The Boys
Undercover: Live in China
(2015)
01. TCP [2:01]
02. Terminal Love [3:18]
03. 1976 [3:11]
04. Weekend [3:09]
05. I'm a Believer [5:08]
06. You Can't Hurt a Memory [4:52]
07. Punk Rock Girl [3:09]
08. Global Warming [2:42]
09. I Don't Care [2:08]
10. Brickfield Nights [3:10]
11. First Time [3:44]
12. Living In the City [2:17]
13. Sick On You [3:28]
The Boys arrived in Shanghai in January 2015 to embark on a nine-date national tour to promote their new album "Punk Rock Menopause" only to discover that the tour had been cancelled by the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
The official reason given was "crowd control and security issues" in the wake of the Shanghai stampede at a riverside New Year celebration attended by around 300,000 in which 36 people were killed and 49 injured. The Ministry of Culture had sent letters to all the venues on the tour telling them that if The Boys played there, their premises would be shut down with immediate effect.
Undeterred, the band set off on a cultural/culinary tour of China and along the way managed to play three secret underground gigs - promoted entirely by word of mouth and carefully avoiding official Chinese chat rooms and social networks such as Weibo. In addition, the band gave multiple interviews, were the subject of a one-hour documentary on a national TV channel and recorded a live album, which will be released later this year.
LETV invited the band to come to the TV studios and record two songs live on Friday 23 January 2015. The Boys agreed to their proposal but informed LETV that they would like to play a full 70-minute Boys' set to a small live audience. Despite being aware that The Boys had been banned from playing any live gigs in China by the Ministry of Culture, LETV bravely agreed to this proposal. The TV programme was subsequently aired in China after the band had safely left the country.
This is a clip from a 55-minute TV programme made by Chinese TV station LETV which features UK punk band The Boys playing undercover to a secretly invited live audience interspersed with excerpts from a studio interview.
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