Sophie Yau

Trip

Fire Fall Down

Eric Lau

The Xcerts

Chinatown rocks to the City Showcase Sound

02/06/2009

On Friday, May 8th, Chinatown stepped up and took its place among London's top gig venues when it hosted its first ever outdoor music stage as part of the City Showcase festival.

The action centred on Macclesfield Place and Gerrard Street, where up-and-coming acts Trip, The Xcerts, Firefalldown, Sophie Yau and Eric Lau played a three-hour gig to a diverse audience of music fans, evening strollers and Chinatown locals.

First up on stage and setting the evening's East-meets-West tone was British-Chinese singer-songwriter Sophie Yau, who broke off halfway through her stunning guitar-based set for a chat with the audience in Cantonese. Next, City Showcase pumped up the volume for Filipino-British rock act FireFallDown who - as well as their unique brand of melodic funk-rock - managed to bring a Filipino national TV camera crew to Chinatown with them.

London hip-hop producer and DJ Eric Lau supplied an array of soulful tunes between each act, spinning tracks from his acclaimed new album New Territories on the decks at the back of the stage.

Next up were MTV favourites The Xcerts - a trio of youngsters who not only wowed the crowd with their intense, 'distorted pop' sound but also went the extra mile by getting more 'up close and personal' with their audience than most acts. Vocalist Murray Macleod hopped into the crowd mid-song with a snare drum on which he proceeded to bash out a duet with drummer Tom Heron back on stage. An unconventional move - but it went down a storm.

Finally, it was the turn of the hotly-tipped Trip to rock the crowd with a sound that vocalist Alex Child describes as 'punk grime rap rock delight'. The group let rip with a belting set that included new single River Phoenix (currently all over the radio), only letting up to give a shout-out to Gerrard Street's Golden Harvest restaurant for treating all of the acts to drinks and eats.

The three-hour gig was over all too soon - but it marked a great first for Chinatown, and we look forward to seeing more events like this in the future.