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Home > Atlanta Music Scene > Archives > 2008 > April > 08 > Entry
When Athens met China
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blue Flashing Light (l-r): Joshua Schwarber, Ian Schwarber, JJ Bower, Adam Monica and Ryan Cattie. Photo: Chris McKay for ConcertShots.com. Stylist: Kim Singer.
“China was absolutely fantastic,” says Ian Schwarber, frontman of Athens’ band Blue Flashing Light. He and his band mates recently returned from a mini-tour of China, where they performed in Beijing and at the annual International Peach Blossom Festival in Chengdu from mid- to late March.
The anthemic rock quintet was selected to perform at the festival by the Atlanta-based US-China Cultural & Educational Foundation.
Schwarber was blown away by the response from the audiences. “I would come out and start clapping and they’d all start clapping with me,” he says. “We certainly had the experience of a lifetime.”
“It’s so humbling,” Schwarber says of the enthusiastic response the band received. “You might think your head could blow up over there, but in reality you know you’re returning to America where you have to work…to put people in seats, so you just enjoy it.”
In the village where the peach originated, Schwarber even received a peach blossom crown from the daughter of the local mayor. The crowning denoted that she would be amenable to a proposal of marriage. Schwarber graciously declined, and adds that the mayor was apparently none too keen on the match, either.
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