When you see a group of people in Hong Kong eating caviar with steamed rice and soya and tomato sauce, and others staring into their mobile phones in a five star hotel lounge while someone is singing something or another onstage, something isn’t quite happening.
Before the Covid years, and whenever in Melbourne, I would make it a point to go down to Mr Hive, the restaurant-bar at the hotel I was staying at just to take in the ‘live’ music provided there by a looper and singer, and always a consistently good array of talent.
They were always duos and they always surprised me with their creativity and just how well two people knew how to make their audience have a good time.
Either that, OR they knew what MIGHT make audiences feel alive and even “groovy” by playing music that wasn’t hackneyed covers.
One night, the first song by the duo that night made me and my friends turn around and look their way was a brilliantly arranged version of “Mustang Sally”.
Partly Jazz, but this would be doing the duo a disservice. It was something that couldn’t be categorised- but it enhanced the customer experience of everyone at our table.
In fact, we were having such a great time that we cancelled our plans for dinner somewhere else, stayed where we were, and took in three fabulous sets that included The Theme From Hawaii Five-O that had the audience joining in, “Love’s Theme”, a soulful version of “Joy To The World”, a ska version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and much more.
Being not only a consumer, but with music marketing part of my core business as it is with many of my friends, we have seen and continue to see and learn how music is consumed these days.
We see where and when ‘live’ music is needed, and how this fits and enhances the brand image of a venue and the audience it attracts.
This is, of course, if a venue even has a brand image.
There was an article in Hong Kong recently about why people in the city don’t stay out late anymore.
It’s something I hope was read by the government, restaurateurs, hoteliers and entrepreneurs and who really thought about what was being asked.
We might all have very different answers because, the last time I looked, Hong Kong- and the rest of the world had changed- and all of us with it.
Those lockdown years changed many of us forever and now that we’re trying to enjoy life again without wearing masks and having to deal with shields of separation, plus new life priorities, we’re trying to see what works best for us.
Most of us might stay out later than usual if we’re having fun.
If not, what’s there in the way of nightlife to keep one interested and just waste money because of sheer boredom?
What keeps getting lost in the murkiness of it all is that Hong Kong is NOT an international city anymore.
During the exodus from Hong Kong of especially Westerners between 2014-2018, most noticeably lost was the exciting internationalism that existed in the Sheung Wan area of Hong Kong because of the younger and hipper French community who had made that area their own.
For me and my friends, that crowd is sorely missing in clubs, and at the night races at Happy Valley where the entire Happy Wednesday vibe has changed into some congee melting pot of the uncool including the rather pitiful ‘live’ music on display.
This lack of internationalism is felt throughout Hong Kong.
A champion British snooker player taking up residency in the city in order to pay lower taxes- a story that made front page news in Hong Kong- and some associated with the government saying that this could be the start of more well known names in sports moving to the city, shows how just goofy and desperate things have become.
In today’s Hong Kong is there still a Peel Fresco or Orange Peel? Is there a dragon-i?
Have many of those bars in Wanchai and Lan Kwai Fong with covers bands disappeared?
Does anyone care?
There’s the venerable Wanch, Salon 10, Aftermath and Foxglove and a few other venues- but for how much longer?
Things are thinning out overnight no matter what 5-10 year plans are said to be in place for this and that.
There might have been crowds in the streets during Halloween, but wasn’t this spookily like The Night Of The Living Dead?
Was it an international crowd- and by this, I don’t mean tour groups from Shenzhen and off work Deliveroo and Food Panda drivers?
All this has a chain reaction as to how Hong Kong is perceived overseas and how music in Hong Kong is, well, accepted- but who by?
Every industry needs music in one way or another and every consumer experience can be enhanced by music- if done properly.
How it’s used, especially ‘live’ music, is something that surely needs new thinking and new talent- and new audiences.
But from where?
The so-called Hong Kong ‘live’ music scene is no real “scene”. It’s the usual suspects, but older, or lounge singers in hotels who have seen better days.
What’s there for the customer- especially the new customer who knows nothing about the history of a venue?
More often than not, they add nothing to the consumer experience other than being an intrusion to a private conversation.
This is not to say that working musicians should lose their livelihoods.
It’s saying that the use of where, especially ‘live’ music is really needed, should be presented and marketed far better than it is being done now- often an afterthought and generic advertising which doesn’t help anyone.
Should ‘live’ music perhaps be used more “sparingly” as opposed to old fashioned “sets”that become perfunctory floor shows where customers who have come to meet up with friends and have a drink together need to watch who’s onstage and politely applaud?
Who’s in charge of the music and booking of artists at venues like hotels?
The General Manager or Venue Manager? And their experience in music is??? A Spotify playlist?
Thinking back to those nights at the Blue Bar of the Four Seasons, a trio comprising Gigi- Genevieve Marentette, below, Blaine Whittaker and a keyboard/synth player gave us something new.
Since then and those Adrenaline nights with that amazing resident band and four years of the brilliant singer-songwriter Ben Semmens, nothing that has been thrown our way has really clicked with a mainstream audience.
Nights out to just chill out as some of us did at Gekko or Stockton have felt the full force of change led by the same group of cabaret style and overdressed function singers.
It’s almost 2025 and Hong Kong nightlife has not only almost stalled, it’s losing its pulse.
Though some venues have tried to change for the sake of change, nothing has worked. Not really, no matter how much one might pucker up.
Isn’t there ONE venue in Hong Kong that can get it right?
Or is everything just bibs and bobs of everything because of too many cooks and no one asking the one who pays the bills what they want and don’t want?
Hong Kong cannot attract many major international music acts for reasons we should know by now.
This being the case, why not look at making Hong Kong almost young and groovy again?
Do those decision makers in the city deciding for today’s consumers know where to look?
The heritage and culture building Tai Kwun, for example, should perhaps think about a revamp and have, for example, daily lunchtime sessions in its courtyard for especially young musicians- buskers, duos, loopers- to “audition”.
As my mentor in advertising reminded us creatives- BREAK THE PATTERN.
Break the monotony of having yet another middle aged and sequinned cover version of “Shallow” or “Hotel California”.
The government should also loosen the nooses around buskers.
People like District Board councillors should be made to understand that music- and this should include music from ethnic minority groups- helps give the city OUTSIDE of bars and hotel lounges something approaching a vibe- and not some politician’s version of “night vibes”.
Let’s not forget that Ed Sheeran started out busking and hasn’t done too badly for himself.
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