Pitching it just right

When Liang Heping went to British pop group Wham!'s concert in Beijing in 1985, he had never heard of the name, like most of the audience that night.

"It felt as if most of the audience were watching a peep show. When George Michael encouraged the audience to clap to the beat with him, and when some performers came down the stage to dance among the audience, few people reacted to them," recalled Liang, who was beginning his career as a rock keyboardist at that time.

Wham! was one of the first Western pop groups to perform in China since China opened up to the world in the 1980s. The embarrassing scene Liang described was later included in a documentary film titled Wham! in China Foreign Skies.

Almost 20 years later, Liang went to another concert in Beijing, Whitney Houston at the Olympic Sports Center Stadium, only to witness another embarrassing scene. Houston performed at a venue with just 60 percent of the seats occupied. While she tried her best to lead the audience to sing along with her, few did.

"It seems that Wham! came to China too early, while Houston came too late," said Liang. "In the former case, Chinese audiences were not ready yet for such kind of music, and in the latter, Houston's music had already become outdated."

In the 1980s, Liang would go to the concert of every visiting Western group, because there were so few of them. In the 1990s and 2000s more and more Western pop musicians have performed in China, but Liang believes that the Chinese market for live pop music is still not up to international levels.

Paul Simon and Bjork performed in China in the 1990s, but both failed to attract much attention. Besides the barrier of language, the difference in terms of music aesthetics prevented most Chinese from enjoying their performances, according to Liang.

"In general, the Chinese are a melody people," said Liang. "Paul Simon has begun to adapt more rhythmic elements in his music at that time, while Bjork's music was too experimental for most Chinese audiences."

The recent Rolling Stones concert in Shanghai in April 2006 can be considered a success. They performed to an enthusiastic audience that filled the Shanghai Grand Stage, though the top class of tickets cost as much as 3,000 yuan ($385). However, more than 90 percent of the audience were foreigners.