來自香港的明信片 Postcard from Hong Kong

PHOTOS: FRIENDLY FIRES IN HONG KONG
BY KELLY WONG

Summer this year was quite busy for Hong Kong, musically. There were an unusually large amount of bands coming to Hong Kong, thus a large amount of shows. Coming from the Europe there were Elbow, Friendly Fires, Emmy The Great and Yelle. From the US and Australasia, we had Paramore, 30 Seconds To Mars and Gypsy & The Cat.

Providing a bit of background information, shows in Hong Kong are normally not cheap. You can definitely not find a gig with foreign acts which costs a fiver or tenner. It’s more like the triple (or sometimes even more!) of that. Therefore, one can imagine it’s not going to be cheap to attend all the shows that took place in Hong Kong this summer.

Unfortunately, with no musical festivals in town, gigs are the only option of live music for music lovers here in Hong Kong. I went to two of the many shows mentioned. Firstly it’s because I am not interested in all the acts coming, and secondly, I didn’t have an unlimited supply of bank notes.

The first show was Yelle, which was held in a restaurant, so it felt very intimate. There were sofas around, and I just sat on them whenever I felt utterly knackered from the ‘safari animal dance’.

Second show was also an extremely dancey one, featuring Friendly Fires with support from Aussies - Gypsy & The Cat. The show started off worryingly, with not a lot of ticket holders in the venue. There were so few people at the start that everyone ended up sitting on the floor. It was quite a heartbreaking scene.

Gladly soon when Gypsy & The Cat came out, the venue became alive again. Everyone was clapping along - they managed to give an 180 degree twist to the atmosphere. Friendly Fires came on stage with a (fake) parrot, to stick to their Hawaiian theme.

For the whole time I was admiring Ed Macfarlane’s unique dance moves. A price I had to pay for trying to mimic Ed’s dance moves was bruises on my knee. Must say it’s well worth.

So that’s it, my two summer gigs in Hong Kong. Despite I do love going to gigs, it’d be more than lovely to see a festival happening in here. Local promoters, do you hear me call?

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