and so we begin unblocking the backlog…

back on the 20th june 2009 we supported joyside, one of beijing’s best bands and members of the older guard of rockers from the north. they play classic-underground-bluesy-pop-rock. they are not a punk band and are not standard bearers for the chinese punk scene. joyside were very generous with stage time – we played for at least an hour in the stifling heat. the crowd was heaving and we brought it. that would have to be one of the hottest nights i’ve ever been inside yuyintang.

here’s fabs warming up before the show.

joyside held the crowd enrapt from the moment they took the stage. their singer, bian yuan, is a star and his poise and bearing is the same whether he is on stage or in a bus queue. his presence fills the stage; as his band rages around him he stands almost unmoving with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. he is the centrepiece of this band’s image – together with akira to his right and xiao hong on his left, they command the room and invite everyone to their party.

as can be seen in these photos taken at soundcheck, akira and xiao hong are both using gretsch guitars, as used by such heroes as chet atkins, brian setzer and george harrison. akira is using a double-cutaway silver jet whereas xiao hong appears to be using either the chet atkins or the black falcon. i can’t be sure but my money’s on it being a black falcon.

and now for a quick look at the gear. xiao hong is running his signal through several pedals, most of which offer distortion or overdrive, or a combination of the two. first up on the left of the picture is a Radial tonebone classic. this is a “vintage overdrive distortion pedal with variable overdrive”. quite good for distortion and overdrive. the next one is the green Maxon OD808 overdrive pedal. this is was one of the earliest pedals to try to emulate the natural overdrive of a tube amp in a compact pedal. maxon are reissuing them to almost identical specs, i must check one  of these out some time. the yellow/orange one is a Boss OD-3 … you guessed it – it’s another overdrive pedal. i think it’s great to see someone using a setup like this. there are so many distortion and overdrive pedals on the market and each one is subtly different. some are great for rolling stones style blues-rock, others are better for a solo that needs to cut through the on-stage chaos. xiao hong is rocking three of them, just think of the combinations…

last in his rig is the Boss RE-20 space echo pedal. this also a recreation of an earlier beast, the Roland RE-201 space echo from 1973. but whereas maxon are still building their green boxes to original specifications, the RE-20 uses newer digital modeling technology to imitate the tape echo flutter effects etc. of the much older RE-201. they have even emulated the old school design. you can compare them below.

and of course there is  the ever present Boss TU-2 chromatic tuner.

akira has a similar but slightly simpler setup than xiao hong. he runs through the obligatory TU-2 tuner then to the Boss BD-2 blues driver pedal. my guess is that this is for overdrive as next in line we have an awesome distortion pedal, the proco turbo rat as used by shou wang from carsick cars. as with xiao hong’s effects, akira also finishes with the RE-20 space echo.