Golden Oldies: Aging Fans Fuel Pop Singer’s Comeback
SHANGHAI — It’s March 1, and after traveling for 11 hours, Zhang Jian finally arrives at Shanghai’s 18,000-seater Mercedes-Benz Arena where his idol — the singer-songwriter Dao Lang — is about to perform. Even though he doesn’t have a ticket for the sold-out show, he’s made the trip anyway.
At a park just a short walk from the venue, he joins the large, excited crowd that’s been gathering here since early morning, waving light sticks and banners, and singing along to Dao Lang’s greatest hits. What sets this crowd apart from a typical pop concert is the sheer number of fans in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Dao Lang — real name Luo Lin — first shot to fame in the early 2000s after his ballads about migrant life in China’s far west struck a chord with blue-collar workers and farmers. His 2004 album, “The First Snowfall of 2002,” sold 2.7 million copies in the Chinese mainland, outselling even Taiwan megastar Jay Chou.
But despite achieving commercial success, the artistic value of his work was largely dismissed within the domestic music industry. Following a high-profile awards ceremony in 2010, during which he was publicly criticized by one contemporary for “lacking aesthetic sense,” Dao Lang mysteriously retreated from the spotlight, producing almost nothing for the next decade.
Now, he’s back bigger than ever. Since the 2023 release of his single “Luocha Haishi” — which has received more than 4.5 million likes on QQ Music, a major Chinese music streaming platform — the 53-year-old musician has been at the center of a media frenzy, with some fans shelling out as much as 12,000 yuan ($1,650) for a ticket to his show.
A key driver of this resurgence in popularity has been older audiences, with fans born before 1980 reportedly making up at least 50% of the crowd at some concerts. As several domestic media have described it: China’s middle-aged and elderly have found in Dao Lang their own Taylor Swift.
“He meets the needs of the times and resonates with the common people,” Zhang, the 60-year-old from China’s eastern Shandong province, tells Sixth Tone. “For me, it’s not just about his music, it’s about him.”
Although his graying hair, deep forehead lines, and glasses make for a serious demeanor, Zhang’s face lights up into a broad smile when he speaks about his idol. He shouts and gesticulates wildly to get his point across amid the loud, singing crowds surrounding him.
“For over a decade, they tried to silence him, calling his music ‘uncultured.’ But it didn’t work. It’s like trying to hold a buoy underwater. Even if you press it down for 50 years, the moment you let go — snap — it pops right back up,” he says, adding for emphasis: “You can’t cover fire with paper forever. Sooner or later, it will burn through.”
Like others in his generation, Zhang feels he has found a like-minded, anti-mainstream voice in Dao Lang’s grassroots music. Older people appear to deeply relate to the folk singer’s tumultuous journey and resilience after being sidelined by the mainstream, as well as his genuine, humble personality.
When asked what impressed them most about the singer, many of the people that Sixth Tone spoke with outside the Shanghai venue gave the same answer: his charisma.
Dao Lang is generally known for having a low-key style. On stage, he usually wears a plain black T-shirt or white button-down shirt with casual pants, and doesn’t use backup dancers or elaborate props, while his lyrics and melodies are straightforward.
Shen, a fan in her 60s, says: “I don’t like celebrities for their artistry; I look at their personality. Dao Lang represents a code of conduct, a way of being among our generation.”
“In the tidal wave of reform, we’ve never been the ones in the spotlight,” Shen adds. “But what we do have — our integrity, values, and unwavering ideals — that’s what our generation is most proud of.”
Rise and fall
Dao Lang was born in 1971 in Zizhong County, in a poor part of the southwestern Sichuan province. He grew up surrounded by music: His parents had jobs with a state-sponsored performing arts troupe — his father as a lighting technician and his mother as a dancer.
With the advent of China’s “reform and opening-up” policy in the late 1970s, Dao Lang was exposed to pop music from Hong Kong and Taiwan for the first time. At 16, he dropped out of school and began traveling around southwestern China, performing in dance halls as a keyboardist. He married young and divorced younger: His first wife left him when he was 20.
In 1993, Dao Lang met the woman who would become his second wife, Zhu Mei, a Han Chinese from the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Two years later, the pair settled in Zhu’s hometown, where Dao immersed himself in the local Uyghur music scene, collecting and learning old songs popular in China’s northwest, including both folk songs and socialist anthems.
It’s also where he got his stage name — a pinyin transcription of “Dolans,” a Central Asian ethnic group known for their traditional music and dance.
It was under this new moniker that Dao Lang released his first nationwide hit: “The First Snowfall of 2002,” which made him a household name on the Chinese mainland.
The song laid the foundations of Dao Lang’s unpretentious, non-nonsense public persona. Fans loved his unapologetic embrace of Chinese folk and traditional music and didn’t mind his willingness to sell out for a hit; critics, many of them established musicians, complained he was “coarse” or “tacky.”
In 2004, shortly after the release of “First Snowfall,” the influential musician Gao Xiaosong remarked that Dao Lang’s popularity represented the failure of China’s “scholar-official class.”
“We’ve tried to guide the public with high-quality production, but Dao Lang’s success precisely proves the failure of this elitist leadership, and the absurdity of society itself,” Gao told domestic media.
Gao’s complaints didn’t deter Dao Lang, who continued to release hits throughout the 2000s. But he had a hard time translating that commercial success into industry cachet.
In 2010, the popular singer Na Ying vetoed Dao Lang’s inclusion on a list of the best musicians of the 2000s. “If you want to talk about sales, I’ll shut up.” Na said in a clip that later circulated widely. “(But) he has no sense of aesthetics.”
Shortly afterward, Dao Lang withdrew from the public eye.
Return of the king
The award-winning singer-songwriter resurfaced in 2020 with a new album, “The Book of Plucking Rhymes,” and has since released three more, each drawing deeper connections to Chinese literature and religious traditions.
The single “Luocha Haishi,” which was released in July 2023 and features on his latest album, “There Are Few Folk Songs,” was inspired by a classic from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), with the lyrics interpreted by some as a veiled critique of his detractors and the corrupt nature of the entertainment industry. The artist refused to comment on any interpretations of the song.
Last August, the musician livestreamed a free concert that drew 52 million viewers, with devotees showering him with virtual gifts worth almost 26 million yuan. A month later, he embarked on a nationwide tour.
“The first time I heard his voice, it gripped me instantly,” says Qiu, her voice trembling with emotion. “Then he just disappeared, and none of us knew what had happened. When he finally reappeared, I felt my heart clench, and the tears just wouldn’t stop. What kind of blow must he have suffered, for someone so young, talented, and handsome to return looking so much older than his peers?”
As Qiu points out, the man who finally returned to the stage last year was considerably different from the Dao Lang of the early 2000s. Now heavyset, with a mustache and shaved head, he sometimes struggles to hit the high notes, instead leaving them to his backup singers.
“Our generation isn’t that picky about musical technique. We can’t even say for sure how technically skilled he is,” says Shen. “What resonates with us — what has drawn so many of us born in the 1950s and ’60s back to his music — is his life experience and his character. I admire his sincerity, humility, and perseverance.”
The fans surrounding her nod in agreement, including Zhang, who hands Shen a commemorative envelope that he’s designed and crafted especially for the Shanghai show. It bears the date along with Dao Lang’s portrait surrounded by snow-capped mountains — a nod to the ethnic influences in his music — and a red stamp with the Chinese character “he,” which means “congratulations.”
He has prepared 2,000 of these envelopes to distribute among fans, costing him about 8,000 yuan in printing fees, plus an entire day at the post office manually stamping each envelope. “My hands are still shaking. I can’t even hold chopsticks properly because of the swelling,” Zhang says. “But this isn’t about money; it’s about passion. It’s something I believe in.
“After the pandemic, people across the country have been under psychological and financial strain, but there’s been no real outlet for that frustration,” he adds. “Now, it’s erupting (through Dao Lang’s music). And it’s positive energy — it’s spreading nationwide.”
In an essay exploring the singer’s popularity, Charles A. Laughlin, a professor of East Asian studies at the University of Virginia, writes that “Dao Lang’s talent and charisma are undeniable,” while his work “embraces a broad variety of traditional and marginal cultural strands.” He argues that “Luocha Haishi” has “for the moment put the narrow cultural imagination of the kingmakers of contemporary popular music in its place.”
Laughlin also notes Dao Lang’s resurgence reflects larger trends in contemporary Chinese society, as ordinary people, urban and rural, feel “alienated by globalization as well as the concentration of cultural and economic elites in China’s megalopolises.”
Social gathering
Most fans might not be familiar with such academic language. When it comes to the intricate folk instruments and literary references that appear on Dao Lang’s most recent albums, many admit that it “goes over their head” and that they rely on online music influencers to interpret them.
It hasn’t stopped them adoring the singer and his music, though. Qiu first saw him in person at his January show in Beijing, and says, “I feel like I lost my soul and had to come to Shanghai to retrieve it.”
Outside the Shanghai arena, Qiu and her 61-year-old sister, who has traveled from the central Henan province, are wearing face paint, with “I love Dao Lang” written alongside the Chinese national flag, as well as T-shirts emblazoned with various colorful stickers and badges.
“I’ve lived this long without ever attending a concert or having an idol. I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” says Qiu’s sister.
Qiu’s niece, who works in Shanghai, isn’t a fan of Dao Lang, but has come out anyway to witness the spectacle. “I’m not into celebrity worship,” she says. “How on Earth are scalped tickets for Dao Lang going for more than a Jay Chou show? My God, it’s all middle-aged and elderly people here!”
She paid 8,000 yuan to scalpers to secure tickets for her mother and aunt, “making their dream come true.” According to the online ticketing platform Damai, more than 660,000 people registered their interest in the Shanghai concert, with only 18,000 tickets up for grabs.
“I tried to get front-row tickets, but I blinked and they were gone,” says Qiu’s niece. “The scalper managed to grab the next tier down. I said that wouldn’t do, but he told me I should take whatever I can get. If I waited any longer, I’d have no chance.”
When the two sisters found out they had tickets, they were too excited to sleep. Determined to sing along at the show, they bought a book of Dao Lang’s song lyrics and practiced everywhere — before bed, while cooking, and in the bathroom. “I was even dreaming about his songs,” says Qiu’s sister. For the tracks that weren’t in the book, they copied the lyrics into the blank spaces by hand.
Like Qiu, both Zhang and Shen have been familiar with Dao Lang’s music since the 2000s. Yet, it was only in the past two years that they became devoted fans.
Social media has provided older generations with new ways to connect and express themselves in public. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the country had 170 million internet users aged 60 or over in 2023, up from 8.67 million in 2010, accounting for 58.6% of the elderly population. Data from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, also shows users aged 50 or over uploaded an average of 23 million videos a day in 2023.
However, the social media frenzy surrounding Dao Lang has also given rise to several wild, unfounded claims, ranging from the singer featuring on the cover of The New York Times, to Taylor Swift covering one of his songs, and U.S. President Donald Trump mentioning him in a speech.
“It’s the internet era now. You open your phone, and it’s all about him. So when we eat, chat, or drink, it’s Dao Lang, Dao Lang — who isn’t talking about him?” Zhang says. “The concert in Jinan (capital of Shandong) was insane. My phone was flooded with content about Dao Lang. The more I watched, the more I liked him. I couldn’t sleep at night. I missed the Jinan concert, so I came to Shanghai. I’m planning to follow at least 14 more shows.”
What began as an online craze has transformed into an offline spectacle. On the lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, a search for “Got my parents tickets to Dao Lang’s concert” yields more than 540,000 posts.
At a November show in Xiamen, in eastern Fujian province, an estimated 128,000 ticketless fans gathered outside the sold-out 18,000-seat arena. And crowds were so large in Jinan in February that authorities opened another stadium 500 meters from the concert venue for fans to gather and celebrate among themselves.
The long goodbye
In Shanghai, celebrations in the public park just a few hundred meters from the arena have been ongoing for two days. Vloggers and online influencers wander around with speakers and microphones, trying to capture the atmosphere, while street vendors hawk drinks and lighters.
The commerce bureau in Dao Lang’s hometown in Sichuan has brought a 20-person team, including six livestreaming crews, along with 4,000 kilograms of blood oranges, a Zizhong specialty, to share with the fans.
In one corner of the park, Jiang Guodong, a 57-year-old businessman involved in real estate, is handing out 1,000 commemorative scarves, while a woman nearby distributes Chinese flag stickers to passersby.
“Hearing him sing ‘My Motherland’ is deeply moving, as it reminds me of my father, a veteran who lived through the war,” Jiang says. “My parents both passed away during the pandemic. They were in their 90s. What they instilled in me — the unwavering spirit of a soldier — will always remain.”
He was glad to see that Dao Lang was this year elected as a deputy to the Chengdu Municipal People’s Congress, the Sichuan capital’s highest legislature, seen by some as a significant step in his acceptance by the mainstream. “I think it’s fantastic. It reflects the will of the people,” Jiang adds.
Nearby, members of Dao Lang’s Shanghai fan club, all dressed in matching yellow sweatshirts, sit together and listen to “Thank You,” a song Dao Lang wrote to his supporters. Like Zhang, many of them don’t have tickets to the concert.
As night falls, the show inside the arena gets underway, but the excitement outside remains as lively as ever, with livestreamers leading pockets of fans in chants and singalongs. Remarking on the scene, a police officer tells Sixth Tone, “This has never happened at any other concert.”
At 9 p.m., the gathering is ordered to disperse, yet many are reluctant to let the evening come to an end. While Dao Lang performs his encore, “My Motherland,” inside the arena, his army of fans in the park sings the same song. Even some police officers join in as they attempt to move the crowds on.
“See you at the next concert,” one livestreamer screams over the crowd.
Additional reporting: Wu Huiyuan; editor: Hao Qibao.
(Header image: Fans congregate in a park to sing Dao Lang’s songs ahead of his concert nearby, Shanghai, March 2025. Wu Huiyuan/Sixth Tone)
