What an awesome start to our 20th Year Anniversary Series! So much fun to host seven upcoming Hong Kong bands on the Community Stage at AIA Carnival. The bands stepped up to show what great talent we have brewing in Hong Kong. Thank you to Michael Denmark and Ed Bean at the AIA Carnival for making this happen. Thank you to Jack, Felix and Josiah for handling the sound magnificently. Thanks to Aaron Michelson for the photos. Thanks to our reviewers: LJ, Hazel-Rah & Cyril. Thanks to Bay for the awesome artwork. BIG round of applause for the team members working so hard that day: Lucy and Sunny. I couldn’t have done it without all of you guys.‎
我哋20周年慶祝系列啱啱開始，真係太開心啦！喺AIA嘉年華嘅社區舞台度，我哋成功搞咗七隊香港新晉樂隊嚟演出。佢哋好有型，展示咗我哋喺香港有幾多出色嘅音樂才華。特別鳴謝AIA嘉年華嘅Michael Denmark同埋Ed Bean，喺佢哋嘅支持底下，呢次活動先得以實現。多謝Jack, Felix同 Josiah，我哋嘅音響工程師兄，多謝Aaron Michelson為我哋影相，多謝Lauren、Hazel-Rah 同Cyril同我哋寫樂評。多謝Bay嘅出色藝術設計。要大力鼓掌俾當晚好努力嘅團隊成員：Lucy同Sunny。冇你哋，我哋一定唔可以咁順利完成呢個活動。
❤️ Chris B xx

Keisha Buckland & Band

1. Hindsight
2. Darling Carolina
3. ⁠Locomotive
4. ⁠Cut the source
5. Ammonite
6. Feather by Sabrina Carpenter (cover)
7. ⁠What If

Opening The Underground’s programme at the AIA Carnival was 17-year-old Keisha Buckland, a singer who brought warmth and personality to the harbourfront with her band of friends and powerful songs.

Chris B was “bowled away” by Keisha when she performed solo at a Shazza night and rightly placed her onto an Underground bill without delay. In a sea of one-dimensional pop rock, Keisha stands out in the range of her musical palette and ability to capture an audience’s attention with her earnest stage presence and emotionally articulate open-diary lyrics.

Her smooth, mellow voice was introduced on opening song Hindsight, which combined softly strummed guitar with candid lyrics and led into Darling Carolina’s catchy chorus. She dealt with heavy subject matter with maturity: lyrics like “I like when you demean me” and “Board that train and let it take me away” on the captivating Locomotive spoke to a darker side of relationships and longing.

The band, though displaying great chemistry and camaraderie on stage, would slip in and out of time, and the pitch and strength of Keisha’s voice wavered, especially during the first half of the set while her confidence was still growing. Nevertheless, the audience was encouraging, and the upbeat nature of the songs and dynamism of Keisha as a figure onstage drew people away from the carnival games and held them rapt throughout the seven song set.

Cut The Source, “a song about having a best friend”, performed solo by Keisha, paired self-observational second-person lyrics, telling an unnamed interlocutor “he’s not worth the price of therapy” and “maybe it’s time to cut to the hours of tearing your hair out”. It wasn’t clear who she was speaking to, which made it interesting to ponder whether she was addressing her younger self.

The full band returned for Ammonite, which paired a simple bassline with a clean, down-strummed guitar. It sounded the least rehearsed and fleshed out of the tunes; a slight bald patch in a mostly richly crafted set, but represented only a momentary blip before the players knitted back into a rhythm again.

On closer What If, Keisha sang “What if all of a sudden we were the only two on earth? What if I was the person you could turn to if you got hurt?” For audience members, the lyrics were relatable: everyone at some point in their life has been left scratching their heads trying to figure out what the opposite sex is thinking and wondering why the path to love isn’t always easy.

A breezy cover of Sabrina Carpenter’s Feather (Keisha’s number one track on Spotify Wrapped) stood out for how confidently it was performed. Spoken sections were delivered with charisma, recalling Taylor Swift’s listener-addressing cutaways. Swift and Olivia Rodrigo would be natural comparisons to make to Keisha, but Fleetwood Mac or Carol King wouldn’t be overstated references either: it was clear Keisha has absorbed music from a range of different eras and genres and emerged with her own, very personal style. Her future stage appearances will be unmissable as she continues on her musical journey and continues to grow as an exciting new voice on the Hong Kong scene
– LJ

Phoenix Broderick

I Don’t Need To Write A Breakup Song Just To Be Successful
Your Fake Smile
Let Them All In
Creep (Radiohead cover)
Incredible Boy
Allergies
You
As It Was (Harry Styles cover)
Stars

“Is the theme of The Underground 20th anniversary, acts that didn’t exist when The Underground started?” a cynical onlooker commented as Discovery Bay’s Phoenix Broderick and his band took to the stage. If that was true, it’s an excellent sign of things to come: Phoenix is a charismatic and magnetic performer, with a distinct skill for songwriting and enviable singing voice, and his talented band created a rich soundscape onto which evocative lyrics painted vivid pictures.

His love for Harry Styles was evident – overtly, as through his falsetto-avoiding cover of As It Was, which fit well within Phoenix’s wheelhouse – but also in the candid Your Fake Smile and Let Them All In, the latter also evoking a more folk-oriented Belle and Sebastian sound with a tight bassline laid down by bandmate Will.

Phoenix’s approach to lyricism is wry and self-aware: his jolly, piano-embellished opening track I Don’t Need To Write A Breakup Song Just To Be Successful poked fun at the pop sphere and marked him out as a fresh voice, and his radio DJ intros and patter were highly entertaining. But he gave in to something softer on the distinctly romantic You, which was perfectly punctuated by a plume of dry ice released overhead by sound guy Jack.

A rendition of Creep, however, felt unnecessary and lacking in subtlety, especially when compared to the band’s own superb originals. Incredible Boy, introduced as the contrast to Radiohead’s love-hate megahit, was about staying grounded; a paean to positive self-affirmation, which felt far more effective. Like Keisha Buckland, who was on the bill before Phoenix, the singer mulled over dating in the digital age and attempted to figure out what was going on in the heads of his peers.

Phoenix’s confidence and stage presence belies his young years, and his set livened up a chilly day at the harbourfront festival. A natural successor to more established soloists like Mr Koo, he appears fully formed as a showman and ready to make an impact of a far greater radius than Hong Kong.
-LJ

Movement (牧民樂隊)

老司機
漢記書店
給你唱一首歌
Donkepele
聽阿嬤唱歌

Full credit to Movement: they had a daytime slot at a funfair, performed to a front row of toddlers in an arena dotted with bizarre fibreglass animals, and followed two (albeit talented) teenage bands, but showed no sign of ego during their fun set. Seasoned performer and frontman Ewan Ho has a profile as a soloist, but appeared with a dapper band of strong musicians as the pop-rocking Movement.

Ho had a natural ease and relaxed performance style, which, along with his band’s equally fine musicianship and cheerful demeanour, made the set a highlight of the carnival. 老司機 was a catchy “city folk” track about a taxi driver on which Ho switched between Cantonese and Mandarin. On 漢記書店 “Hong Kee Bookshop”, he whinges about everything under the sun and how life is hard but friends have each other’s backs. The percussion here stood out as particularly effective, with subtler elements like stick shakers and chime bringing greater dimension to songs.

Sentimentality shone through on 聽阿嬤唱歌, “Listen to Grandma Sing”: “clouds make me think of my grandmother’s face,” said Ho. “If you’ve got time go and see your grandmother, and maybe go and buy her a beer.” After a spaghetti western guitar intro, the track built slowly with a pulsing tribal feel to the progression. One section was even sung into a beer cup still foamy with dregs. This long and surprisingly emotive piece culminated in the guitar and bass being strummed in unison.

“I’ve got some CDs, you can exchange one for beer or money,” he introduced 給你唱一首歌, “I’ll Sing You A Song”, a kind of acoustic punk ode to spreading love and supporting others. For sign-off song Donkepele, the band called on local fan “Michael” to clamber onto the stage and join them for a singalong refrain. It was a sweet, spontaneous touch in a deftly crafted, feelgood show.
– LJ

TalkAgain

1.Kolor – 蛇吞象
2.Pandora – 找出秒針的缺口
3.Pandora – 非理想愛人
4.Gareth.T – 緊急聯絡人
5.TalkAgain – 換日線

TalkAgain is a band which got together in January of 2022 as a busking band and making its debut on an Underground stage on this occasion. A departure from the Underground’s usual practice, the set consisted of covers except for one original.

Watching them for the first time, I couldn’t help but think that the band lacked stage performance experience – right after they were announced, there was a not inconsiderable awkward silence. When it eventually started to play, what greeted the audience was a full, tight sound, befitting a band which has played together for 2 years. As far as the stage presence goes, they could have made better use of the big stage on which they were playing, but instead spent much of the set playing in line. However, they were quite passionate in engaging the audience, which impressed me.

On the playing and singing, a couple of things: although overall I was impressed by the vocal, there were certain misses, particularly in the higher register and falsetto (which was used quite liberally in their one original song). This was barely noticeable and a fate that befell several of the bands that night – it was a cold night and I daresay none of the singers did much warm up before getting on stage, so I shan’t be too harsh on them on this occasion. Lastly I wish to say something about the violin playing – as the only non-fretted instrument on stage, the violinist must take extra care in hitting the right note, as even slight misses could be very noticeable through the PA.

Overall a tight performance, much of my “criticisms” can probably be put down to TalkAgain’s lack of stage performance experience. Given more stage performing opportunities and hopefully more original compositions, I have no doubt I will get to see more of their sets at future Underground shows.
– Hazel-Rah

rosemances

1. The Garden (4:46″)
2. 我還是一如既往的浪漫 (3:24″)
3. 玫瑰火/ city (3:24″)
4. waiting for a home (2:56″)
5. Tulipa (1:30″)
6. Desert Rose (3:35″)
7. 日/ 夜 (2:40″)
8. feel / day (3:30″)

rosemances is a duo which started playing together in the current outfit for a year, describing their music as “chill, atmospheric ambience, and sweet, dreamy sounds”.

A confident start, their music was exactly how they described. Although the music was probably suited for a quiet night in with a hot chocolate in hand rather than a chilly and windy night in the open, I could not help but get drawn into the warmness of the duo’s music, much of which centred around their life experience and little things that memories are made of, such as sunsets, seas, soft pillows (what I call bunnies and butterflies stuff). Musically is a mixture from electronic ambience to light funk, in the latter of which Mances, the bloke in this duo, skilfully demonstrated his skill on the guitar (as opposed to the bass in many of the former tracks). I was particularly impressed by the guitar playing in the track 玫瑰火 (I guess “Rose Fire”…). Despite only being a duo, the outfit made full use of the stage by dancing and just simple meandering and interacted very successfully with the audience in their relaxed, chilled out manner. At one stage the duo performed sitting sitting on the edge of the stage, which definitely created a “fire side chat” atmosphere with the audience. The duo wore matching costumes of cream coloured fleece tops on the night which definitely contributed towards that “home” ambience. Both the bass and the guitar were of a similar colour and on checking out rosemances’ sites online, I believe this cream colour is a bit of a “branding” thing for them. One thing I want to point out, although not really part of the review per se, is that both the guitar and the bass were Squier, which, in a brand conscious city, really is a breath of fresh air.

This reviewer, a self-confessed rocker who sneers at anything electronic, has to admit that I was bowled over by rosemances’ music and had the urge to go home, snuggle up against my teddy with a cup of hot chocolate (neither of which I have). There is an air of cuteness and warmth in their songs which I do not often find in their genre (of which I have already admitted I am no expert but their music touched my heart). rosemances is definitely going places and has at least won over a new follower on Spotify!
-Hazel-Rah

ByeBye Miku

1.逆光
2.catch
3.分手後第一首聽的歌
4.528hz dec
5.未來沒有現在
6.半優秀

Names don’t have to have a deeper meaning, but with a name like “Bye Bye Miku”, you’re inviting interrogation. After all, the vocaloid, 初音ミク, Hatsune Miku – the sound of the future – is a ubiquitous name in Japanophile Hong Kong. If we’re saying bye to the sound of the future, I wanted to know why.

I found very little answer to this question. Bye Bye Miku is at their heart an R&B inspired cantopop band. Their first song 逆光 (Against the Light) is a relatively new song released only in October. Starting with a pounding drum intro and an explosion of guitars, their first number captivated the audience (which, for reasons I’m still confused by, were sitting on dinosaurs and macaroons; I was sat on an ice cream bench next to an emoji). However, while the energy was in the right place, it was not refined. Perhaps lead vox Yiu Cho had a cold – it was a pretty cold week – but the vocals felt strained, sometimes forced. He had a vocoder on which used some moderate autotune and heavy compression to create a slightly vocaloid aesthetic – the only semblance to anything ‘Miku’ I could find. This gave it some interest but wasn’t used very obviously until the song ended with a tasteful harmonic.

After a brief intermission where the excitement of performing at an Underground Palooza broke a guitar string, Yiu Cho introduced the second song Catch. “I’ve always wanted to perform this at a park or a carnival – and now it’s come true”, he said as he turned around to signal the band to start. Catch is a very summery pop song, ironic considering the weather but catchy melodies, sappy subject matter and infectious rhythms a good time makes. The crowd definitely agrees, swaying and nodding along. However the inkling of things not quite being a bit strained, a bit anxious perhaps or just not warmed up was still there. This did improve. Their third song, a classic breakup rock ballad (which literally translates to “the first song I listened to after breaking up”) was far tighter.

Although here I realised my main gripe – their performance was too performative. There were clearly choreographed movements, especially from the vocals, with arms crossed then swinging. Yes, there’s a cool demeanour but it felt a bit forced. The irony here is that they’re not bad. Far from it. I honestly greatly enjoyed their songwriting – it’s creative, imaginative, fun and fiercely local. But the staging felt inexperienced; there were moments where the guitarists sat down with little warning, the audience obviously confused thinking they had broken another guitar string. When Yiu Cho tried to get the audience to stand up, people seemed hesitant.

Compared to most bands I’ve reviewed, Bye Bye Mike is a bit of an oddity. Despite their songs being lively and catchy, great for an audience, they really REALLY excel in the studio. Listening to their songs on their social media and watching their MV performances gave me a very different band. One that was confident, youthful and yes, still very fierce and proud. On stage, much of that seemed to be hiding behind a facade of gangsta postures and stress. Not to mention, their use of technology really comes out in the studio recordings too – the vocoder is used far more clearly and additional synthesised layers gives every song serious interest.

They did bring that stuff on stage of course, their newest number 528hz begins with a kick drum imitating a heart beat (yes, very sappy) followed by a sparkling, dreamy auditory soundscape of pianos, keyboards and synthesisers. All this was even more amazing considering there were clowns on stilts blowing bubbles, creating an oddly fantastical, magical atmosphere.

However, it really did feel like more could have been done to show off how different and unique Bye Bye Miku are compared to any other run-of-the-mill Gen Z cantopop band. You know that they’re nice musicians too because they introduced the next band between numbers as close friends. So there’s really nothing they’re lacking aside from experience and confidence.

All said, their final number, 半優秀, was brilliant. Compared to their other numbers, the vocoder was on full blast. It was deep and robotic, and reminded me more of Daft Punk than Miku. Their banter was lively too – telling everyone to let loose and party harder before taking the lead and absolutely smashing. And to end it all? Drum sticks thrown into the air, possibly taking a ride down the Helter Skelter.
– Cyril Ma

After Tales

1.咫尺之遙
2.流光
3.西區小說
4. (New Song)
5.雙失少女

Aftertales is trying to tell us a story of a far away land where a young girl works her hardest to make her dreams come true. Dressed in casual browns and long jackets, the band felt like they came straight out of a fantasy isekai anime. And this is probably deliberate; they brought their own backdrop which had a beautiful fantasy valley, glowing lights and a little cryptid with horns and turtle head.

But the music – oh the music. Cantopop meets Radiohead meets Baby Metal with a lashing of J-pop. A cute innocent looking girl, Danielle, leads the band. With a guitar in hand, she stands in front of the mic, guitar (Kit) and bass (Thomas) flanking her and drums (Ken). It was nice, almost like a homecoming, to see the singer of a new band stand, largely planted, in front of the mic. She tells the audience her stories directly through the music, as though a narrator. The performance is proper; Danielle even insists on having in ear monitors to make sure her pitching never goes off. And it pays off. Their second song “流光 (Glittering)” is a cutesy j-pop inspired ballad, that is to say fast, complex with lots of jumps in the melody and yet no one missed a beat. Danielle’s vocals were pitchy at times but well pitched and very much in character (I do wonder whether they overplayed the pitchy just a little bit as the chorus does sound slightly high for her, but I’m nitpicking). Published in 2021, this is a relatively early song for them which makes it all the more impressive. The most impressive part of the song though was not of the song itself but their brilliant segue into the next song which used the feedback from the guitars to lead into a synth organ and introducing the next song 西區小說.

This song, ‘A Tale Of The Western District’ was a big contrast from the previous numbers. If 流光 was the calm, 西區小說 is the storm. There is a lot more energy, Danielle starts yelling as the song romps through landmarks of the Western district. This is where the Baby Metal-esque influence comes in; the juxtaposition between cute girl and hard rock, creating something that, as they themselves quote from a previous review is “refreshingly sweet and obstinately stubborn”.

Their next number returned to the fantastical atmosphere of the opening few numbers and at full speed. The use of a choruser on the guitar made it sound like an organ or a keytar, and along with pre-recorded harmonies on Danielle’s voice created a magical introspective moment where it seemed as though she spoke to herself in a dreamlike world. In fact, the effect of the song’s musical narrative was so great that the only thing I wished was that the background visuals could match and move along with the music more. Something to think about!

But perhaps their most impressive number was saved for last. 雙失少女 – NEET girl. NEET stands for “Not in Education, Employment or Training ” and is here used ironically. The 7 minute epic of a song begins with an extended narration where the innocent girl talks about “working hard, working hard” every day but receiving not much in return. As Danielle tells her story, the crowd naturally gathers closer and closer, like children to a campfire. The music grows. She starts to sing – this is the climax of the song, I thought to myself, but it keeps going. It’s a rock opera. Kit is pulling off some very impressive guitar taps. Danielle flips her hair back; let’s go. Hair on her face with every chord she plays. Kit starts shredding. And all the energy is bursting out of them as they keel over letting the music flow forward into the cold air.

“Bye, see you next time”
– Cyril Ma

Photos by Aaron Michelson.​
由Aaron Michelson攝影。
Poster by​ ​​​Bay Leung​.
海報由​​​Bay​ Leung.