Live Review from Underground 111
Kevin Kaho Tsui
- This is the Moment
- Sunburn
- Melanie
- I Want You Back (cover)
- Goodbye Bella
It’s not all that often that we have solo acts at the Underground, so the night was begun in a slightly unusual way by Kevin Kaho Tsui. The very perky young man, who is apparently relatively new to the whole music thing, betrayed no sign of this to us as he began his set. What I was expecting to be a simple, standard boilerplate set of the typical cutesy singer-songwriter acousticism, however, didn’t materialise – well not in its unadulterated form, in any case. There were certainly a lot of the mid-range crooning, saccharine tunes and lyrics that acoustic pop usually contains. However, he did try to attempt a Reggie Watts-like build-up of music by spot-recording and looping bits live. I must confess to being a fan of this approach – the way in which it allows songs to build up feeling and momentum by the simple act of simultaneous repetition is nothing short of marvellous.
Some particular attempts suffered from some hiccups (a mess-up and a false start to be exact) and his quite-visible nervousness did lead to a couple of flubs. However, these were not death knells, but minor setbacks, because the sweet, layered music created a lovely atmosphere, good enough to make one forget about the hitches. The strumming electric punches, the breathy beats the looped vocals and fingerpicked guitars combined to sound something like (an admittedly less alternative) Yo La Tengo, or even Daniel Johnston, particularly on This is the Moment. This came with some obvious Beatles overtones, as the bittersweet wistful Goodbye Bella (apparently the only song in the set with minor chords). There was some folky-country in the mix as well, which took things in a more Paul Simon-y direction (AFTER & Garfunkel), as on Sunburn. The only thing that really took the shine off the songs were the lyrics, which were a bit predictable and a tad hacky at points; however, I might be being unfair, since the point of the songs aren’t the lyrics, so this is a forgivable flaw. In all a very good way indeed to open the show, and I hope he continues with this mode of music in the future.
— Shashwati Kala
開場的首先有Kevin Kaho Tsui的4首原創曲目及1首翻唱歌曲。Kevin 近年活躍於大大小小演出場地，其創作風格雖然以acoustic 為主，但演出時配合現場錄音器材，令伴奏部份不只有木結他聲音，造成了一人樂隊的效果。開場的歌曲This is the Moment以木結他作分解和弦伴奏，以典型的抒情曲式拉開序幕。Sunburn 感覺柔和溫暖，彈奏時間中拍打琴身增添少許敲擊聲音；抽象視覺投映效果完整了歌曲想表達的氣氛與感覺。整體而言，雖然當晚演出稍微緊張，但其演繹風格比純acoustic演出更有趣，聲音亦更豐富。
— Becky Wong
