Tune in To Nugchella This Saturday – Beijing’s Very Own Online Music Festival

As the majority of events in Beijing still remained banned, the capital’s various restaurants, bars and entertainment venues continue to create new ways to bring fun to us at home. This Saturday will see an exciting event brought to you by nugget in the form of an online music festival: Nugchella.

Ahead of the show this Saturday I caught up with nugget co-owner Jen Rao, who is currently in Guangzhou, where she has been managing the launch of nugget’s new location (more on that to follow in the near future), to talk about the upcoming festival.

Firstly, about the name: Nugchella. Jen told me it is intended to be “very tongue in cheek” which started off as an ironic joke but then ended up sticking, as it is after all pretty catchy. I for one am a fan of the play on words. Although, the Chinese name is far more literal, simply being 小块儿线上音乐节 Xiǎo kuài er xiàn shàng yīnyuè jié (nugget Online Music Festival).

Nugchella will take place on Jun 4 at 6pm and you can tune in for the super low cost of only RMB 5. It features nine of what Jen tells me are “Beijing’s best and what we think to be very exciting bands”, one of which is gilded forest, other co-owner David (Dave) Carey’s newest project. Some of the featured bands have worked with nugget through nugget records, others are simply ones that they really love or great bands which their friends are in.

Of the bands performing Jen says that Summer Vapour, a Chinese indie-pop band, are the biggest band they’re working with and are just “really, really fantastic”. You can see all the featured bands on the poster and check the full line up on their WeChat account (小块儿唱片 Xiǎo kuài er chàngpiàn).

The livestream event will last for around six hours, running until midnight with around a 20-minute break between each band, to create a “full on music festival style”. On where the idea originally came from Jen says that they “have been working on this online music festival for a little while now ever since the start of lockdown in May.

Obviously live streaming has become the new thing for a lot of music venues and for a lot of clubs, so we wanted to create our own version of that, but of course, as nugget we always try to do things in our own way. So instead of having it be a completely live broadcast where the musicians are playing or the DJ is playing and then there is a phone capturing the content and it’s immediately broadcast to an audience, what we’ve done is we’ve pre-recorded and then edited the content to create a kind of short film/music video.”

Thanks to a newly installed soundproof door system that basically creates an airlock, they were able to have “full bands come and perform in the space, ones that we weren’t previously able to accommodate and that’s been really exciting”. Anyone who is a nugget regular will know the ongoing issues they’ve had with neighbours, so with the new door system nugget will be able to do a lot more in the space when things open back up without being concerned about disturbing the neighbours. 

The sets that will be featured at Nugchella were all recorded by local videographer Tabris, and the sound recording has been done in house, using the system at nugget, with videos finally edited by Dave. Jen says that the aim was “essentially to try and make [the videos] really moody and hazy, to create a very atmospheric vibe of that nugget feel, with the blue neon.” She adds “we’re pretty proud of the work we’ve done.” Rather than just broadcasting a livestream Jen says they wanted to “push it more as a festival, as opposed to a live stream, just because it’s a little bit different and it’s more of a curated presentation of all of these artists.”

During these times it continues to be more important then ever to support these small, independent businesses and if you can watch and listen to some amazing music at the same time, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me! Plus, there is a good chance this is the closest you’re going to get to a music festival anytime soon, so Nugchella really isn’t something to be missed. If you want to have the whole nugget experience, why not also order one of their signature cocktails or two, from their Weidian store to sip on while you enjoy what is sure to be an amazing show.

Nugchella will take place on Jun 4 at 6pm, scan the QR code in the poster above to reserve a spot, when the livestream starts viewers will need to pay RMB 5 to gain access to the live room. 
 

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Images: Courtesy of nugget