Yeah Yeah Yeahs in Beijing

After months of speculation the US indie rockers Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs have confirmed for the Modern Sky Festival to be held October 2 to 4, during the five-day break Beijingers get for National Day holiday. Yet another festival, yes, and this one is happening in Haidian Park up in the university district – next week’s Beijing Pop Festival is happening in Chaoyang Park, the city’s largest, in the embassy/business district.

No figures or arrangements for getting the Yeah Yeah Yeahs here have been disclosed – one imagines the Grammy-nominated New Yorkers don’t come cheap - but Modern Sky have gotten a lot of criticism for engaging in vanity lao wai (local slang for foreigner) projects, engaging foreign bands for gigs and recordings in China which have no sustainable impact on the development of the local scene. The money, says critics like That’s Beijing’s Berwin Song, would be better spent finding and releasing quality local artists.

Anyway the Golden Week (as Chinese call the National Day holiday) will be made more golden this year by the YYYs  appearing on a mostly-Chinese line up of Modern Sky bands: New Pants, Hedgehog and newcomers My Little Airport. Problem is even though there’s more foreign bands coming – put it down to the pre Olympic excitement – there hasn’t been a dramatic growth in the number of decent Chinese bands. Festival line ups often look remarkably similar.