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Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet in BeijingPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn on Monday, November 6, 2006 at 9:38 AM
Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee, fresh from their tour of Tibet, are playing in Shanghai tonight and in Beijing on November 10 and 11, 2006. This Danwei Music interview with the band was recorded on a hutong house rooftop as they jammed with Illiqi and Hujilitu, two members of the Beijing-based Mongolian folk band Hanggai, before they left for Tibet. Sound was recorded with on camera microphones.
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Comments on Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet in Beijing
That's an awesome clip. Wish I was in China to watch them!
A very special concert - wonderful atmosphere. Danwei and others should note that it is entirely unacceptable to tell people to move their tables and/or sit down to accommodate your cameras. If you haven't got a good view then get taller tripods.
excellent!
The concert at Star Live was incredible. Fantastic atmosphere, Mongolian guest stars, cello, fiddle and banjo solos - brilliant.
I'm glad your other commenters so far enjoyed the show at Star Live, but everyone I know (= people who've seen Abby on her previous visits here, I suspect) thought it kind of sucked. They're a small band with a small sound, and they really need a small venue. That place overwhelmed them: the show lacked any intimacy, any real feeling.
And Bela Fleck fans will no doubt heap abuse on me for saying this, but I feel he seriously unbalances the band. Ben and Casey are great players too (perhaps greater), but they ration their soloing, and serve the stripped-down style of a simple folk band. I found Bela's extravagant (but musically empty, emotionally lifeless) virtuosity to be intrusive, incongruous - and, at times, downright tedious.
I've seen almost every show Abby has done here, and I think the one last year at Dashanzi's South Gate Space was way the best - not least for the fantastic jam session with IZ afterwards. (Although the venue that suited her best was perhaps the even smaller Sanwei Bookstore tearoom, where she played one of her first Beijing gigs a few years ago.)