Weekend Live Music Reviews: Chiren, Sunny Song

Chiren

While many of you spent Friday headbanging at crowded gigs like D-22’s final show, or the charity concert for retired soldiers at Yugong Yishan, one of that latter show’s most nuanced bands performed best for a smaller (but no less captive) audience at Jiang Hu Liveshow Bar on Saturday night.

What had that crowd smitten was the dramatic range of Chiren's sound. The half-dozen Beijinger bandmates jammed shoulder to shoulder on the venue’s stage – tiny compared to the gaping performance space they'd occupied at Yugong the night before. The more intimate Saturday performance dramatically shifted in tone again and again – from sullen lullabies to climactically swooning choruses, often within the same song – making Chiren’s set highly unpredictable.

The band has apparently been heavily influenced by Peking Opera. The sudden upswings in tempo, the harmonizing between singer, pianist and guitarist, the way each singer pants and pleads his way through the lyrics – all showcase their flair for the dramatic, and ability to convey emotion. Other bands might have gone over the top with such a bag of tricks, but Chiren weren’t showy with these elements, turning to a new surprise before the last one could become a distraction.

Some of those tricks fell flat. A few moments featured electro drum beats or bursts of faux feedback from what sounded like a pre-programmed Casio – which grated at an otherwise organic, dynamic, refreshingly no-frills show.

Sunny Song

Another folk alternative to this weekend’s punk and heavy metal domination was Sunny Song’s back-to-back sets: Saturday at What Bar and Sunday and Jiang Hu Liveshow Bar. Both performances were sweetly mellow. The band left the crowd with serene smiles on Saturday; the next day, when they played to an unfortunately near-empty room, those few attendees seemed equally soothed.

Despite that dismal Sunday attendance, the band played a solid two-hour set. Lead singer Sunny sported a black fedora, stomping and swaying through breezy lyrics and simmering accompanying riffs from guitarist Summer. This contrasted with the band’s first six songs, which featured a very different onstage setup.

Sunny was absent for those initial numbers; in his place stood tranquil young songstress Wang Yiping. Her swelling falsettos ended nearly every verse, displaying an impressive range that never seemed to settle into its groove. Sunny’s singing was even more erratic at times – softening a few beats before his bandmates finished with a crescendo, and vice versa. But, midway through the set, everyone seemed to fall in step, the singing weaving in-between thunderous drums and a coy baseline that had even more dip and swagger than the troupe’s frontman.

Photos: Courtesy of Chiren and Kyle Mullin