Live review from Rock Show For All:
Thinking About
Boys Night
Pee Properly
Google
Punk Rock Kid
Hell Taxi
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Hong Kong with its tall buildings and world class financial institutions often makes us seem like a very serious place. And of course it is a serious place. You don’t get your national bank to becoming the world’s national bank without being serious. But what really drives the city? What is at the core of our HKer identity? Is it being real good at numbers? Is it having no work-life balance?
No, it’s just stupid dumb sh*t.
And After After Party is Stupid Dumb Shit a’la Hong Kong: The Musical.
This is not a description lost on them, even Time Out gives them the moniker of ‘local comedy band’. Cory and Yanyan, as soon as they got on stage brought this up “we often get called ‘Comedy Rock’, that’s not true” they said “we’re a bit of a joke but…we are quite serious”.
With numbers like Pee Properly, Google and their all time best-not-seller Hell Taxi, After After Party is definitely one of Hong Kong’s most serious bands. Case in point, their opening, Thinking About number was about the NSL. How do we know? They said it loudly. The repeated yelling of “thinking about” throughout the song reminds you to think about the things you should think about. Performance-wise, it started off a little weak but very quickly picked up momentum and slingshotted us into “Pee Properly” which was a 30 second ditty reminding those in the audience with appendages to their groins to please aim their water pistols accurately. Cory then reminded us that the Fringe Club does not have that many toilets. The discussion of snakes and pussies was had far more than expected, when Yanyan brought up the fact that their drummer Jayden was featured on a ViuTV show about girl drummers. “Penis or Vagina! Who cares! Just play!”
All the songs were bantery. Google for instance was a bunch of questions followed by the very serious refrain “Let me Google that shit!”. The harmonies on ‘Google’ were also very perfectly flat, reflecting exactly how one feels when you get asked a question because your friend did not first, as they say, ‘google that shit’. Did I mention that the song ended with the line “shitty shitty shitty shitty so shitty”? I love bands that are confident enough to not be worried about saying shit like that.
Moving swiftly into traffic, Hell Taxi is probably their best well known and most popular song and for good reason. I live in Kowloon but spend most of my time on the Island. The number of taxi drivers that refuse to take me home after getting far too pissed watching bands like this on a weekday evening is far too many. Don’t tell me you can’t get to Mong Kok – what taxi driver possibly cannot get to Mong Kok?? “Welcome to Hong Kong, we fight for a taxi” the lyrics go, “I lose my shit as I watch you take my bloody taxi”, it continues. Relatable local humour served hard.
The banter was lovely and the music never took itself too seriously – think They Might Be Giants but local, or conversely Nanyang Pai Dui (南洋派對) but with a girl drummer and a white guy. But as the band says themselves, penis or vagina, and I guess also white and…not white…who cares! Just play!
– Cyril Ma
Live Review from Girls with Guitars #7
1. Nice to Meet You
2. Artistic Ass
3. Hell Taxi
4. Selfie 101
5. Annoying Cats
6. I Am Not a Ten
7. Happy Holiday
After-After Party started their first song (ever, really, since it was their debut) by asking the name of the guy who had consistently been undiscriminatingly loud throughout the night, which was revealed to be Mike. Singer/guitarist Yanyan proceeded to christen him ‘Mike Truffle’ and the loud and raucous soundcheck proceeded with his name as its mainstay, sounding a little like Wild in the Streets by the Circle Jerks. Right from then on there was a fun, wild, loud and noisy vibe in the room, helped along by Yanyan’s bouts of heavy metal shouting (and her subsequently paying for it with massive doses of throat pain and raspiness for the rest of the night). Their lyrics are in the classic tradition of comedy punks like the Dead Kennedys or the Descendents; from Artistic Ass and its diatribe against overly arty types who take themselves too seriously to poor taxi-line etiquette to directions to how to properly take a selfie and even to self-deprecatingly admitting to being average-looking, the lyrics are steeped in dry wit, mild absurdities and clever put-downs. The occasionally acerbic lyrics also bear a close resemblance to those of those of a certain Tyger Feb….I wonder why…
They combine the funny lyrics with their razor sharp and abrasive guitar sound, coming out of a lovely teal Fender Mustang (if my eyes were working correctly). The piercing, don’t-carish guitar is much like that used by early punk bands like The Slits (whose Ari Up also happens to sound much like Yanyan’s throaty yell), and a little bit of the loud bombast of The Dictators, backed up by a solid, thudding rhythm section. Happy Holiday, in particular, was something like reading the phone book, but you’re reading the list of holidays in HK instead of the actual phone book, of which I imagine the Dictators would be immensely proud. There aren’t many poppy moments to be had, but Selfie 101 is a little like if Bon Jovi covered a Nirvana song, and I Am not a Ten sometimes dipped into Avril Lavigne territory. BUT, otherwise a terrific first show by them, suffused with the spirit and abandon of The Ramones. Even if you don’t like punk, you could go and see them in order to get the details of all their online dating website. And end up listening to the music instead.
— Shashwati Kala
這是After-After Party的第一場演出，但他們絕對不是什麼新進的音樂人，每一個團員絕對都是資深的「band友」，只是這一次選擇弄出一個Comedy Rock的組合，以「幽默」作賣點，而的確，當晚他們成功把全場觀眾都逗得開懷。他們cutie與screaming的唱法交錯著，帶來十分有趣的化學作用，而且她們的歌曲都是圍繞生活和潮流的，例如《selfie 101》，是真的會教你如何自拍，然後更有觀眾即時走到台上跟成員自拍，這就是live的可愛和精彩之處，感覺不是演出，而是一班朋友在玩和即興唱唱歌一般。
– Sidick Lam
