A couple of weeks ago I broke my self-enforced rule of never attending a concert in Hong Kong after seeing an indie show in Sai Ying Pun, which was so horrible I tried to complete a rarely seen skinny-jean auto-asphyxiation.
The music sucked, the venue was bad, and I realised there’s nothing noble in drinking horrible beer. Also, indie concertgoers are post-modern douchey, which is like the exact opposite of bankers in LKF, who are traditionally douchey (and whom I understand). I wear boat shoes when I go out – I know which group of douches are my douches.
The subsequent concert, however, was OK Go, an American band from the US and the type of band who would only be described as “indie” by a basic bitch (Btw, I’ve decided to start calling everyone a basic bitch. It’s just fun to say). You probably know them from their song “Here it Goes Again”, or at least the treadmill music video. Personally, I prefer the “This Too Shall Pass”, the Rube Goldberg Machine video.
So hoping to see some white guys do some white things with Chinese people who like white guys doing white things, I headed to the KITEC Music Zone in Kowloon Bay. Already running a bit late, I had that “hmm-I-think-I’ll-save-money-and-MTR-it-I-spent-too-much-at-the-bar-last-night” thought for about 0.0000001 seconds, after which I hailed a taxi and sat in the blissful air conditioning counting my hundreds and doing a rich-person laugh.
I arrived the concert an hour late but seven hours before a Hong Kong concert typically starts (stupid people translation: they start LATE) only to find out that they had already been on for 15 minutes. This was like bizarro concert world Hong Kong, and I wandered in confused, forgetting to laugh at the ticket girl telling me that I could “OK. Go.” into the concert. Sorry, doll.
Another bizarre concert world situation: the concert was FUN. Like really fun. I hung out in the back with the cool kids (cool being defined as “late”) and did the indie music bobbing head thing where, we’re like so getting into the music but still so into ourselves.
I decided I needed to get closer, though, so did that commercial concert thing where I pretend to look for my friend, walking forward and forward, and then when I’m close enough stop suddenly, generally in front of a couple who I’ve decided I will spite for no reason by blocking their view. “This too shall pass,” I explained. They forgot to laugh as well.
The band started with their new music but gradually made it back to the old stuff, and I enjoyed it all. At some point I was hoping they would shut up and play the hits (oops, wrong band but good documentary). They didn’t disappoint, and a few times we actually got to honest-to-goodness full on crazy dancing. It was an A+ effort and we were going for it.
Another thing that didn’t disappoint: confetti. It exploded and showered us over and over again and we got caught up in its splendor, like at a cheesy Michael Bublé concert.
In between they’d stop and do a Q&A with the audience, which was both funny ha ha and funny, in the fact that if you stand on a stage and people cheer for you, anything you say will get laughs and cheers. Being in a cool band is like being at the best open mic ever – everyone loves you and you love them all back.
After about an hour, the band played their last song and hopped off stage quickly and unceremoniously leaving us all like, “WTF”. But lo and behold, after seven minutes they returned for a “secret” encore, and I was like, “wow that wasn’t very bizarro-concert at all”.
In all white outfits, they did their great nerdy white guy choreographed dance, we applauded in a wild, unchoreographed fashion, and danced to a few more songs before going home feeling just a little bit cooler. And I still feel cool.
But maybe that’s just because it’s raining today. This column is about the weather.
Yalun Tu is a writer based in Hong Kong. He wrote The Straight Man column for HK Magazine, and TV scripts for HBO Asia, Channel V, and Fox Movies Premium. You can contact him at yalun.tu@gmail.com or @yaluntu on Twitter.
