In Manila, there’s a beer called Red Horse, and it is dangerous. It’s 6.9 per cent alcohol and it is tasty. It costs the equivalent of HK$5 from 7-Eleven, and it’s the reason I am belting out the lyrics to a song I only half-know into a microphone in a hipster bar on the outskirts of the Makati district. I am performing as an impromptu guest vocalist for the Hong Kong indie rock band Poubelle International.

I am confident I look like an idiot. I avoid eye contact with the crowd for fear of withering under their judgmental torment. Most of them are Hongkongers anyway, friends who have made the trip to The Philippines for a rock’n’roll weekend of music and partying. Their presence makes it worse. But the Red Horse makes it all okay. The Red Horse is dangerous, but it swaddles that danger in a warm, comforting varnish that renders one impervious to embarrassment.

Last night, the Horse destroyed an entire gig in Quezon City. It came in buckets, seven to the stable, bucking and whinnying until we had guzzled all its blood. There were perhaps 30 of us in the room. We invaded the stage. Poubelle International, under the Horse’s sway, mangled a set of seven songs in spectacular fashion. The singer cut his foot. Thanks to a mid-flight broken bottle, a friend almost lost a finger. The Filipinos deserted the bar, left it to us, bequeathed it to carnage.

That night fell – spiralled uncontrollably, really – into a deep, dark memory hole. Tonight, the benevolent Horse has allowed us to cleave closer to the fragments of our senses. The three guys of Poubelle International are sober when they take the stage. They play a tight, booming set that sets the rafters quivering. Not even my stumbling interlude can dilute the band’s bristling energy. There are Filipinos in the room, and they stay for the whole set. Later, fellow Hong Kong rockers the David Bowie Knives will also tear it up – not literally, this time – in fine style.

This is a rare thing for Hong Kong indie bands. A tour. Well, a tour of sorts. Two gigs in Manila over the weekend is better than most of our indie bands can muster, and it ought to be encouraged. By playing in other cities, bands not only expose themselves (literally, in the case of the David Bowie Knives) to new audiences, but they get to sample the experience of seeing how it’s done in other countries, in playing with great sound equipment at sweet venues, and seeing how their music holds up in front of crowds that aren’t already peppered with planted personal cheerleaders. Manila, too, is one great music city, stuffed as it is with DIY guitar heroes who as babies had rock’n’roll slipped into their breast milk.

For whatever reason – our scene is still young and touring costs money – few Hong Kong indie bands escape our borders. On the rare occasions it does happen, those of us who care about the arts scene should give them our full support. Whether it’s Poubelle in Manila, or the heavy rock duo DP now in Texas for South By Southwest, these people are helping to make our lives that little bit better.

And if showing love for that means gallantly riding the Red Horse from time to time? So be it. Hong Kong deserves our drunkenness.

Hamish McKenzie

Poubelle International and DP play at Music For Your Marrow, Grappa’s Cellar, March 27.