by the items for sale including Waxi
Meatbone, Phoenix's Claw Of Tiger Skin, Bittern Fragrant Pig Hoof and many other delights that don't even warrant English translations.
Next door to the supermarket is a souvenir shop where I buy a pretty little Chinese tea set for a
bargain price. It's a lot more unwieldy than a fridge magnet but will look nice gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. It's a lot more authentic than the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the fluorescent mall with a large Chinese flag draped over the balcony. We take advantage of it and grab a quick shoot with the band draping it round their shoulders before re-boarding the coach and driving for another two long hours, most of us trying to grab some shut-eye on the way.
Shanghai starts to reveal itself as a typical urban sprawl of flyovers, apartment blocks and huge swathes of traffic. Finally we pull up outside our hotel, the Hanting Inn, a distinctly 3-star affair, under a flyover in the built up district of Qunhuan Pu Lu Wan, but right opposite tonight's venue.
There's just thirty minutes to check in, dump bags and try and charge my blackberry before a new bus arrives at 2pm. This one is to drive us around Shanghai for the photoshoot that was due to happen tomorrow but which is now impossible as the promoter has booked early morning flights for the band to Beijing without consulting anyone.
I've arranged for the bus to take us to the Yu Gardens in the old part of Shanghai for the ideal photo opportunity of the band in front of Chinese pagodas, a shot we hoped to get yesterday in the
festival park but were denied by the police and Tone's poor time management. But John and Andy decide they want to visit guitar shops first as Andy has only brought three of his favourite guitar picks with him and John is convinced he can pick up a Les Paul or Gibson at a knock-down price.
I disagree with the plan but John is insistent so off we go to Jinling Rd, home of a vast array of music stores much to the confusion of poor Olga who is trying to make all the arrangements for us. We go into various shops but none of them have the right kind of guitars for John or plectrums for Andy so all nine of us walk up and down the road fruitlessly until we call time on this escapade and try and get to the Old City for the shoot. We have just 50 minutes left before soundcheck by this point.
The driver takes us a roundabout route parading up and down the Bund, Shanghai's colonial riverfront where we need to come later for a nighttime shoot of the jawdropping skyline but which is not on the agenda right now, and in typical fashion we get stuck in traffic.
By the time we get to the Old City we have just 20 minutes left and so a mad dash through a smelly, bustling, noisy, chaotic maze of streets past hawkers, food stalls, pickpockets and women chopping up fish on the street ensues until we are faced with a large pagoda outside which hundreds of locals and tourists are all elbowing each other to get out of the way in this densely-packed pressure-cooker.
We have just five minutes to get some 'Chinese colour' before we all race back to the minibus and head for the venue. It's now 4pm and no-one has eaten since 7.30am. Tired, hungry and under pressure we're all starting to fray at the edges so I ask Olga to arrange food to be delivered to the venue. A quick consultation reveals none of the band want Chinese food after last night and the service station earlier has provided inspiration, as they all request KFC bargain buckets.
Mel is waiting for us at the venue - the Mao Livehouse - and as we load in the KFC delivery arrives. It's devoured in seconds and by 5pm soundcheck is under way. However the local equipment is not up to scratch and so the backline is in disarray. Alex, John and I slump in the dressing room utterly shattered while the band try and sort it. After a while Darrin comes back and he and Alex find a quiet spot to do the final interview. John and I discover sofas in an empty bar next door and get 20 minutes kip before the sound of Andy's amp roaring into life disturbs the silence.
Eventually at 7pm soundcheck ends, having taken over two hours, and we all pile into a new van and head back to the Bund for photos in front of the lit-up skyline as dusk falls. This is the money shot, the band in front of a dynamic new China, and to everyone's credit the results are stunning, the fatigue and stress of earlier disappearing into the dramatic night sky. Once we're all done we hand cameras to Olga and pose for a group shot as a souvenir of the trip.
As we return to the venue, Luke warns that the gig tonight will be especially loud due to the acoustics of the room so I nip across the road to the hotel to grab the earplugs I kept from the plane. Upon opening my hotel room I find a stack of call girl cards pushed under the door. Shanghai surprise! How do the pimps know which rooms Westerners are in? Seems like the hotel is in on the whole thing. What kind of place is this?!?
At 8.30pm the band take to the stage and rip into opener 'Demons', followed by a blistering oldie, 'Two Thousand Eight Hundred'. Even with foam earplugs rammed deep into my ear canal they are deafeningly loud but the Chinese crowd love it.
An hour later we're all in the dressing room winding down and having a beer, swapping tales and anecdotes of life on the road and other bands before Mel magically appears, like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben, and tells us he knows a local bar for us all to go to. The band all need to shower and change first so we head back to the hotel and while they're freshening up Alex and I head into the minimart next door to see if there's any food we can get, the hotel not having anything remotely like room service. Dinner tonight turns out to be cheese crackers that taste like custard creams, a can of Diet Coke and some water. I feel like a student.
Fortunately the bar Mel leads us to later on is a little more enticing. Down some local alleys we find evidence of old-style Shanghai with some pokey bars including a little speakeasy playing jazz called the Widow Of Tibet. We climb some wooden stairs to a little chillout space overlooking the alley and someone orders a sheesha pipe.
It's a very cool place to spend a few hours and while everyone else orders Jim Beam and coke I raise eyebrows by having a Cosmopolitan. One glass is enough for me and I switch to soft drinks while everyone else starts racking up the bourbon and Jagermeisters. There'll be sore heads in the morning but that doesn't matter - an acoustic guitar is produced and before we know it, it's 2am and we're being presented with an enormous bill!
We lead them all back to the hotel with the band deciding to carry on the party in one of their rooms, cracking open yesterday's rider of Jack Daniels. I retreat to the safety of my bed, hoping to get some sleep before saying goodbye to the guys in a few hours as they head on to Beijing. I don't think they'll be too happy at their wake-up call!
