Jose Gonzalez
RMB 150.
8pm. Yugong Yishan (6404 2711)

Last night’s snow didn’t stop hundreds of Beijingers from heading over to Yugong Yishan to catch Swedish indie icon, José González. The crowd paid little attention to the soothing melodies of the acoustic guitar/harmonica playing opener, Wu Zhuoling, choosing instead to catch up with one another over a drink in anticipation of the main act. However, the crowd hushed in expectant silence as the lights dimmed and Gonzalez - who proved not to be a big fan of on stage chit chat, saying very little throughout the show aside from the occasional polite xie xie - dove right into his first song.

Kanye West
RMB 280-2,000.
7.30pm. Workers' Gymnasium (6501 6655 ext 5033)

So Kanye West finally got his act together and made it to Beijing this past weekend, putting on an energetic, fantasmic, hour and a half light-show of a set at Workers’ Gymnasium Saturday night. The evening started off promptly at 7.30pm, with a rap group from Taiwan opening for his Westness, and receiving adequate applause at that. From what we’ve gathered here at the Beijinger, that group was not the originally advertised Will Pan.

Last night Avril Lavigne became the first performer to give the Wukesong Stadium a work out as a live music venue and, according to reports in today’s Beijing papers, the Olympic Basketball venue saw quite a show. Lavigne kicked off the performance, the last of her six-city tour of China, with her popular “Girlfriend” and the audiences responded by rushing forward to the VIP area in front of the main stage. Three songs in to the 70-minute performance, things became a little chaotic with barriers in front of the stage being bent out of shape by crazed fans. The stage lighting was turned off and the concert was forced to pause for eight minutes as staff standing on the stage asked the crowd to return to their seats. After fans had returned to the stands, the Canadian punk-pop princess continued on with the show. Reports suggest that the crowd control problems stemmed from more than just excitable fans but were also exacerbated by the poor lay out of the venue. The crowd simply filled the large amount of empty space at the center of the stadium and little security had been set up to prevent them from doing so. You can take a look at a video of the chaotic scenes here.

Sep 26-27
AIR
RMB 700, advance RMB 550.
8pm, 11pm (after party). Yugong Yishan (6404 2711)

With their first ever shows in China, Air also happened to be a very fitting, along with the equally placid Benson and Jarreau, choice of first foreign act to perform in the post-Olympics, post-Bjork era: relaxing, intimate and ever uncontroversial.

Sep 4
George Benson & Al Jarreau
RMB 380-1,280.
8pm. Beijing Exhibiton Theater (6835 4455)

Jazz legends George Benson and Al Jarreau put on a fantastic and energetic show for a full house last night at the Beijing Exhibiton Theatre. Al Jarreau started the show by singing Elton John’s Your Song, before living up to his reputation of being the Acrobat of Scat and wowing the crowd with his scat routines - including a nice little riff on the word Beijing. He also won applause by dropping a few lines of Chinese into his on stage banter and charmed them even more when he invited them to start scatting along with him.