Cutie Sweetie Kawaii

Cutie Sweetie Kawaii Hong Kong Arts Festival City Hall Theatre February 25 This is an odd, if not inappropriate, venue for a trendy pop concert. Instead of sitting down like crash-test dummies, shouldn't the audience have been up on its feet, dancing to the throbbing music? Isn't a show - wackily entitled Cutie Sweetie Kawaii - - A Gig For Go Go Girls and Bye Bye Boys - all about letting our hair down and enjoying ourselves? Unfortunately, the only people who seemed to be having a good time in the dimly lit hall were the musicians of the groups Minimal, Atomic Bubbles and Multiplex.

Those who have seen Anthony Wong Yiu-ming's People Mountain People Sea concerts last year would have had a taste of Minimal and Multiplex performing in big venues such as the Hong Kong Coliseum.

Their music can be moody and dark, but these groups are good. So how did they fare in a venue where the acoustics are not as good as the Coliseum? Muffled is probably the answer.

The show got off on a slow start when the audience spent at least 10 minutes staring at a giant screen with flashing images - a little nauseating.

Minimal took the stage first. While the electronic bass beats thumped the hall, the audience could barely hear the vocals of Veronica Lee and Arion Au Yeung.

By the time the musicians warmed up it was time for Atomic Bubbles to perform. This group (Luka Wong, Wong Shu-kit, Chung Sze-ming and Lau Chun-man) is heavily influenced by British groups and sounded a little like a mixture of Supergrass and Menswear.

Then Lee returned as a guest musician with Multiplex. This was perhaps the only part of the show that lived up to its title. Multiplex's Yennis Cheung's vocals were sweet and she gave a Cindy Lauper-style rendition of Sammi Cheng Sau-man's My Song.

Despite the excellent music, it was too painful to watch these musicians enjoying themselves on stage while the best we could do was to tap our feet on the seats in front.