Gig Recap 现场回顾: Live Music Under Bridge 桥洞音乐会 (2022.06.25)
Gig Recap 现场回顾
Live Music Under Bridge 桥洞音乐会
- Suzhou Creek
2022.06.25
As someone who depends on the music scene in more ways than one, saying the last few months have been rough is an understatement. Even with the majority of Shanghai out of lockdown, normalcy is still a long way away. Bar patrons and creatures of the night flood the streets every weekend without a home, scurrying from one roadside park or curb to another - playing some twisted sad version of Whack-a-Mole with the police. For the people whose livelihood or sense of being depended on the income, structure and communal aspect of the music industry, it’s even worse. An existential crisis on a mass scale.
But music finds a way. Desperation eventually leads to innovating, adapting and just fucking going for it. Musical nomads wander the streets of Shanghai in search of nirvana - a haven where their musical eccentricities can roam free. And in the case of last weekend- that ended up being under a bridge along Suzhou creek.
Bringing back fond memories of the Zoomin' Night gatherings at the Sanyuanqiao underpass in Beijing - albeit a hundred times more humid and delirious - musicians of all ilk found refuge alongside the river this past Saturday. Some brought guitars; some their saxophones; and yes even a homemade didgeridoo. Heck - a soda can was turned into an instrument at some point. Inspired, impassioned, deranged and elemental - performers followed whatever groove they hit upon and followed it to its logical end, or at least till the police came around - who repeatedly and half-heartedly tried to put the kibosh on the evening's proceedings. In the end, music prevailed. A taste of what life was like before the lockdown. A taste of what life was like long before the pandemic.
Shows are coming back Shanghai one way or another - whether or not the city is ready for it we’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks to Si Zhe 司哲 and Yu Fei 宇飞 for the pictures! And big warm hug to organizers Ground Control for wrangling together this gathering!
Words: Will Griffith
Photos: 司哲 Si Zhe (top half)/宇飞 (bottom half)
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