Chongqing's music scene is smaller than Beijing's or Shanghai's, and it makes up for it in volume. The city has a long history of amateur music-making in the factories and universities, a large student population, and a temperament that suits loud, direct rock music. The result is a scene with a handful of venues, a set of bands that play across the country, and audiences who come to participate rather than to be seen.
The venues
The anchor is a livehouse in the old city that has been running for many years, with a capacity of a few hundred, a stage at one end, a bar at the other and a sound system that is much better than the room suggests. It programmes Chinese independent bands on tour plus local acts, in a mix of rock, punk, folk, post-rock and electronic music, generally four or five nights a week. Beyond it there are smaller bars with a stage, art spaces in the converted factory districts that host occasional shows, and the university venues where student bands play.
What the scene sounds like
Chongqing's own bands tend to be guitar-driven, with a taste for the harder end of Chinese indie and a strong folk and dialect strand that draws on the city's own music - the work songs, the river culture and the dialect comedy that is popular across the country. Bands here tour on the same circuit as the rest of China, so a group you see in a small room on a Thursday may be playing a festival in another province on the weekend. Lyrics are generally in Mandarin or the local dialect; the music works without the language.
Practical notes
Shows usually start around nine and finish before midnight, and tickets are cheap and sold online or at the door; weekend bills with a touring name sell out, so check listings during the week you are in town. Venues are in the older districts and the converted industrial areas, a short taxi ride from the centre, and the last metro of the night is a limitation worth planning around. The rooms are small, dark and loud, there is usually nowhere to sit, and nobody will mind that you do not speak Chinese - this is one of the easier parts of the city to be a foreign visitor in.
