September 27-29 - Changsha

Sunday morning, everybody was getting ready to play in Max Club in Hangzhou. With or without a baritone saxophone or double bass. According to our schedule we had to be there at 2 PM. Meeting in the hotel lobby at 1:30 PM. All packed and ready we called our agent to say we were about to leave. "It's too early, make it 4 PM". Okay, no problem. We can wait a little longer. Around 3:30 PM we got a text message saying we couldn't do a thing in Max Club before 5:30 PM. They would call us before that time with more information. Then the final phonecall... The owner of Max Club didn't have the permission to have a foreign band playing in his club during the national week of China. We could hardly believe this was the real reason, but fact is we didn't play that night. Another day off... The best way to forget this day was a good meal and a delighting massage.

The morning after a bus was waiting for us at the hotel to bring us to the airport. A domestic flight took us to Changsha, about 1000 kilometers from Hangzhou. No time for check-in at the hotel we were immediately dropped off at the festival. This 'festival' seemed to be the official opening of a drive-in cinema. The organiser proudly showed us the baritone saxophone. Once again, it seemed to be an alto saxophone... Grrr. And a double bass wasn't even mentioned anymore. Whatever, we came all this way to play. And so we did. It wasn't as comfortable as any other gig we ever had before, but we did what we could and the crowd seemed to like it. Before us a Chinese rockband from Beijing was playing. And yet another surprise... A Ukrainian jazz singer had to play as well. She was told that The Rhythm Junks could accompany her so she didn't have to bring her band. Only we didn't know about that... But we were so kind not to argue about it. So we played three songs with her before we started our own set. It was a day full of surprises, but the most important is that we performed once again.