With little prior warning, and a carefully constructed back-story to regurgitate if I get questioned by the police about being a journalist, I've been packed off to China to join a group of Chinese bands on the road. Starting with post-punk foursome P.K.14 and the female-fronted dance-punk group Queen Sea Big Shark in Beijing, we're touring Nanjing, Hangzhou, Changsha, Wuhan and Xi'an by bus, with a local band from each city supporting the two headline acts on each night.

Converse are funding the whole thing, and though a corporate-sponsored music tour might not sound that radical, it's easy to forget that rock music in China has only existed since the mid-'80s, and there are just two proper indie labels in its supposed "capital of rock", Beijing. Tours here generally mean broken equipment and untrained sound men, and P.K.14 tell me they would never be able to sound as good outside of Beijing if it weren't for Converse providing the gear and technicians, so all of the bands seem genuinely grateful to be a part of it.

We flew into Beijing from London, and one night of drinking there tired us all out enough for our 18-hour overnight bus trip, part of which we spent reversing back past two turnings on the hard shoulder in the pitch black. In Nanjing, Dazed photographer Ellis and I spent the daytime accompanying Queen Sea Big Shark to Xuanwu Park. We clutched onto our bags of seed as we entered a bird "sanctuary" that more closely resembled a torture chamber, with beady-eyed storks and shabby emus on the loose, viciously grabbing whole bags of food from our hands. One member of staff calmed us down by informing us that a stork can drill a hole in your hand with one stab of its beak.

The first gig in Nanjing last night was a strange experience, enjoyed after a relaxed dinner served in a restaurant where several of the waiters wore white masks. Without wanting to sound completely politically incorrect at this point, I just remembered a conversation with Raph Cooper in Beijing – he's the half-Chinese, half-American founder of Society Skateboards – who sincerely believed that SARS was something made up by the American government to distract people from the war. I'm all for conspiracy theories.

At around 8pm the locals crowded into the Nanjing venue, forming a respectful empty semi-circle in front of the stage. Despite arriving 45 minutes earlier than the first band, they faced the stage with such eager expressions that I felt like I should be paying more attention to the mic stand. When local psychobilly-punk gods Angry Jerks came on, the semi-circle was soon trampled on by several hundred feet, as a rock fist army packed in to form a moshpit. I've been told that at a Ministry of Sound event in China in the '90s, guards stood at the side of the dance floor and used batons to hit anyone who dared to dance. In 2008, we saw not only stage-diving but a tattooed skinhead bruising anyone who crossed his path.

The venue was packed out for this and the next band, Queen Sea Big Shark, whose frontwoman just declared "No" when I told her that she reminded Ellis and me of Karen O. When it came to the amazing P.K.14, an altogether darker and more serious band who don't attempt to incorporate English lyrics into their songs, the crowd had thinned out slightly. Perhaps their local DIY band was the real draw for the ones that dropped off. Fair enough - the Angry Jerks did have a double bassist who teaches opera singing in her spare time and who once graffiti'd a government building, but why would you leave a gig before the headliners had finished? It was a Thursday, I suppose.

Click here for more about the Converse LoveNoise China Tour.