Photo: YACHT @ Yue Festival in Shanghai, China by Abe Deyo.

GETTING THERE: The European tour with Architecture in Helsinki ended in Dusseldorf. Kellie, Cameron, Haima, and I stayed in a business hotel near the airport together, while Sam and Gaia stayed in a hotel downtown before spending their days off in Italy. Gus, Jamie, James and Pauline flew back to Australia before another AIH tour starts in the US, which unfortunately I won't be on -- I'll be back in Europe for a month of more touring! AHH! I MISS YOU GUYS!

Back to the story.

I woke up after sleeping in; the dudes had already gotten up and were calling me from the lobby to say goodbye. I got ready and made my way to the airport where I would be spending upwards of eight hours before my flight from Dusseldorf to Dubai to Hong Kong would leave. I travel and tour light, with only a small roller suitcase and a backpack, but I didn't feel like roaming around Dusseldorf on my own so I just decided to go deep at the airport. This would prove to be one of my more epic battles with boredom, loneliness, and frustration with battery technology.

THE STORY: So how did I end up touring in China? How does that even happen? MySpace. I got a MySpace message. A girl named Megan Malone from Omaha, Nebraska moved to China in June and wrote me a message telling me I should come to China. I said "I would LOVE to, but how do I even do that?" She wrote back a month later and CC'd a guy named Abe who was apparently putting putting on shows in China and bringing bands from the US to tour. Megan had done some deep internet detective work and found Abe through an ex-pat message board or something. Abe got stoked on YACHT and the rest is history.

HONG KONG: I really didn't know what to expect from China. Honestly, I didn't know much about it at all before going there. I didn't know anything about Hong Kong at all. I ended up having to fly into Hong Kong to get a mainland China visa instead of going directly to Beijing, which forced me to cancel shows in Beijing, and for that I'm super sorry! I promise I'll be back soon. Getting a mainland China visa while on tour in Europe proved to be pretty difficult. Anyways, Hong Kong blew my mind. I don't love comparing or dumbing down places and experiences to movies, but I couldn't help thinking of Blade Runner a lot while in Hong Kong. I mean, look at this skyline. I'd left my camera in the US on the Dirty Projectors tour somewhere, so I had to buy a new one. Luckily buying electronics in Hong Kong can be a pretty cheap affair, and documenting this trip felt very important to me. We walked around, took the double-decker trams, bought amazing glutinous rice based desserts, and ended up going to Hong Kong Disneyland!

SHANGHAI: We took a train across the border and into mainland China after I got my tourist visa and flew from Shenzhen to Shanghai. I was worried about crossing into mainland China with a tourist visa even though I was basically going to China for the sole purpose of "business" and I was to leave the country with more money than I came in with. The border crossing was completely painless and quick. Canada has something to learn from China. WHO CARES IF SMALL BANDS PLAY IN YOUR COUNTRY AND GET PAID? The next day I played at the Yue Festival, a big festival that happened in Shanghai's awesome Zhongshan Park. This was the first year for the festival and apparently stuff like this doesn't really happen in China, and there isn't really an indie or smaller than BIG TIME scale music culture. I felt totally honored to be in China in the first place, and to play a show like this on top of that was really awesome. I played right after Talib Kweli and right before Ozomatli. After Talib Kweli played I was totally nervous. My time slot was perfect, but dude ended with such high energy that I wasn't sure if I could keep it going! Luckily this was the kind of festival that only had two stages and none of the acts overlapped, so everyone that was watching Talib Kweli walked directly across the grass and watched me. The crowd was rad! So much screaming, a pretty good Q&A, and lots of dancing. It seemed like the crowd was mostly made up of foreigners rather than locals, which was a surprise and a bit disappointing, but nonetheless it was an amazing show!

The next night I played in a tiny bar called Logo Bar and I produced more sweat than my body has ever produced, ever. I don't know how, but something like 230 people came to the show and there is no way that more than 100 could comfortably fit in the room. Everybody was on the small stage and the sound was totally fucked up but it didn't matter. After the show everybody spilled onto the street and the cops came to make sure everything was alright. I sat down outside and created a remarkable puddle of sweat on the concrete.

Here's my Flickr Set of photos I took in China.

DOCUMENTATION: There were tons of cameras around, and I mean tons, but I've yet to try to seek out photos from the shows other than ones on Flickr. Here are some of those:

Here's some YACHT video people shot from the Yue Festival show via YouTube:

THANK YOU: Thanks so much to Abe for getting me over there, working everything out, and being such an all-around rad host. Thanks so much to Megan for creating the spark that burnt my face off! We're already planning a second China tour for spring of 2008, this time with more dates and a tour crew tentatively including Bobby Birdman and the Juice Team DJs. LOOK OUT!

DAYS OFF: I've been home for a couple days now. I helped save The Ultimate Blogger Season 3 and left Portland to come hang out with Claire at her art residency in Oysterville, Washington, a tiny coastal village across the river from Astoria, Oregon (my hometown) and on the Long Beach Peninsula. This is where I am right now! It's amazing. I'm going to work on new stuff for the European tour that I'm leaving for in 10 days, and start working on some new musics. See you later!

Truly,
Jona

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