Live review from The Underground Winter Festival (冬季音樂祭) Day 2 @ The Fringe Club:
Butterfly
Melatonin Instead
Bass Moves the Beat
MTR
Taxi Driver
Wiseman Said
Nate Wong – Drums
Christie Lynn – Vocal
Him Wong – Keyboard
Julz Bernales – Bass
Ken Ling – Guitar
GOOD FUNK SHUI – The FUNK is in the air!
冇辜負到主持人嘅Hyper介紹——GOOD FUNK SHUI呢隊爵士組合好快就以佢哋獨有嘅「Funk式」帶動全場氣氛！由開場白到散場wrap up，The FUNK is always in the air，呢班爵士樂手冇錯過任何一個將觀眾帶入節拍嘅機會，連結尾講拜拜都好似JAM歌咁啊！
5位樂手個性鮮明，喺佢哋生動嘅演繹下Jazz變得更易入口！主唱Christie活潑得嚟又文雅，帶大家打住拍子入歌，令觀眾自然融入演奏，同時反映樂手間嘅默契，將呢30分鐘變成真正由音樂串連嘅演出，而非只由5、6首表演曲目堆砌嘅「歌單串燒」。
結他手Ken同鼓手Nate舞台經驗相對豐富，身兼Nowhere Boys樂手嘅佢哋彈得打得仲講得笑得！阿Ken彈住結他繞場一周炒熱氣氛不在話下，阿Nate仲帶領觀眾揀樂手solo助慶，至於揀中邊個——答案當晚觀眾限定！
講開又講，大家對Jazz樂手嘅印象又嚟自邊度——電影？酒吧？近期某套日本漫畫？或者係偏好曲風所致，我自己對Jazz樂手以至Jazz本身多少有種距離感，呢種印象放喺「香港Jazz樂手」上就更加模糊。而GOOD FUNK SHUI當晚嘅表演成功消融咗呢種難以言喻嘅隔閡，身體喺當下全然享受跟充滿生命力嘅節拍搖擺，細場+題材亦有加成，雖然歌詞係英文，但又有幾何會聽到主題係「的士司機」嘅JazzZ演奏～
表演中段Nate放低鼓棍拎起咪克風，同觀眾描述Jazz喺自己心中令人嚮往嘅地方。呢段冇音樂真「齋講」，但對我嚟講絕對搖滾——願意向他人傅遞自己嘅感動並邀請對方進入其中，真係夠熱愛先做到，所以觀眾反應咁熱情，MC＆攝影哥哥嘅舞姿咁出彩！GOOD FUNK SHUI絕對係值得入場睇嘅香港Jazz組合，佢哋音樂性、娛樂性豐富，同觀眾距離夠近，以獨有「Funk式」為所屬圈子注入活力，期待下次佢哋全員演出！
P.S. 聽完Jazz，緊接就係Hardcore Punk Band SNAIL演出，好彩有熱身！
（呢樣都係UDG event嘅有趣體驗！）
-劉海亮
Live Review from Wild Boar Music Festival 野豬音樂節:
1. I’m Not The Droid You’re Looking For
2. Do You
3. Taxi Driver
4. Darkside
5. Butterfly in Paradise
Individually talented, collectively overwhelming.
That was my first thought after Good Funk Shui’s set. With a gold-plated guitarist Geoff, whose effortlessly blistering solos stole the show from the opening track (I’m Not The Droid…), to the flute-wielding bongo player Floro who gave me painful flashbacks to recorder lessons, to the jaunty musical theatrics of lead vocalist Megan — it’s a sonic bombshell. I’m no stickler for genre conformity, but these conflating styles posed a question for me: what is their vision? What is their unifying thread, something which every band needs to transform a handful of disparate artists into a combined force of nature? And was this thread being overshadowed by the volume of incongruent sound?
That unifying thread is embodied in frontman and drummer, Nate Wong. The highly adept percussion savant has headlined venues across the globe, as well as having been featured in other bands of all genres (including Hong Kong-based Nowhere Boys). His presence is a positive and permeating one, radiating his passion even whilst behind a drum kit as he takes time to introduce the players around him. His star power is an undeniable lynchpin, vital to the band’s warm reception from the audience as they hooted and waved back excitedly.
Peppy folk-funk tunes Do You and Taxi Driver were heavy on the storytelling, a cross between Lily Allen and something from Broadway’s more modern catalogue. The songs’ folksy lilts were accented cleverly with keyboards and percussion however, they did not need a distracting flute soloing over it, spoiling the effect with unnecessary texture. Flute music has its place, but I doubt that place is with poppy, piano-led musical theatre vocals.
Darkside was a personal favourite, and featured another brutal guitar solo amongst smatterings of generic accompanying melodies – including occasional repetitions of what (I am pretty certain) was the intro to Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. Not really in the vein of bluesy funk like the rest of the troupe at this point, but hey. Geoff is clearly a classic rocker amongst the pigeons.
Butterfly in Paradise unfortunately felt extremely piecemeal. It was an example of the lack of correspondence between the musicians, with each one vying for the audience’s attention rather than playing as a collective.
That is not to say that Good Funk Shui are in any way bad. If anything, maybe they are all too talented to be congruent with each other. It would be criminal not to point out the deft skill of bassist JackiZ, Jerold’s funky keyboard licks, and the slick jazz lounge aesthetics of saxophone player Chaichon.
On paper, it should work.
In practice, some refocusing and conceptualising would go hand in hand to make it so.
– Jasmine Gould-Wilson
