The Way of Slow Travel Articles, tips, and stories about Slow Travel
Remember my atrocious evening at Microfabrique last February? At that time, I had sworn off the electronic music scene in Shanghai, disgusted by people forcing me off a table because I wouldn’t pay 1000 RMB in alcohol, so that morons who didn’t care about music could drown it by playing Chinese dice.
Yeah, that experience had left me quite bitter.
Anyway, yesterday night, defying all my bitterness, I decided to go check out a new microsession at Tanghui, a cool bar outside the jaded old bar strip, 5 minutes away from the studio. It took Akufen, a fellow Montrealer and highly respected minimal techno artist, to draw me out.
I went in expecting a shitty experience… And I was pleasantly surprised.
The crowd, although mostly consisting of expats, was respectful of the artist, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the show. Some moron played dice for 10 minutes, but I guess somebody told him to shove the dice up where the Sun don’t shine, because I didn`t hear a single die roll after that.
The crowd was not exactly as cool as the mostly Chinese student crowd of Mutek Beijing, but the overall vibe was excellent, thanks to awesome visuals and audio.
I went there with a few friends (all but one of them from Montreal, interestingly enough), and the illusion of sitting in a trendy St-Laurent bar listening to electronic music was perfect. The performance itself was very good and made me happy and nostalgic for the Montreal scene at the same time.
So… I guess small miracles can happen, after all. Small, micro-electronic miracles.
