Big Smog

Tue 22 March, KITEC

Slash’s return to Hong Kong felt like a high school reunion, albeit with a rock deity. The ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist, supported by Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy, treated a surprisingly well-behaved crowd (by moshpit standards, anyway) to new tracks from his recent solo album, Slash, as well as a repertoire of rock anthems from his Snakepit and Velvet Revolver days. But as soon as the opening chords of Sweet Child O' Mine began, the crowd went predictably ape-shit, with Kennedy (whose voice was at times a deadringer for Axl Rose’s) belting out Nighttrain, Mr Brownstone, and Rocket Queen.

The fact that audiences chanted Paradise City in the encore however, does make even hardcore Slash fans wonder if his solo efforts will ever compare to Guns N' Roses. Yet when he swaggered back on stage half naked for the finale, even skeptics had to take their (top) hats off to the 46-year-old, who dedicated their final song to Japan, before proceeding to shred the life out of his Les Paul. That is, after all, what guitar gods do. 

_____________________
Set list

Ghost
Mean bone
Night train
Been there lately
Rocket queen
Civil war
Back from cali
Starlight
Nothing to say
Dr alibi
Jizz da pit
Just like anything
My michelle
Patience
Sweet child of mine
Rise today
Slither
By the sword
Mr brownstone
Paradise city
 

Hong Kong’s indie music scene lost one of its most loved members recently. As bassist for the bands Bone Table and El Destroyo, Maggie Chang, affectionately known as Da Countess, was a prominent muso and a huge supporter of the scene, and the way she battled leukemia inspired everyone she met. Ahead of a massive tribute gig on Sun March 27 at The Wanch, featuring over 20 local bands, we asked a few Hong Kong musicians how she will be remembered.

Paul MacLean, of DP
Maggie was an amazing gal; always full of life. I don't think I ever once saw that girl in a bad mood. I'll always remember the time I convinced Tunji to let me sit on the El Destroyo drum stool for one song. As good as Billy Dean was on guitar, it was Maggie's playing that blew me away that night! I'm honoured to say that I had the chance to play with her on stage. You'll be greatly missed Magster!

Arthur Urquiola, of Six Pack of Wolves and The Mooches
Maggie was never a victim of her illness. Even after she was sick, Maggie was still a huge supporter at live music events and an inspiration to everyone. And when she flashed that smile, it never felt like she was losing any battle. With the outpouring of love from so many people, it's clear she's inspired all of us to celebrate what an amazing person she was.

Reign Lee, singer-songwriter
I don’t know why Maggie had to go through what she did. I know there is a valuable life lesson in there somewhere, but right now it escapes me. I do think there is some comfort though in knowing that she is undoubtedly in a better, kinder place. Her bass-playing spirit will live on and reverberate through my life always. Thank you, Maggie.

Calvin Wong, fellow bass player
I have always maintained that one should consider oneself lucky in life to have just a couple of true friends. Maggie was one such person whom I consider myself lucky to count amongst my friends – warm, caring, genuine, and, forever cheerful, which, coupled with her infectious laughter, would brighten any room she entered and make you forget your problems instantly. The world is a little colder without her, but I would like to think that this angel has just gone home.

Shaun Martin, of the David Bowie Knives
Once, the David Bowie Knives turned up to do a soundcheck at Backstage. We walked in just as El Destroyo were onstage completing theirs, and to our surprise, they started to rip into the opening bars of one of our songs! I will never forget the huge grin on her face when they played it! Maggie was an inspiration to many of us and a big sister to those that knew her well.

James Wolfe, of Logo and fellow member with Chang in Bone Table
Bone Table became a band when Maggie landed
Focused from the start she learnt fast and cultivated an iconic stage presence on the way,
When asked to sing on a recording of Natchez she said quizzically,
"Sing!? Me? Are you kidding? I'm warning you!"
She delivered, as always ,pitch perfect
Modest she was but no wallflower
Maggie had enough steel to ride the stampede of testosterone guitars, through Hong Kongs' canyons
Maggie "Da Countess”!
Rest in peace
 

Photo 1: Angus Leung

Photo 2: Nora Tejada, www.flickr.com/photos/noratejada/sets

Cultural Centre, Mon March 7 

Marianne Faithfull is regal as ever, and passed through Hong Kong to celebrate her latest album, Horses and High Heels. The diva played two shows as part of the HK Annual Arts Festival, and despite illness in recent years, delighted fans with her graceful, enigmatic performance.

Forever personal, always engaging, she began with, “I hope you like our little show,” addressing the audience as if intimating secrets, and introducing every song with a tale of its creation.

The show got off to a shaky start with two songs from the new album; with the British songstress consulting a sheet of lyrics at every turn. However, she kicked off her heels (literally) and soon relaxed as she waded back into more familiar territory – the past – showcasing some of the versatility she’s known for with John Lennon’s Working Class Hero, Salvation by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (“I taught them everything they know!”), songs written with Nick Cave and Dusty Springfield’s Goin’ Back, which might as well have been written for her.

Faithfull certainly has enough material to choose from in a career spanning over five decades. It all began in 1964 with a little song called As Tears Go By, and her more mature rendering of it received rapturous applause. The rich, throaty voice tells a story of sex and drugs in itself; a story that, at times, has threatened to overshadow Marianne Faithfull’s work as an artist.

But it was the deeply personal encore that was perhaps the highlight. “Almost the end…it’s been lovely hasn’t it?” she welcomingly shared, before closing with two acoustic numbers that presented the best of the Faithfull that her fans know: that folky voice, those narrative melodies, full of the sense that she is telling her own story in everything that she does. And what a story it is.

Samantha Reid

Thu Mar 17

The Whitest Boy Alive, KITEC

The Besnard Lakes, Hidden Agenda

One night, two huge bands. Berlin outfit The Whitest Boy Alive summoned a full house at KITEC's auditorium to their feet in a dance-filled night of electro-pop. And around the corner at Hidden Agenda, the wonderful Canadians The Besnard Lakes (with lead man Jace Lasek doing his finest The League of Gentlemen impersonation) offered up their dark and shimmering psych rock. 

Here are some atmospheric iPhone pics we got from a memorable night of tunes. Hopefully, some more pics are on their way.

Photos courtesy of Ignacio Garcia

Avril Lavigne played a five-song, rooftop showcase Thursday night—intimate, but not without screaming teenagers, defiant middle fingers, and heart-shaped signs adorned with her name. The little Canadian popper rocker, who appears even tinier on stage, performed some of the familiar, as well as some brand new tunes from her upcoming album, Goodbye Lullaby (in stores March 2).

Avril opened with her new lead single, What the Hell, which fans greeted with high-pitched enthusiasm. She followed with megahit Girlfriend, the anthem for aspiring relationship wreckers. I’m sure all the fish in Victoria Harbour did a double take as hundreds of fans chanted ‘Hey! Hey! You! You!’ Lavigne’s legion of followers showed tremendous support for her new songs, Wish You Were Here, Push, and Smile, which delivered on her promise for a more “stripped-down” sound.

No worries though. As far as presence goes, the s8ter grrl hasn’t changed. Plenty of hair was still flung. The limp wrist, hand-in-the-air, head cock pose was still heavily employed. Get ready for another year of Avril.  She'll be playing a full show in at the AsiaWorld-Arena on Saturday, 7 May 2011. 

Steven Hsieh

 St Jerome’s Laneway Festival Singapore, January 29, 2011

By Paul Kay. Photos by Hans Schlaikier

It’s a recurring point of dissatisfaction among music lovers in Hong Kong that the city lacks an annual music festival worthy of the name. Sure, there have been some valiant attempts in recent years – Rockit and then Clockenflap coming closest to putting Hong Kong on the festival map – but they, and others like them, have been thwarted at every turn by our nonsensical noise laws that allow the police to shut down events on the basis of just two or three complaints from members of the public. Try complaining about construction noise that clocks in at significantly higher decibel levels and you‘ll see exactly where our representatives’ priorities lie.

But you don’t have to go far to find a textbook example of how it can – and should – be done. In Singapore, a city so frequently mocked by Hongkongers for its officiousness and sterility, music festivals are multiplying, from F1 Rocks and Singfest to annual beachfront electronica bonanza ZoukOut. The latest name to add to this list, and by reputation perhaps the most illustrious, is Laneway – or, to give it it’s full name, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival. Begun in Melbourne in 2004, the festival spread to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Auckland, cementing its status as a leading event in a region that’s hardly short of a killer festival or two.

Building on this success, Laneway made the bold move to try its luck in Asia, resulting in the first Laneway Singapore on January 29^th 2011, featuring a lineup that would make any self-respecting indie kid swoon and any Pitchfork devotee near priapic with excitement. Having seen the lineup – Foals, Holy F*ck, !!!, Beach House, Warpaint, Deerhunter, Ladyhawke, The Temper Trap and Yeasayer – and having taken a moment to curse the Hong Kong government for the kind of short-sighted and narrow-minded thinking that discourages such events taking place on our soil, my flights were booked and I was Singapore-bound.

And so, along with around 20 likeminded Hongkongers who had variously made their way to the Lion City, I arrived at Fort Canning Park with high expectations and a lingering sense of disbelief that such a cutting-edge international lineup was gracing a stage in my notoriously musically-behind-the-curve corner of the world.

First up were all-girl LA art rockers Warpaint. Despite suffering from the inevitable disadvantages of being the first band of the day (half the crowd still arriving, the other half queuing for beers), they gave a solid account of themselves, putting the burgeoning crowd firmly in festival mood. They were helped in no small part by a venue that was perfect for the occasion, the sloped grassy area providing a good view of the stage for all against the eminent backdrop of the colonial-era Fort Canning Centre.

Next came New Zealand’s Ladyhawke, whose upbeat electronic-tinged pop got most of the crowd dancing – unfortunately it must have been an unwitting rain dance as, by the time Ladyhawke had launched into her uber-catchy closer My Delerium, the heavens had opened and unleashed a downpour that would continue nigh unabated for the rest of the day.

With macs firmly on and umbrellas hoisted, the crowds’ spirits were lifted by the festival’s first bona fide highlight. Baltimore’s Beach House made most of the ‘Best of 2010’ lists (including Rolling Stone, Time and Pitchfork) with their Teen Dream record, but I was unsure how its dreamy, mid-tempo vibe would translate to the big stage (anyone who’s caught The XX live in the past year will get my drift). Such fears proved unfounded, however, as Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, amid swathes of twinkling lights, conjured up a sound that was grander and more expansive than the album while retaining everything that made it so good in the first place.

That was always going to be a tough act to follow, and Deerhunter weren’t entirely up to the task. Despite drawing on a decent enough recent album (Halcyon Digest), the Atlanta, Georgia, four-piece didn’t quite have the presence or chutzpah to fully engage the crowd, a couple of promising moments notwithstanding. Then again, it could have had something to do with the fact that I spent much of their set wondering how I could fatten up Bradford Cox, the band’s almost dangerously skinny frontman.

Now, as any experienced festival-goer will tell you, the band that plays at sundown is probably second in importance only to the headliner. That is, the band that takes the festival from daylight head-bobbing to full on, cover-of-darkness, rock’n’roll carnage.

Enter the appropriately named Holy F*ck.

I wasn’t too familiar with this Canadian four-piece beforehand, but they are undoubtedly the act I have been waxing lyrical about most since. Setting up with a drumkit, a guitar and a mad scientist’s laboratory of electronic gadgets and gizmos (including what looked like a mini-keyboard attached to a vocoder and something that resembled a giant fishing reel soldered to a mixing desk) they proceeded to rip it up in the best possible fashion. Reminiscent of fellow Canuck twiddler Caribou, but with a yet punkier spirit, they tore through a blistering set that had the crowd alternately pseudo-moshing and merrily throwing shapes, while chuckling at the band’s penchant for introducing themselves between songs as a variety of Canadian acts, from Broken Social Scene to Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Having set the bar high, the next act was going to have to be something special to up the ante. Technically ‘!!!’ is pronounced ‘chk chk chk’, but ‘something special’ is a worthy synonym. Sacramento dance-punks !!! are a band that simply must be seen live to be fully appreciated, and the main reason for that is their flamboyant vocalist Nic Offer. If there’s a better frontperson at work today, then I’m yet to see them. With his tiny shorts and camp-as-Christmas yet sexy-as-hell dancing, Offer had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the word go, and it wasn’t long before he was jumping into the crowd, borrowing an umbrella for a spot of singing in the rain, and adorning his mic stand with underwear thrown from the crowd.

Brooklyn’s Yeasayer, in comparison, were something of a disappointment. I’m a big fan of this band, and loved them at Fuji Rock in 2010, where they played a relatively intimate set at midday in the Red Tent. After the bombastic, balls-out exploits of Holy F*ck and !!! however, their over-sincere, world-music-inflected performance seemed a tad pretentious, although hits Ambling Alp, One and 2080 gained pass marks.

Any disappointment over Yeasayer was quickly blown to pieces when Oxford’s Foals took the stage. I’ve seen this band three times now (T in the Park 2009, Fuji 2010 and now Laneway) and they just get better and better. With the rain teeming down, the crowd soaked through and the ground resembling a mud-wrestling arena more with every passing minute, Yannis Philippakis gave a performance of such searing brilliance that it eclipsed everything that had gone before; for me, Philippakis beating a snare drum maniacally centre stage with the rain bouncing off in every direction has to be the abiding memory of the day.

All that was left was for special guests, Melbourne’s The Temper Trap, to round things off, their closing number Sweet Disposition being a fitting finale, before the 6,000 or so drunk and drenched souls trudged wearily for the exits, the rain running down their cheeks not even close to wiping the smiles off their faces.

Hong Kong take note.

singapore.lanewayfestival.com.au

Legend 4 was presented by Legend Fighting Championship and held at the AsiaWorld-Expo on January 27. With near-capacity crowds in attendance we saw 18 of the best mixed martial artists go full-out for 15 minutes each in the middle of the ring. Headlining the fight was Australia’s Adrian Pang and South Korea’s Nam Yui Chul. Legend 4 effectively showcased an action-packed, in your face, mind blowing yet well-organized event from start to finish with accurately balanced fights and a true matching of skills.

That being said, for the “fans” in the crowd, a word of advice: you are ruining the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Allow me to explain it like this: if you purchased two hefty (yet fair) priced tickets to see the Super Bowl would you not attend without first knowing something of how the sport is played? Nor would we. So why is it that the “fans” (and we use that term loosely) only cheer for two reasons: either when someone is getting punched or kicked in the head, or when their hometown fighter enters the arena.

If you are a fan, and we mean a true fan of the sport, then you would understand the eccentricities that come along with a good match up. MMA is not boxing, nor is it wrestling or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; it’s a harmonious marriage of all martial arts disciplines. So here is our recommendation: please do some homework before you boo the gladiators that go out there and put it all on the line. As it’s often stated, you could get in there and try it for yourself. Meanwhile, thank you to the fighters and promoters of Legend Fighting Championship for all of your hard work. Perhaps someday your dedication will be properly rewarded.

James Sibley

If you are anything like us you have waited until the last minute to make your New Year’s Eve plans. Well no need to fret, we have compiled a list of exciting events throughout the city guaranteed to keep you partying into the early hours.
James Sibley

MUSIC

Danny Diaz

Eugene and the POWz

New Year's Eve

The Young Cats

New Year's Gala

CLUBS

2011 NYE Bash

James Lavelle

Pure Gold

Retro Rewind

White Sensation

dragon-I NYE Bash

Yumla All Stars

Ambassador's Reception

Priestess of the Night

NYE Party

Underground Dance
 
Solos Records x Heavy

Moulin Rouge

AROUND TOWN

Tung Chung New Year's Eve Countdown

NYE Fireworks

Countdown Carnival

Times Square Countdown

RESTAURANTS

Café Gray Deluxe

SEVVA

The Luxe Manor

ToTT’s and Roof Terrace

Watermark

8th Estate Winery

Palette

Janet Jackson sure must be popular here. Via her website janetjackson.com, the pop star (who’s scarily looking more and more like her brother every day), launched a contest to choose which city would host the launch of her worldwide tour. Apparently, Hongkongers responded in droves, so much so that we’ll be hosting the first concert of the 35-city tour, to be held on February 14 2011 at the HKCEC.

We’re not entirely sure how we feel about this, but at least Janet’s excited. According to her website, this is what Ms Jackson had to say:

“The fans really reached out and voted for Hong Kong to be the Valentine's Day city of our Number Ones tour. I am thrilled to receive your votes and I will be performing in Hong Kong Feb 14, 2011!”

Tickets go on sale on December 14 at www.hkticketing.com.

Photo: Andy Liang
 

Congratulations to the all the restaurants who made it into the 2011 Hong Kong and Macau Michelin Guide. Being ever full of surprises, the Michelin judges have selected some jaw-dropping choices for this year’s issue, among which is a new three-starred restaurant (the third for Hong Kong). 

Joining the ranks of Lung King Heen and Caprice is Sun Tong Lok, the first non-hotel eatery in Hong Kong to be graced with the highest ranking by the tire company-cum-food authorities. Quite a number of restaurants have been dropped from the two-star list, but there’s also been two completely new additions to that category, namely Cuisine Cuisine at The Mira and chef Bombana’s high-end Italian restaurant 8½ Otto e Mezzo.

But the biggest surprises filled the one-star list, which had ten new Hong Kong entries. Café Gray Deluxe won itself a well-deserved spot on the roll but it was the cheap eat restaurants that stole the spotlight. Din Tai Fung and dim sum joint Tim Ho Wan – both of which were awarded a star in the previous guide – won another star for their second branches. And Wagyu Kaiseki Den is no longer the only Japanese restaurant with a Michelin star; ramen specialist MIST apparently impressed enough to win a thumbs-up from the judges.

The guide also saw the first Shau Kei Wan eatery, Hin Ho Curry, with a star. And if you want the world’s cheapest starred meal, head over to Ho Hung Kee where the wonton noodles have been oficially Michelin certified.

The Stars:

Caprice

Lung King Heen

Sun Tung Lok

 

Amber

Celebrity Cuisine

Cuisine Cuisine at The Mira

8½ Otto e Mezzo

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

Ming Court

Pierre

T'ang Court

Tim's Kitchen

Bo Innovation

Café Gray Deluxe

Cépage

Chilli Fagara

Din Tai Fung (Causeway Bay)

Din Tai Fung (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Dynasty (Wan Chai)

Farm House

Fook Lam Moon (Kowloon)

Fook Lam Moon (Wan Chai)

Forum

Fu Ho (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Fung Lum

Golden Leaf

Golden Valley

Hin Ho Curry (Shau Kei Wan)

Ho Hung Kee

Hoi King Heen

Hong Zhou

Hung's Delicacies

Island Tang

Kin's Kitchen

Lei Bistro

Lei Garden (IFC)

Lei Garden (Kowloon Bay)

Lei Garden (Mong Kok)

Lei Garden (North Point)

Lei Garden (Sha Tin)

Lei Garden (Tsim Sha Tsui)

Lei Garden (Wan Chai)

Loaf On

Mandarin Grill + Bar

Mist

Nanhai No.1

One Dim Sum

Petrus

Regal Palace

Shang Palace

Spoon by Alain Ducasse

Summer Palace

The Square

Tim Ho Wan (Mong Kok)

Tim Ho Wan (Sham Shui Po)

Wagyu Kaiseki Den

Yan Toh Heen

Yat Tung Heen (Wan Chai)

Yè Shanghai (Kowloon)

Yung Kee (Central)