Mao Conquered as Grimes' Empire Spreads

Grimes - Mao Livehouse, Shanghai

Claire Boucher, the 25-year-old Vancouver native behind Grimes, recently gave an interview in which she claimed "the Grimes thing is getting kind of out of hand... getting too big". The multi-instrumentalist also hit out at the industry figures who oversaw last year's mammoth tours of America and Europe, dubbing them "evil".

Grimes: Frustrated?

Any possible disaffection with the music industry is certainly well hidden, however, as Grimes arrives in Shanghai as part of the city's JUE Festival. Instead, the all-conquering Canadian songstress turns in a show rich in energy and technical flair. Tracks from last year's beguiling Oblivion are combined with older songs from Boucher's spell on Arbutus records, along with some intriguing new material, in a confident performance. This is more than enough to excite an enthusiastic, diverse crowd at the wonderfully-titled Mao Livehouse.

After a support set from Ami Dang, which seems to consist of a single delay pedal echoing the interminable pain of a migraine sufferer, Grimes takes the stage to rapturous applause. Opening number 'Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)' stands out on Oblivion as a hypnotic testament to despair and obsession, and the song's brooding power allows Grimes to enrapture the audience from the outset.

Grimes: Dazzling

In the wake of this opener, other tracks from last year's 4AD debut are warmly received by a nearly-full Livehouse. Former single 'Genesis' is delivered with surprising force, with Boucher lurching maniacally side-to-side behind her arsenal of keyboards and synths. Crossover hit 'Oblivion' sparks obligatory moshpits, with the crowd spurred on by a handful of local dancers who take the stage.

However, Grimes is perhaps at her most impressive in the show's intimate moments. The looping vocals on 'Skin' betray a deep longing for connection, while 'Vowels = Space and Time' is transformed onstage into a slow-paced, claustrophobic heartbreaker. 'My Sister Says The Saddest Things', meanwhile, is a welcome throwback to Grimes' more oblique early work.

Boucher, in a move which suggests she is becoming more comfortable in the manic world of her musical alter-ego, concludes a fine performance by showcasing new material. The unnamed final song is a surging, three-minute blast of surprisingly violent electro-angst which reduces the front rows of the audience to a frenzy. Grimes stands back and nods her head in silent approval. Maybe 2012 was just the beginning.

FOUR STARS    

The Shanghai Derby, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Shenxin

Upon seeing a yellow cockerel on a blue jersey, your mind may be flooded with fond memories of Gallic footballing genius. You will recall the surgical penalty-box precision of Michel Platini, the dazzling dribbles of a young Franck Ribery, or the silken touch of Zinedine Zidane. Be happy, dear reader, because you have never witnessed Shanghai Shenxin.

Platini: nothing to do with Shenxin

Shenxin recently adopted a blue kit, cockerels and all, as part of a rather radical shift in club identity. Having enjoyed eight moderately successful seasons in Jiangxi province as Nanchang Bayi Hengyuan Football Club, the club's directors decided to uproot the club some 450 miles to Shanghai. Wimbledon fans thought they had it bad. Not content with infuriating football fans in Nanchang, Shenxin managed to wind up traditional Shanghainese soccer powerhouse Shenhua FC by changing the colours of their jerseys to match Shenhua's own blue kits. Shenhua fans responded in kind by nicknaming the city's new team "the wandering cocks".

It was against this tumultuous backdrop that the first Shanghai derby of the season got underway. Still feeling the effects of St. Patrick's Day celebrations, your correspondent arrived at Shenxin's Yuanshen Stadium with only ten minutes to spare before the scheduled kick-off time. This being a Chinese sporting event, I had grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take to secure a genuine match ticket. I was informed by a number of supporters that the game had sold out, and the ticket office was indeed closed. After some haggling on the part of a more skilled Mandarin speaker than myself, we were able to get a touted ticket for 80 RMB (about eight pounds). When we finally took our seats, however, it was a surprise that the sold-out stadium was perhaps two thirds full.

Sold-out stadium with chain smokers in foreground

Even more frustrating than our seated position behind four middle-aged chain smokers was that fact that we had missed what turned out to be the game's only goal. Internet video highlights inform me that Michael Marrone, Shenxin's twice-capped Australian international, dwelt on the ball too long and presented Shenhua the chance to launch a swift counter-attack. Shenhua's Syrian forward Firas Al-Khatib did well to hold up play before sliding a pass to Patricio Toranzo, who supplied a neat finish. 1-0 to Shenhua.

This early goal set a pattern for the rest of the match to follow, with Shenxin's sloppy errors when in possession allowing Shenhua to break at pace. That these errors were forced by a defence marshaled by the 40-year-old Rolando Schiavi only highlights Shenxin's lack of potency in attack. Even more embarrassing for Shenxin was their profligacy from set pieces, with the crowd groaning as free kicks and corners were repeatedly walloped over the heads of attackers and out for throw-ins.

It was ironic, then, that the nearest Shenxin would come to an equaliser would be from a dead ball. Brazilian striker Kieza, who had hitherto done little, connected with a floated free kick to plant a firm header past Wang Delei in the Shenhua goal. The offside flag was raised, however, with replays suggesting a close but correct call. This is refreshing in China, where the standard of refereeing sometimes compares unfavourably with the British Sunday leagues.

The only other major refereeing call in a tense second half was more straightforward, as Shenxin's Xu Wen saw red after sliding in on Schiavi with the sort of two-footed horror lunge usually accompanied with a cry of "Keanoooo". Wen trudged off the pitch with the taunts of Shenhua fans, who made up the majority of the crowd despite playing away, ringing in his ears. In a slightly more amusing accompaniment to a chant which roughly translates as "Shenxin filthy cunt", a number of Shenhua's ultras also pelted the departing defender with rubber chickens thrown from the stands.

Shanghai Shenhua's "Blue Boys" ultras

Shenhua, while not particularly impressive on the night, always looked in control of the match and saw out the game with relative ease. Their fans will be impressed with Schiavi, who while possessing Davie Weir-class pace, nevertheless reads the game well and made a number of important challenges. Wang Delei looked assured in goal, while Al-Khatib looks to have added energy and guile to the forward line.

Shenxin, despite their derby-day defeat, can at least take solace in finding a new fan. While their relocation, complete with changing kit colours, represents everything wrong with modern football, I found the squad's collective ineptitude to be rather endearing. This team, which only escaped relegation from the Chinese top-flight due to Dalian Shide's financial implosion, frequently struggled to string four passes together against their local rivals. Their strikers are lightweight, their midfielders prosaic and their defenders blessed with goldfish attention spans, but it is Pudong's team. And as long as I reside on the East bank of the river, they shall have my support. The tainted memories of French footballing perfection are a small price to pay.      

A loveletter to Don DeLillo

Dear Don,

I remember when I first clapped eyes on you. It was one of those Sunday afternoons of humid drizzle and public transport and I was in Darlington waiting for someone or something. In Waterstones, I was scanning the rows of fiction, seeking out a new paperback to distract me from a degree in English literature. I spotted Underworld, 827 pages looming mid-shelf and mighty.

I picked it up, fingers stretching to feel all that weight in my right hand. The blurb was enticing, drawing me in with promises of 'gloriously symphonic storytelling' and a 'panoramic vision of America'. The subject matter, too, got me going: sports, stand-up comedy, AIDS and Vietnam. The myth of rebirth through violence. Then I saw the price: £13.99. Fuck that.

I tried to walk away. I took up with other writers, buried my desire beneath the lightweight novels of David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. They were cheap floozies, microwave meals when I needed a banquet. Satisfaction eluded me.

I bought Underworld eventually, after the longing grew too sharp to resist. I was floored by what I read. Even in the opening chapters, a reader can feel the novel moving through the gears, an unnerving momentum building. In the story's most affecting passages, particularly those set in the housing projects of New York, the richness of the prose can be unbearable. That such poetry, describing an urban netherworld ravaged by poverty and disease, can be sustained for such an extended period of time is shocking. More impressive, however, is the orchestral scope of the plot: dividing like a Pershing missile to touch upon different decades, continents, generations and genders. The novel transports us to a lost world of grand narratives and superpowers, moral certainties and nationwide paranoias. The Cold War is not so much recalled as replayed in flawless stereo.

While your other novels lack this same ambition, they nevertheless capture the spirit of the age with similar veracity. Mao II evokes the directionless mass hysteria of the early 1990s, dragging the reader from New York to Beirut via London in the process. Cosmopolis, published in 2003, manages to foresee the global financial crash from the backseat of an investment banker's limousine. White Noise, meanwhile, mocks the omnipresence of advertising, as Hitler Studies professor Jack Gladney's personal crisis is regularly interrupted to make room for television and radio commercials.

This conflict between the private and public realm is a recurring feature in many of your novels. Soren Kierkegaard encouraged us to 'Reveal the eternal darkness that broods deep inside you', and you frequently craft characters who struggle to suppress their ugliest instincts. That some of them do manage to uphold their mask of sanity instills your work with a strange kind of hope. We may all be pigs, but some of us at least care for our sows and piglets.

We need this hope now more than ever. We're in deep trouble: economic stagnation, political apathy, mass unemployment, Seth MacFarlane hosting the Academy Awards, Bret Easton Ellis' twitter account.

The world really needs a Don DeLillo novel in 2013.

I need a Don DeLillo novel in 2013.

Yours,
Thomas McMahon