New York, Meet New Pants

"Anyone who recalls a time when China was a conformist society where everyone dressed alike should cast their gaze toward the band’s keyboardist, Pang Kuan, as he delivers ["Sex! Drugs! Internet!"] in tight, Pop Art–inspired trousers while dancing spastically," I wrote about Beijing band New Pants in this week's Time Out New York.

In their first New York appearance (on Monday night at the Mercury Lounge), New Pants bandleaders Pang Kuan and Peng Lei turned that on its head when they opened the show sporting Mao jackets and shaking hands in front of a projection of the Mao portrait across from Tiananmen Square.

It's fitting for the 15-year-old band, who like to mess with our notions of Chineseness. When the jackets came off, Peng Lei wore a shirt with the "double happiness" character (囍), a symbol often seen at weddings and that the band uses on their T-shirts. Pang Kuan also runs Bye Bye Disco, a shop on Beijing's trendy street Nanluoguxiang ("Bye Bye Disco" is also the name of one of their hits), from which he's been selling Feiyues for many times the original price since well before hipsters in the West discovered the cheap and classically Chinese canvas sneakers.

They've never been my favorite Chinese band, but with their brand of new wave, supported by dancing, projections, and crazy costumes, they killed it in New York. The audience was mostly Chinese—which is funny because in Beijing the crowd is nearly all foreigners.

Check out part of their performance of "Bye Bye Disco"—with signature dance moves.