Bringing independent acts to Hong Kong is risky business. Luckily there are a tireless few who brave the odds and fly over much needed fresh blood for nights of excellent live music.

Joining these few for the first time on Friday was Songs For Children, previously a club night that brought true indie music and spirit to our bars and clubs. Since their arrival early this year their nights have been a breath of fresh air in this commercial hip hop and bad pop house infested city.

Songs For Children’s first step into live music was the UK’s Theoretical Girl whose indie pop songs have enough serrated edges to fend off twee and who live, liberally spread smiles and shook hips at Wan Chai’s Rock School venue.

Relatively new itself, Rock School could become a nice mainstay of live music in the city, even if it does mean squeezing into the tiny lift with red-faced businessmen and the young ‘hosts’ from the floor above.

The venue was packed out which was a hugely encouraging success, as were The Yours, the local support act.

The black clad now two-piece looked like a real band, a huge accolade in the pub-rock peppered Wan Chai district.

With a searing intensity in every second of their performance they oozed cool, glamour and edgy individualism as they played their relentless wide-eyed post rock with buzz-saw guitars over a drum machine.

Once a fun but oblique homage to The Stooges, The Yours are now in a league of their own.

If the gig scene can support them long enough before they have to jack it in and get on with their day jobs they could well become HK’s answer to The Velvet Underground and the city’s best band.

When both acts had finished the dancing went on into the early hours. The party spirit felt like a genuine celebration, a sense that things could be changing in Hong Kong. If a night like this can be a success then it means good things ahead for Songs For Children and our fair city.

-Words & Picture: TC.

Tags: Rockschool, Songs For Children, The Yours, Theoretical Girl
Posted in Blog