Bob Marley’s band The Wailers to play in Hong Kong for the first time, while new tribute single Missing Mr Marley to launch in the city this month
- The Wailers will perform at Central’s Hong Kong Observation Wheel and AIA Vitality Park on April 5, where they will play the full 1984 album Legend
- New tribute single will see its Hong Kong launch at the Dead& bar on March 23, bringing together reggae artists from Hong Kong, the Philippines and Shanghai
Hong Kong is having a reggae moment, fuelled by the release this month of the much-hyped biopic Bob Marley: One Love.
Starring British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley, it explores the reggae legend’s 1977 album Exodus, which he made with his band The Wailers, and the lead-up to the 1978 One Love Peace Concert in the singer’s native Jamaica.
Known for hits such as “I Shot the Sheriff”, “Get Up”, “Stand Up”, “Jamming”, “No Woman, No Cry” and “Is This Love”, Bob Marley and the Wailers created culture-defining music that embodied the spirit of the ’70s reggae movement and left a deep groove in the industry, their beats reaching bars, beaches and backyards around the globe.
Marley died from a rare form of skin cancer in 1981, aged just 36. But The Wailers played on. And next month they will hold their first gig in Hong Kong, at Central’s Hong Kong Observation Wheel and AIA Vitality Park, on April 5.
The band will play the full Legend album, a compilation of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ hits released in 1984 that is the bestselling reggae album of all time. It has topped the US Billboard 200’s year-end reggae chart for the last four years.