A rather strange concert experience in Beijing
Our own Taylor Swift? and should we cry at concerts?
I had nothing better to do the other day, so I spent some time contemplating one possible equivalent of Taylor Swift’s concerts in China (which is actually worth thinking about, I guess). In the Chinese pop culture, which band or musician has a similar weight as Taylor Swift, and is worth describing as a phenomenon locally?
The closest I can think of is my teenager hero band, Mayday — female empowerment aside (as it’s an all-male band and they are all in their 40s…)
As a Taiwanese rock band, Mayday has been active in the Chinese-speaking world for more than two decades. Their songs have accompanied me through my most jaded and clueless middle school and high school days — a somewhat shared memory by many peers who were also born in the 1990s (I saw many 80s and 00s fans too). For a long time, people were saying, “You must go to Mayday’s concert once in your lifetime.” Unless you had fancier American idols to worship, Mayday might be post-90s generation’s first idol (although they were accused of lip-syncing at last year’s concerts, which was one of the viral entertainment news stories in China that year).
Coincidentally and luckily, I got a ticket to one of their recent concerts in Beijing. But one question has puzzled me since then.
This time the concerts are housed at the major stadium for the Beijing Olympics — a venue that essentially means you’ve make it. The sky was cloudless following a brutal afternoon storm. It felt good; part of it was that going to a concert after work made me feel like I was one of those responsible adult who was still capable of having fun. The stadium was only 30 mins away, anyway.
Fans of Mayday are just as recognisable as Swifties. I was on the metro when I started to recognise more fans of Mayday, who usually wear blue accessories. The subway exit was entirely congested. “Chaoyang Masses”, the voluntary public network of informants and volunteers in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, were directing crowds. For once, they seemed to be benign.
Mayday sang pretty much every song I was waiting for, and hey, I was with one of my best friends, A. However, shockingly, I didn’t end up crying as what I had been telling friends, which has left me confused. I felt something when they sang the classic song “Stubborn”, but that’s it. It was more like a gigantic karaoke for me. I am sure I cried last time at their concert in 2012.
I was not alone. A friend of a friend also claimed that she had been processing the question of why she didn’t cry. She flew all the way from Shanghai. Maybe she was just like me, had been collecting emotions and hoped for them to get a proper release all at once. She said she is worried that she may have become numb. I have the same worry. Mayday’s songs are all about courage, self-empowerment and pure romance. Have we become numb? As we age, are we not as easily moved to cry hysterically? Or actually, we don’t have bad dating stories recently to relate to their romantic songs? Or it is healthy, as it may mean we have other outlets, and therefore the concert has become something purer?
I might never be able to know. I didn’t end up having a crying video that I could post to my Instagram story. That’s very okay, anyway.