Respawn Entertainment: Days of Glory

Chapter 958 Chen Hui's Harbor

After watching the video, Bian Lang, who was far away in Europe, decided to find someone to live stream it for him. Although it was around three or four in the morning there, Thor and the new producer Steiger actually responded after he called out in the work group.

Bian Lang's hotel was right next to Hoffman's company. Steig was still working overtime in the company's recording studio on Bian Lang's music, so when he saw the invitation, he immediately replied that he would be there right away. Thor was staying on the same floor as Bian Lang, so it was just a matter of dropping by.

Seeing that Steig was still awake, Bian Lang replied, "Thor and I will go over there; your equipment is better!"

After reading the message, Steiger nodded and replied, "Okay, then I'll go find a place..."

After Luo Lin finished speaking, the large screen behind him began to rise, and Luo Lin returned to the lineup along with the other band members.

After the stage lights dimmed, only a pale blue floodlight illuminated the silhouettes of the band members.

Although the faces are not clearly visible, judging from the outlines, the original keyboard area has been replaced by a piano, and the orchestral lineup is even larger than the previous joystick area.

In the past, people wouldn't have paid much attention to this detail, but after watching the previous seasons of "The Big Band," even rock music novices can basically come to the conclusion that something unusual is bound to happen. When unconventional instruments are used, the arrangement must have some new twists.

Especially those music fans who still imagine rock music to be limited to the four major instruments, now they start to feel impressed but don't understand it.

"French horn, trumpet, and trombone, plus one large violin and two violins. Is this the kind of arrangement lineup a newly assembled band needs?"

The commander was clearly joking, but Chuanzi exclaimed, "Don't you even know who put together this band? With Bian Lang as the core, half of them are from Rolling Stones, plus Luo Lin's voice, will Flying Locusts be able to continue after 'The Big Band' ends?"

These words sounded somewhat discordant, but the commander nodded in deep agreement: "Human nature is complex; it will depend on what choice Rowling himself makes!"

The silhouette of Luo Lin on the lead vocal position, with her unusually prominent bun hairstyle, opened her arms as if to embrace the whole world when a series of unhurried, distorted electric guitar sounds began.

As he slowly raised his hand, the distorted guitar intro gradually faded away, and a deep, ocean-like piano melody began to rise. If they hadn't been there in person, the music fans in the audience would probably have wondered if they had entered the wrong venue, that they were at a classical music concert instead of a rock music competition.

Two bars later, Luo Lin's singing and the stage lights came on simultaneously: "Sweet dreams, swallowed in darkness, have lost too many innocent and helpless souls..."

As soon as Luo Lin sang out, even the fans who didn't want to make any noise and disturb the audience instinctively shouted, "Wow!"

Guo Sichu also felt her ears clear up considerably and began to seriously re-examine Luo Lin, the lead singer.

"Bian Lang's taste is really..." Liu Yao stopped mid-sentence, wanting only to continue listening to the song.

"I don't want to believe it, all of this has already happened..."

You wait anxiously, waiting for your lost loved ones...

My chest is your haven…

The words "My Chest" were sung with an unusually bright and clear tone by Rohlin after he raised his pitch. Combined with the addition of the cello, the resulting beauty was mesmerizing.

In Hoffman's listening room, Steiger, who never gave any comments while listening to music, actually muttered under his breath, "Damn, this voice is so captivating."

Steiger spoke German, which Bian Lang couldn't understand, but judging from his expression, he knew it wasn't anything bad.

Thor felt like he'd seen a ghost. In any case, Rollin's voice had once again overturned his view of Chinese rock: "It's not that there aren't good rock musicians, it's just that we were previously kept in the dark and knew nothing about it!"

Bian Lang looked at Luo Lin, whose leather jacket was open and whose chest armor was faintly visible, and remembered what Hui Ge had said to him when he was drunk back on Earth: "Lang, I'm not bragging, but back then we were really fashionable. If you didn't have long hair and a couple of leather jackets, you couldn't even get in the door. Now a lot of people think we're really outdated..."

After saying this, Hui Ge burst into tears. After sobbing for a while, he continued, "After playing in a band for thirty years, we are gradually being eliminated by the times. How tragic is that? This world is really terrible..."

After listening to this, a young musician who was drinking with Hui Ge raised his glass and said with some emotion, "It's a pity I wasn't born in your golden age. I really hope that all young people like and support rock bands like you!"

What was the golden age of Chinese rock music on Earth like?
Back in the 20s, there was a group of young people who lived freely and fulfilling lives in the world of music.

Everyone says that was the golden age of Chinese rock music, and the Face Band, as one of the footnotes of that era, also left a strong mark on the history of rock music.

More than 30 years have passed, and the Faces band and lead singer Chen Hui, who have experienced the changes in the music industry, have finally stepped out of their comfort zone and are active on various stages, influencing generations of young people.

This is the sentiment expressed by some media outlets after Face appeared on The Big Band. For most music fans born in the 90s and 00s, their first introduction to Face and Chen Hui was through The Big Band.

That summer of 19 marked the 30th anniversary of the Face Band. Chen Hui, the band's lead singer, amazed many young viewers with his performance on the show. In addition to his singing skills, questions such as "How old is Chen Hui this year?" and "Begging for his beauty secrets" also became hot topics.

When it comes to singing skills and vocal maintenance, among the lead singers of that generation, Hui Ge is undoubtedly number one.

Regarding this question, Chen Hui revealed that he studied folk songs for two years under Fu Huiqin, a teacher at the China National Traditional Orchestra. However, Teacher Fu did not regulate his vocal technique according to the traditional folk singing method. Instead, she honed his breath control, pitch accuracy, and sensitivity to emotion over those two years. She often told Chen Hui, "Just sing according to your emotions; only songs with emotion have soul." Chen Hui now recalls, "This doesn't seem like something a teacher specializing in folk singing would teach me." This shows how profoundly Fu Huiqin's individualized teaching approach influenced Chen Hui.

It is probably this professional training that has allowed him to maintain a youthful voice while his peers like Jun Ge, Ding Wu, and Qi Ye have all lost their voices.

When he was a teenager, Chen Hui joined the BJ Youth Music Troupe and became colleagues with Dou Wei. He originally joined the troupe to play the violin, but because he didn't practice much, he couldn't play accurately. However, since the troupe leader liked him, he let him do odd jobs.

During that time, Chen Hui worked as a stage curtain puller and moved tables for people. In this way, Chen Hui did odd jobs while touring with the band.

When Chen Hui was fifteen or sixteen, the band's guitarist gave him a Bon Jovi cassette tape. The first time he heard "I'll Be There For You," he was moved to tears. From then on, Chen Hui began to listen to the works of some foreign bands, and his performances with the band changed from singing Little Tigers to singing Black Panther and Tang Dynasty.

After a year of singing rock in the band, Chen Hui was actually quite successful, gaining some recognition. At that time, his salary in the band was only a little over 200 yuan a month, but the performances he received outside were already earning 1.5K to 2K yuan per show. Sometimes the coal mine art troupe would borrow him to perform, and "No Place to Hide" and "Don't Break My Heart" were some of his best repertoire songs.

Back then, the band's singers, folk art troupe, and dance troupe of young people often gathered together. Once, after a performance, a very pretty girl came up to Chen Hui and said, "You sang very well. You like rock music, huh? Have you heard of Face?"

Chen Hui said, "I've heard of it. There's a song called 'Give Me Some Love' by the characters in 'Huaxia Fire,' and I think it's quite nice."

The girl said, "My boyfriend is in the band Faces. They're looking for a lead singer. Are you interested?" Chen Hui readily agreed and left his pager number.

The next day, one of the musicians from Faces contacted Chen Hui and asked him to meet at the rehearsal venue. During that time, Faces had tried many lead singers but felt none were suitable. When Chen Hui arrived, they simply gave him a microphone and told him to sing along with the band. Chen Hui started singing impromptu for over an hour without stopping, and that's how they hit it off, ultimately making him the lead singer of Faces.

That was in 92. Although Chen Hui didn't smoke at the time, he still bought two packs of cigarettes for each of the three of them.

After joining Face, Chen Hui left the band. At that time, every one to two weekends, the Diplomatic Personnel Hotel would hold a performance, and Tang Dynasty, Overload, Face, and Dou Wei would often perform together, which was later called "Sugar-fried Beans".

In 95, two or three years after Chen Hui joined the band, Face released the album "Instinct of Fire," which sold 70 copies that year. However, Face did not receive any royalties from the album sales. No matter how repeatedly he pressed for details, Chen Hui's answer was always: "BMG gave us some income, but the difference was quite large. I forgot the exact amount, but it was all spent."

In the face of something so unpleasant, everyone might subconsciously choose to avoid or downplay it. But looking back now, the members' dispute with the record company ultimately led to the band being blacklisted. After suffering a great blow, the Face Band decided to take a break and eventually announced their disbandment.

After the band disbanded in 96, the drummer went to work as a sound engineer, the guitarist joined the Yi Band, and San Ge joined the Overload Band. Chen Hui didn't want to stay in this sad place anymore, so he drifted to Shenzhen alone.

Shenzhen summers are extremely hot, and Chen Hui developed eczema all over his back from the heat.

Back then, a small window machine cost several hundred yuan, but he was in dire need of work and did not accept his friend's invitation to perform at a nightclub. Instead, he found a job at the "Apple Jeans" clothing store downstairs from his rented apartment, where he would wear a wig and solicit customers at the door.

Because of this job, Chen Hui came into contact with the clothing industry, and naturally rented a stall in Dongmen Old Street in Shenzhen to sell clothes.

Recalling this experience, Chen Hui said, half-jokingly and half-boastingly, "You know, I had a nickname back then, 'Prince of the Old Street'?" The "Prince's" business was actually quite good, but because the warehouse was robbed during the Spring Festival, and the police report was ignored, he simply stopped doing anything. Three or four months passed like this, and one time Chen Hui fell ill in his rented room and lay there for three days, so hungry that he didn't even have the strength to pick up the phone.

His friend felt something was wrong when he couldn't find him for several days. When he went to Chen Hui's house and kicked down the door, he found Chen Hui lying in bed, barely alive. Chen Hui stayed at his friend's house for half a month and then decided to start performing at various venues.

During his time working in Shenzhen's nightlife scene, Chen Hui witnessed the city's performance venues evolve from dance halls to nightclubs, and from discos to livehouses. After returning to the stage, Chen Hui and his friends formed a copy band called "Red Parrot," specializing in covering classic songs from both China and abroad.

The band ignited the entire audience with their first performance of "Hotel California." At their peak, the Red Parrot Band could play at nine venues a day, and the five members could earn a total of 600 yuan per show. More than which venue they performed at, they cared about whether there was enough parking space for five cars. They were doing quite well in Shenzhen.

As Shenzhen's performance market became increasingly popular, artists such as Cui Jian, Tang Dynasty, Second Hand Rose, War Axe, Fruity VC, CMCB, and Twisted Machine performed there. As a result, Chen Hui earned the title of "Director of Reception Department of BJ Rock Shenzhen Office".

Every visit from his old friends touched him deeply. Once, when his third brother and Gao Qi came to Shenzhen for a performance, they advised him, "What are you doing here? Go back and let's work together." His friends' repeated persuasion planted a seed in his heart, but what truly awakened his determination to go back and pick up music again was a good friend who was both a listener and a benefactor.

This story was also mentioned in Gao Yuan's book. A man surnamed Hu heard Chen Hui sing in a bar and felt that he was wasting his talent. So he disappeared for a month to help him find resources. With this friend's help, Chen Hui returned to Beijing and signed with Taiwan's Rock Records.

However, this signing was still an unpleasant experience. Chen Hui vaguely remembers that it was Christmas Eve. After signing a high-salary contract with Rock Records, he received congratulatory messages from many big-name artists in the company.

After that, Chen Hui went home and buried himself in his writing. A few months later, he found that no one from the company was contacting him anymore. When he went to the company's office on Jinbao Street, he found that it was already deserted. Media reports stated that "Taiwanese Rolling Stones withdrew from mainland China," but no one had informed him beforehand. Recalling his feelings at the time, Chen Hui only used two words to describe them—"despair."

In 05, after Chen Hui miraculously escaped from Tibet and returned to Beijing, he saw an unplugged concert by the band Overload in Dongdan. At the party after the show, his friends mentioned that the "Chaoyang Music Festival" was going to be held and that they would invite Sebastian Bach, the lead singer of Poor Street, to perform. They hoped that Face could be reunited and perform on the same stage as Bach.

“Bach is a big name we all admire,” Chen Hui recalls with excitement.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, ten years after the band disbanded, Chen Hui and Third Brother finally returned to the stage as Face.

When describing this decades-long friendship, Chen Hui said: "Our relationship is like that of Guo Degang and Yu Qian. We are good buddies, creative partners in music, and business partners in managing the band."

In 06, Chen Hui and San Ge officially reformed the band Face, participating in various music festivals and livehouse performances. In 2016, the band released the single "Under the Dome," returning with a completely new lineup after some personnel changes. In 19, Face once again became one of the benchmark rock bands in the hearts of the younger generation through "The Big Band."

Back when Face Band performed "Harbor" on "The Big Band," it was recorded around the time they participated in the show, if Bian Lang remembers correctly. Perhaps what Hui Ge wanted to say at that time was: "Face Band, is my harbor!"

(End of this chapter)