The group New Pants performs at the internet variety show  The Big Band. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Two weeks after the debut of an internet variety show named The Big Band a few months ago, Xu Bin shared the performance of a 25-year-old song that had featured in the show through the social media app WeChat.

Xu, 54, a journalist with Zhejiang Daily who says he seldom posts anything on WeChat unrelated to his job, wrote: "Out of the blue, this song took me back to the golden era of Chinese rock 'n' roll. Time has flown, but that doesn't seem to have taken anything away," followed with a crying-face emoticon.

On May 9, 1986, Cui Jian performed the rock songs Nothing To My Name and Not About Understanding at a concert in Beijing celebrating the international year of peace. The two songs later featured on an album tribute to the concert, marking the birth of Chinese rock music.

In 1994 rock 'n' roll opened up a remarkable chapter in China. Dou Wei, Zhang Chu and He Yong, known as "Three Standouts of Magic Stone" (their record company), each released a new album. In December that year the three and The Tang Dynasty, a heavy metal rock band, held a concert in Hong Kong that stunned the audience. From there the popularity of rock music and rock stars took off in China.

Xu, born in a village in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, has two sisters, but he was the only one in the family to go to university, thanks to his mother borrowing money from neighbors to pay for his tuition fees.

It was while he was in his third year at Renmin University of China in Beijing that he became acquainted with rock music after one of his roommates bought a pirated tape of the memoir album. At the time one of the musical voices that held sway was that of the Taiwan singer Teresa Teng with sentimental numbers such as Tian Mimi (Sweet Honey) and Yue Liang Daibiao Wode Xin (The Moon Represents My Heart).

"Teng's songs were like candy melting between teeth and tongue, but Cui's songs crushed me like a stone from the sky," Xu says.

"The lyrics perfectly reflected the struggles I was facing."

Those challenges included preparing to leave school and face the world of work and to take on the responsibilities of full adulthood.

"I had nothing to my name, but the pursuit of love. I wanted to pursue love, but I had nothing to my name."