ALL FOR ONE

Live review from 16th Anniversary Party:

1:讓我留在你身邊(Cover)
2:皇妃(Cover)
3:Yellow (Cover)
4:信者得勝
5:未完的故事
6:點火
7:I Dont Love You(Cover)

This review doesn’t need to be long. In fact I can do it in one word:

Wow!

But that’s not very fair to the band, so I’ll give it some more words. Let’s start with another 6 words:

They knocked my f***ing socks off!

In terms of musical style, All For One is nothing too exciting. Musically, they’re your run-of-the-mill heavy alt-rock band dressed in the current fashion for Cantopop bands; that is to say black and white outfits, long hair and a bit of bling. Taiwanese-Japanese-Hong Kong look.

But as the mantra goes, why fix what’s not broken? And there is nothing at all broken about All For One. Short, punchy, straight to the point style of performance with no extra frills than what is needed. Everything done perfectly without a single mistake anywhere (except when they accidentally said happy birthday to Rula instead of the Underground!)

Despite being a mostly Canto/Mando-pop cover band, All For One did play a single English song ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay. It’s quite common for a Hong Kong band to try and include at least one English song in their sets, but they’re not often great – just stroll down Kwun Tong promenade and listen to the buskers. However, cementing their brilliant versatile playstyle, All For One nailed the song. Being the only song that the largely expat audience could sing along to, everything got up and rushed to the dancefloor. I couldn’t even see the band from my chair.

By half-time, a brief but noticeable tiredness had set in, however. Aiden, the lead singer, covered in sweat, took off his jacket. For a moment, the band slowed down, and it seems like the adrenaline had worn off. All For One isn’t a veteran band, – at least not with the Underground – so I thought that might be the cause. How wrong I was to judge them. Immediately they began to then to play their three original offerings of the night, and the energy was right back.

Never before have I seen a Cantonese band get so many expats dancing and singing along to words they don’t even understand. For an international city like Hong Kong, it’s often hard for a band to hit both sides of the linguistic divide but All For One have done just that.

All For One’s first time playing at the Underground and already they’ve established themselves as venerable members of the Underground canon.
-Cyril Ma

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Performances by ALL FOR ONE: