Shanghai finally has somewhere that offers reasonable drinks and quality music. Apart from a tight fit for larger crowds, there seems no good reason to place Plan B on the back burner.

Douglas Williams/Shanghai Daily

First off the After Dark department of Shanghai Daily didn't review Plan B simply because the modest moniker allows for all sorts of jokes and puns.
Plan B is small. On entry, many first time patrons would be forgiven for assuming there was perhaps a door that led into the rest of it or maybe some stairs to go to another level but no, what you see is what you get. Larger crowds may need a plan C.
From every part of the bar, you can see every other part of the bar. Not a common phenomenon in Shanghai bars.
It's a bit like a Big Bamboo that has been through the wrong wash cycle and subsequently come out shrunk: wood, pool and rock. The staff aren't as aesthetically pleasing, but the rock is streets ahead. Where BB is a sports bar with some rock, Plan B is a rock bar with some sport, for those self-deluding enough to class pool and darts as sports.
Plan B is on Yongjia Road right across from where Mao Ming Road S. in all its tragic, faded, gory, glory ends. Plan Z.
Sadly, few places in Shanghai do rock like Plan B does. It's the rock that assaults first time patrons before they've even had time to register the diminutive scale of the joint. No funk, no house, no blues and absolutely, categorically and unequivocally no jazz. And thank goodness for that.
The rock is played helter-skelter from ACDC right through to the Killers, the Sex Pistols to Lincoln Park, the Strokes, Guns and Roses, Kasabian, the Pixies, Bloc Party, even Bryan Adams. I for one had a similar feeling to that of having been camping for a week, limited washing facilities, then coming home and having a shower with some super zesty lemon soap.
As General Manager of Plan B Brian Rice said: "Shanghai is a bit of a black hole musically," and he has a point. Between the rehashed eye-watering Celine, melon twisting jazz, brain numbing house and not forgetting the taxi horns this city can be an audio nightmare.
American taste
Rice, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, chooses the music along with Canadian owners Bruce Bidney and Matt Robinson and it is seldom short of stimulating. Customers with MP3 tunes can play their music too as long as it's rock.
"With three people changing the music, it stays fresh and eclectic," said Rice, continuing: "It's difficult to know what's good and new musically here in Shanghai. You can read magazines and Internet sites, but unless you can hear the music, you can't say," said Rice: "It would be good if there were more rock venues in town. The most common thing people say when they come in here is how good it is to hear proper rock music."
Student style
Considering that of all the musical genres amongst people under the age of 60, rock is the most popular, it's un-nerving how scarce it is in the bars of Shanghai.
"The music is the biggest draw and our prices don't break the bank," said Rice.
"We're aiming for a happy medium between Windows and the 50 yuan (US$6.17) a pint sort of place," said Rice, who has been drinking in Plan B for the past 18 months and managing it for the past four. "I think we've got a sort of local college bar feel, a lot of our customers are teachers and students, about 75 percent are Westerners."
A pint of draft Tiger is 35 yuan. The happy hour is every day from six to nine, buy one get one free.
There is another happy hour on Friday and Saturday nights between 12 and one to ensure a properly drunken conclusion to these crucial days.
Added to that with any form of student or teacher ID, out of date is fine, draft drinks, shooters and standard shots are 20 yuan.
Desperate to escape the States, his Shanghainese Philosophy professor, Dr Peimin Ni, at Grand Valley State University fixed him up with a teaching position in China's biggest city.
"My father mocked my Sociology/Philosophy qualification with jokes about burger and fries to go but managing a bar now I get to give away cocktails for free," said Rice, and he does.
The night Shanghai Daily visited the cocktail de jour was the Spark Plug: an evil concoction involving strong liquor and an espresso. It should have been called Palpitation Central.
"Working in a bar as opposed to just drinking in a bar you appreciate the finer nuances of what goes on behind the scenes. The drink that's served doesn't just appear by magic," Rice the philosopher observed. "I like the community here, one minute I'm hanging out with an intern from Paris, the next I'm playing pool with a teacher from the UK and the next I'm talking with a diplomat from Peru," said Rice the sociologist.
"You meet someone and they tell you something amazing and then the next person you meet tells you something even more amazing, though most of it's probably not true," said Rice the realist.
Seemingly, everybody needs a plan B, but Shanghai definitely needs more bars like Plan B.