Now, FOUR Years in China

Last May, I made a post about the nightclub scene in Beijing titled Clubbing in Beijing along with my confession that I have a kid-like appreciation of electronic dance music.

That post was in response to seeing Paul Oakenfold, who by many measures is probably one of the top 3 DJs in the world. If you don’t know anything about DJ-ing at this level, it’s not about playing others music…it’s about creating their own music through original composition combined with remixing their own compositions with other’s original compositions. Get it? What’s even more impressive is that they remix this on the fly and will imperceptibly modify the “energy level” of the music to keep a “connection” with the audience and keep them on the dance floor.

Last week, I was treated to #1 - Paul Van Dyk who did a 3 hour set at club Banana in downtown Beijing. It was a spectacular show despite my being exhausted from a tough, sleepless week and then going progressively deaf between 1 and 4 am as the Paul’s, smooth and hypnotic trance music reached massive, convulsive, pulsing crescendos. Like riding a roller coaster or spending the day on a boat, the feelings stay with you for a day after the event.

The crowds were pretty thick and moving around the club was nearly impossible. I shoved my way onto the dance floor just long enough to get an up-close sense of it all. The floor had at least 3 inches of spring and when the crowd was bouncing in sync, I had visions of the Tacoma narrows bridge collapse.

This was the largest crowd of westerners I had ever seen in one place. There were groups of Chinese there but even they (remarkably) have personal space limits and opted to stay far from middle of the club. There was even a whole room full of Chinese playing a dice game which is popular in the bars here. It seemed like a waste of 100 RMB when other clubs, who aren’t headlining a superstar-DJ are only charging 30.