Reviews
Music
The Go! Team
The Star Live, Beijing Friday 29th June
One of the The Go! Team nearly missed the trip to China because his car was bogged in southwest England. "I was worried I wasn't going to make it, I got stuck in the field in my car, seven hours with the wheels spinning," said guitarist Sam Dook. This was after the band had just appeared at the Glastonbury Music Festival, which turned into a muddy quagmire after days of rain.
Thankfully, Dook did manage to get his jalopy moving in time to join his bandmates for shows in Beijing and Shanghai in the fourth of the Bacardi Sino Sessions.
According to the group's frontwoman, Ninja, the six-piece didn't know what to expect from Chinese audiences.
They shouldn't have worried. The faithful turned out en masse to Star Live in Beijing, a venue that because of its layout needs a good crowd to appear full. Up near the front of the stage, hundreds of sweaty patrons squashed together as the Bristol band belted-out their hip-hop, rock and electronic hybrid.
To keep things interesting The Go! Team's members like to swap instruments. For example, the guitarist in one song will be on drums the next (the groups usually has two drummers playing at any given time). It's absorbing to watch, because with so many things happening simultaneously, there's always the possibility that the show might derail.
But it's a highly organized chaos and the band's musical formula (a hooky sample, a danceable rhythm, syncopated rapping style etc) makes several of the tracks indistinguishable from one another. Still, the audience lapped it up, even roaring long enough at the end of the set for an encore track. The Go! Team knows how to party, and they do it clinically.
Ben Davey
Event
English books online
Booksdirect.com.cn - an English-language online bookstore, targeting China's expats and elites, now offers hundreds of DVD movies and CDs through a partnership with Warner Brothers.
Earlier this year, Bertelsmann DG China cooperated with Shanghai Xinhua Media and Chaterhouse Booktrader to launch Booksdirect, the first English-language online bookstore in China with an easy interface for customers to order their products.
It offers a wide range of titles - from bestsellers to classics, from business books to children's works and offers delivery to homes and offices in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing.
BooksDirect.com.cn plans to expand the business to other cities in China and further cooperate with more international companies to add German, French, and Spanish literature to the product range. Wen Jiao
(China Daily 07/05/2007 page20)
