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SmartShanghai doesn’t normally do event reviews, preferring instead to resign the past to the effacing tides of oblivion, but we thought we’d make an exception in this case. In the interests of transparency. Here’s a review slash round-up, and on behalf of SmartTicket, apology for last night’s Eels and Nouvelle Vague concert. If you purchased your ticket through SmartTicket, scroll down to the bottom to find out how you can get your pre-sale ticket refunded.

***

Short review is thus:

Eels concert was a bummer, man. A huge bummer. First band, Nouvelle Vague, played. They were just alright. Blah, blah, blah. And then we all waited around for a few hours for the Eels to come on but they never did. Their equipment didn’t arrive from Beijing in time and the show was called off. Bummer.

Longer review:

We (the proverbial we) showed up at 9:30pm and the concert was completely sold out. SmartShanghai’s ticket delivery service, SmartTicket had been handling pre-sale tickets for this concert (priced at 200rmb), and we had sold out of our tickets the Friday before – several hundred tickets – and the venue had also sold out of theirs. A thin number of tickets (I think about a hundred) were reserved at the door for walk-ups (these were 260rmb), but these were all gone by 9:30. Mao Livehouse had a sentry at the door who was blocking entrance for people without tickets, and three of my friends that I went to the concert with couldn’t even get in because it was completely sold out. They were turned away. Guess they were lucky. Whilst wrangling with the doorman, a hirsute older gentlemen brushed past us. (“I’m in the band, man. I’m in the band.”) That was Mark Everett, otherwise known as “E”, and it was the only sighting of him last night.

Upstairs, the first band, French six-piece act (two chanteuses, drummer, acoustic guitarist, bass, drums) Nouvelle Vague, were doing their slinky cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk To Fuck”. Their gimmick is all covers -- they take new wave, punk, and alt rock tunes and re-arrange them into French “chansons”, which is a sultry, sexy, loungey kind of musical style, playing off the rhythms of the French language. Like Serge Gainsborough or Edith Piaf. Or even Leonard Cohen maybe. The band is the brain child of two of the dudes, Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, and since their inception in 2003 they’ve been rotating female lead singers. Last night in Shanghai, they had two female leads who were fully embracing their role as smouldering French lounge singers. They had an interesting sort of crypto-lesbian stage show going. They were hugging and gyrating, slow dancing, holding hands, and generally slinking around, going for titillation in a retro mod lounge kind of way.

The venue was pretty full at this point. It was a sold out show, but, credit to the organizers, they didn’t oversell it and it never felt completely rammed. Probably around 900 people in attendance would be an accurate guess. Crowd at this point was taking Nouvelle Vague pretty well. A big portion of them were there specifically to see the French act, and looked like they were having a pretty good time. The great success of this act, however, is on their recorded material – they’re on a bunch of famous movie soundtracks and TV show soundtracks – and it’s probably the best way to enjoy them. Or at least in a smaller, more intimate venue. In a big venue with a big crowd, you sort of lose the subtleties of their re-arrangements and it sounds a bit like straight acoustic covers of famous songs, rather than unique mod-ish, chanson re-arrangements of said songs. If you’ve got them on your headphones you can appreciate all the subtleties and silences and tongue-in-cheek moments of their music. Probably not so much in a big venue with a big crowd.

Anyways, amongst the songs that I recognized was their version of “Blister in the Sun” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Another one was a Blur song and another one was “a famous French punk song”. They finished to some mild enthusiasm from the audience and then left the stage.

And then the stage lights started flickering, which meant we were supposed to muster up some energy for an encore. Pavlov’s dogs. Shanghai was game for that, and cheered them back on the stage for two more. We (the royal we) were in the bathroom for the first encore but the second was PiL’s “This is Not A Love Song”. More applause. Exeunt Nouvelle Vague.

Then shit went south.

At about 10:40 or so a message on the big screen at Mao Livehouse said that the band was waiting for their equipment to arrive and it would be an hour before Eels would be able to play. Still okay at this point. Big-ticket act like that, you expect some stage set-up time and plus we had a pretty good solution on how to kill time: store beers.

11:30pm rolls around and the situation is looking a bit grim. Nothing is happening on stage, no equipment is being set up, and it’s starting to look a bit dire. A friend was working as a maverick roadie for the show and he confirmed that the band was indeed present, but their equipment was still in transit. They had just played in Beijing, and due to the sheer weight of their gear – apparently Eels were traveling with their own consoles (that’s consoleSSS, plural), guitar amps, drums, horns, and over 20 guitars – it was being driven down.

Situation gets even more dire at around midnight, when a guy came out and tried to explain the delay to the crowd. The band was there, they were waiting for their stuff to arrive, and they would play when it got there. At this point they started issuing refunds and the door and it was a mass exodus out of there. It was a Tuesday night, and the majority of people started thinking about work the next day. A real novocain-for-the-soul searching moment. At that point it was a question on logistics. Looking at this skeleton of a drumset, it would have taken them at least an hour for them to set up, even if they used the house console, meaning the show would have gotten underway at 1am or so.

12:30 rolls around and the rumour starts circulating that the band have themselves done the math, and left the venue. Shortly after that a big lad comes out to the mic – a band manager or tour manager or whatever – and announces that the band would indeed not be playing. “We’ve got nothing to play on. Sorry.” Some juiced-up bro standing next to me started booing and calling for an acoustic set, alas, he forgot cardinal rule number one: band managers tend to not be open to negotiation and don’t particularly give a shit if you boo them. Intractable lot. The last remaining die-hards file to the ticket booth to claim their refund.

We waiting around until 1:20 or so, and at that point the last people were getting their refund and heading to cabs and Kedi mart.

All in all, it was a pretty well-behaved crowd, all things considering. It was a Tuesday night, so maybe people weren’t hitting the booze too hard. Even past all the waiting around and final cancellation, it was more a sense of disappointment rather than anger. No riots or anything.

It was a bummer, man. It was just a bummer.

Lastly, our good thoughts go out to the promoters. Despite the outcome, if people like that didn't even try then Shanghai would be a more boring place. Good for you dudes. Chin up.

EELS TICKETS REFUNDS

Lets talk refunds.

1) If you enjoyed Nouvelle Vague and don’t feel like claiming a refund: you are a ray of sunshine on this earth and we wish you massive amounts of happiness and success in your lifetime. May you get presents you weren’t expecting in the mail and all sorts of nice things. Your good karma is a bursting beacon of hope for us all.

2) If you got your refund last night at the show: we’re all good then. Sorry about the show. Stuff happens.

3) If you were unable to obtain your refund last night and purchased tickets through SmartTicket: check your email. The one you used to order your tickets. All the info you need is in there.

Please note: SmartTicket is only able to accommodate refunds if you 1) ordered your pre-sale tickets through us and 2) have the ticket stubs. We cannot make a claim for your money without the ticket stubs. Again, we need your stubs to get your cash. There is just nothing we can do if you don't have the stub.

On behalf of the SmartTicket service, please accept our formal and sincere apologies about the concert. Although the situation was out of our control, we hope the experience won’t dissuade you from using SmartTicket in the future. We’re trying to offer the best possible ticketing service we can, working subject to the vicissitudes of the music biz in this country, and we appreciate your patience during these little… episodes.

So yeah… go see some acrobats. They never cancel. You can set your watch to that shit. It’s terrific.

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