The Band Wagon
With our new band night, HK Live!, about to burst onto the Fringe Club stage, Natasha Stokes finds the city’s bands are ready to rock the mainstream.
We’ve bitched about the lack of support for Hong Kong bands for long enough, so now HK Magazine is walking the talk with our very own monthly series of live band nights at the Fringe Club. HK Live! bursts into life on February 11, with a stellar lineup of local and regional talent. Headlining are Macau pop-rock twins Soler, with support from Hong Kong rockers SiQ and The Academy. After that, we’ll be bringing the city’s finest bands live and loud to the Fringe on the first Saturday of each month.
Why now? HK Live! is a response to the rumblings behind the scenes and below the grapevine that the Hong Kong live music scene is ready to rise from the underground to mainstream awareness. Despite a lack of publicity, and with crowds rarely exceeding 200, our musicians are finally being heard.
Five years ago, local live music received little attention from people who weren’t in bands themselves. It was a small, underground scene that, like many independent ventures, lacked a platform. But now the band scene is quietly gathering up its skirts and getting ready to party. “It’s definitely developed a lot in the last three years,” observes Chris Bowers, founder of local band night Underground. “There are more bands making music and getting it out there.”
The rise of band-room spaces in industrial areas such as Kwun Tong and Fo Tan reflects and supports this. And then there is technology: with most of civilization connected to the internet, bands no longer need an agent to promote their music, and the accessibility of home studios means they can cut an album without the backing of a record label.
The World Battle of the Bands finals in Hong Kong in December helped to highlight the fact that the city is becoming a viable place for live music – and not only for local bands. Just take a look at this month’s calendar: international bands playing here include rock gods Oasis and Franz Ferdinand, ambient rock soloist Pelle Carlberg and Finnish speed-metal band Stratovarius.
But do we have enough venues, promoters and – most importantly – a big enough audience to accommodate more shows? “I don’t think it’s so much a problem of not enough venues as it is of people not being very receptive to something they haven’t heard before,” says Brandon Ho, aka MC Ghost Style and founder of local urban music record label Rebel Studio. “It’s all down to exposure: people are more likely to be open to new music if they can relate to it somehow.”