From Liverpool Sound City to the Great Escape and graduating onto Glastonbury, the rock band, No Party For Cao Dong (NPCD), who made quite a statement last year in UK’s live scene, just released their latest single “Same Old, Same Old” after teasing it in May via an innovative livestream concept, which featured an interactive gaming aspect where fans could vote for plot turns in the live action show.
Amidst the chaos created by the coronavirus, No Party for Cao Dong 2020 stadium tour plans were cancelled, incidentally allowing for extra studio time to work on new recordings which were already in the pipeline. “Same Old, Same Old” subtly dropped on June 26, quenching the fans’ thirst. The idea of “change is the constant” is nested in the stirring bass, refined guitar and the balance of a casual male drawl paralleling a smooth female sound in the vocals. The sync-worthy, dreamy rock spills with hints of blues and classic guitar of an evolving band whose music deftly reaches an explosive crescendo.
Often nicknamed as “No Tickets for Cao Dong” due to how fast their shows sell out, the band have only ever played “Same Old, Same Old” live. Many fans may not be familiar with it unless they’ve tuned in to NPCD’s new multiple-choice RPG livestream series that ran from May 20-23 on their official YouTube channel. Titled We All Love Our Moms 5.0, the livestream was a series of four-episode shows in which actors performed live according to fan decisions. Shot from a first-person point of view, the audience became a character to whom the actors were telling their struggles and making their wishes.
During the interaction, multiple choices appeared on-screen for viewers to vote on in the live chat. Poking fun, playing God or ruining lives, the audience decides and the narrative follows, sealing the characters’ fate. The story explored the song’s idea that the only predictable thing is how unpredictable life is. The last episode was concluded by the single as the ending theme that kept many fans guessing at a release. The innovative RPG livestream garnered high engagement with “Likes” from over 98% of the audience who participated, in which half were non-subscribers.
Bouncing between grunge, punk, rock and disco, Wood Lin (vocals/guitar), Chu Chu (vocals/guitar), Sam Yang (vocals/bass) and Fan Tsai (drums) broke out as No Party For Cao Dong in 2015 when their debut EP was sold out within a day of release. During the 2017 Golden Melody Awards, Billboard mentioned them as the first band in the history of the award to walk away with both Best New Artist and Best Musical Group in the same year in addition to winning Song of the Year from their debut album The Servile. 40,000+ physical albums were sold, despite only being available in indie stores and at live events, and the album was streamed in the hundreds of millions. NPCD has sold out international tours all over Europe, North America and Asia.
You can keep up to date with them here https://nopartyforcaodong.com/
