SmartShanghai | Boys just wanna have fun

Boys just wanna have fun

By Georgia, Jul 13th, 2007 | In Nightlife

Drum and base lives and it is making damn sure Shanghai knows it. The 'death knell' to the genre announced by d&b guru Fabio in the late '90s seems to have been simply a trick of the ear. While Europe has a diverse and enduring drum and bass scene, and a revitalization of the sound is being seen in the various American metropolises, in Shanghai drum and bass has become synonymous with one lady.

Dj Siesta moved with her husband and d'n'b know-how to Shanghai from Hong Kong three years ago. Approached by Bon Bon with a six-month plan to bring some big name drum and base to the city, dj Siesta has had an instrumental role in the development of the d&b scene in Shanghai. While most expat juglists would kill to see any one of the names Siesta has brought to Bonbon (Pendulum, Goldie, Fabio) the traditional crowd is not Siesta's target audience: "If you look at the pictures from when Goldie played Bonbon, there was hardly a Chinese face in the crowd." This is a trend Siesta hopes to change and the slightly terrifying cover policy at Bonbon ("Always Open Bar! Drink til you drop!") is designed to drive local clubbers through the door in droves.

And what about that cover policy? Is the open bar concept helping or hurting the development of d&b in Shanghai? Of course, it is often the case that the performers themselves are overshadowed by the reputation of the Bonbon club itself, its managerial policies and its frequent transformation into a teenage wasteland as the night wears on. For her part Siesta argues that the cover deal is not simply about people getting so drunk they can't see but rather designed to "bring the people these artists want to play for through the door" : Chinese fans, and indeed future fans, who would never get the chance to see these names in their natural habitats. Love it or hate it, Bonbon is sitting on an economically viable formula and its enabled Siesta to bring in some of the most exciting international names in the genre to play for local kids.

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