Hong Kong's indie music scene fights to survive as two venues close due to high rents
The closing of two live music venues due to escalating rents has Hong Kong indie musicians singing the same sad song - the government should do more to support local acts
In 2010, local singer-songwriter Vicky Fung Wing-ki travelled to Shanghai to catch a show featuring Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Olafur Arnalds, who went on to win a Bafta last year for his work on the soundtrack of TV crime series . The concert drew a crowd of 1,000. She returned to Hong Kong the next day and found Arnalds performing for an audience of 200 at Backstage Live, the restaurant and live music venue she co-founded with friends in the music scene, including producer-songwriter Abe Lau.
That encounter made her realise how running a live venue can put Hong Kong on the map for touring musicians, Fung says.
But home-grown acts and visiting musicians alike will have fewer options with the closure of Backstage Live and Musician Area, a space in the industrial district of Kwun Tong.
Musician Area, which focuses primarily on rock, will close next month. Backstage Live called it quits last week after staging a month-long series of farewell performances that ended on Sunday. Both ventures had to close shop because their revenues couldn't keep up with rising costs.
These places mean a lot to independent music fans and artists in Hong Kong - as was evident when Backstage Live managed to crowdfund more than HK$90,000 to finance its last shows, nearly double its target figure.
The restaurant in Central was meant to be a place where everybody can listen to music, "a place where music is the main character rather than a supporting one", says Fung, who has written hits for pop stars such as Joey Yung Cho-yee and Kelly Chen Wai-lam.
