A white lie to win the crowd over

"This next song is about bullies," I told the crowd who stared back at me like I was talking in some kind of coded language used only by German U-Boat commanders. The band launched into the track - a two-and-a-half-minute number about schoolyard revenge - and far from tapping their toes, many members of the mostly Chinese audience either frowned or danced awkwardly. We were not performing the kind of saccharine sweet music that atonal cab drivers moan along to, we were playing rock dammit! And while I had visions of initially unresponsive listeners suddenly being converted to the shrieking of guitars and chest pounding thump of drums, the reality was somewhat different.

Admittedly we were playing at a restaurant-slash-club opening and the all-girl group before us pretended to play woodwind instruments while a CD played as a backing track. In one excruciating-to-watch moment, the CD skipped and it became clear that no sounds were coming from the girls' instruments. It was tough to witness but to the group's credit they just smiled through it, and what's more, the crowd didn't appear all that concerned by this musical fraud. In fact, the girls actually played three sets. Three! And in a strange and hilarious twist, the CD that the group was miming to came from a Chinese group that the drummer from our band used to play in. It's a small town, people.

When it came our turn to perform I felt like a politician who was just about to announce tax increases to disgruntled voters. We had seven songs in our repertoire but the club owner wanted at least a 60-minute set. At my calculation that left about 35 minutes to make up and even at my most chatty I had only enough anecdotal material to fill up maybe 5 (and that's including all of my knock knock jokes). With a big gulp I proceeded to croon over layers of rumbling riffs and manic beats. As the first song finished there were a few sympathetic souls that offered scattered applause but after the second track I had to say "thank you" to remind the shocked punters that the song had ended.

That's when the Emcee joined us on stage. The alarmingly perky chap asked us individually about our countries of origin and a brief personal history. I was trying to remember things from the few economic lectures I attended at university just in case the smiling host quizzed me on Keynesian theory. Thankfully, he just wanted to know the meaning behind each song we would perform. This is a highly unusual practice for rock shows, I thought, but in order to save face I obliged. The first song in our set is a sunny number about a witch burning, however, when faced with an interpreter and an opportunity to win over an audience, I thought a little artistic license was called for.

"That first song is about the West's materialistic obsessions and how one's soul can be compromised by frivolous personal ambition," I told the Emcee.

It took a little while for him to translate this message to the crowd, and then it came: our first true round of applause for the evening. After that, some even found it in them to do the funky chicken.