Dalian Post-rock

Dalian's underground music scene is sadly lacking, but one bright spot in the city's musical landscape is the post-rock group 惘闻 (Wang Wen), which has been around for over a decade. 

I was overjoyed to have a chance to see them play last night at the newly-opened Hertz Bar (opened, in fact, by one of the band members) after a tour that included Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Chengdu.  The Chinese rock/indie-rock/post-rock/whatever-kind-of-rock scene involves too many noisy, not-so-enjoyable shows, so I was very pleased that I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Wang Wen play.  Their sound isn't particularly new...actually, it transported me right back to high school, when I listened to the bands that have inspired Wang Wen's sound, like Mogwai and Tortoise, but what they played, they played well, and I really liked the layers added by including some what sounded like piano, violin, melodica, and chimes here and there in their instrumentation.  I couldn't quite see all the band members from where I was standing, but I assume their pianist/4th member was responsible for those nice touches. 

Out of a moral duty to support the arts, I even bought their new album L&R.  I bought too much bad Chinese indie music when I was in Beijing in 2008 and then regretted it, so that's saying something. 

The crowd was almost all Chinese, as far I could tell, and there were some excited fans head-bopping and swaying along, which is great!  China needs more of this.  The last show I saw in Dalian was a Swedish post-rock group, PG Lost, and it was also a 98% Chinese crowd - a breath of fresh air from the expat-crowded Beijing music scene.