Hello Asia! Festival Review: Clockenflap Music & Arts Festival – Hong Kong (28-30.11.14)

Over the course of its seven years, the uniquely named Clockenflap has become Hong Kong’s premiere contemporary music and arts festival, presenting a mix of local Hong Kong indie bands with the finest artists from around the world. This year, with music spread over 3 days and 9 stages, the event proved bigger than ever, and I had the opportunity to check out the event for the first time. For 2014, the festival was headlined by The Flaming Lips, Travis and Mogwai and featured Australia’s own Jagwar Ma and Jess Ribeiro.

The event took over the West Kowloon Cultural District, located on reclaimed land just North of Hong Kong Island. Sitting on the water, it provides the event with one of most incredible views you’ll find in Hong Kong – a superb backdrop for the well run and notably family friendly event. The large venue is covered in stages large and small (including a kids stage), with a cinema, an arts area, and food stalls of primarily international cuisine, from baby back ribs to pizza, burgers and surprisingly: fried chicken and waffles, covered in gravy. Be it food or music, you never know what you were going to expect at Clockenflap.

Overall this made for an electric atmosphere. Though crowds were notably slow to arrive each day, the bigger artists housed massive audiences, with Kool & The Gang and The Flaming Lips no exception – though it would be Travis and, somewhat surprisingly, Tenacious D who saw the best attendance of the weekend. But local Hong Kong artists got plenty of love too, especially on the “Your Mum” stage, which saw primarily local – and generally “harder” – bands play to enthusiastic and outspoken fans.

Locals The White Wave opened up the stage on the first night, playing some impressive psych rock, with mellow indie beats and heavy guitar moments. Thud, meanwhile, got things moving on the Replay stage nearby, playing some similarly down tempo psych rock, while revealing it was their first time performing together on stage. CHVRCHES were the first band to draw a crowd, proving a big pull in what was their first visit to Hong Kong – and their second last show of their long running The Bones of What You Believe tour.

By now, the hour long set has become something of routine for the group, as they play the majority of their debut record alongside a fantastic light show. They make no complaints though, pushing through as the professionals they are and impressing the crowd. “Recover” was a highlight, as was set closer “The Mother We Share”. Their latest release “Dead Air” off the new Hunger Games soundtrack also made an appearance, adding a extra ounce of energy to the performance.

The main stage closed with a stunning performance from instrumental heavy ensemble Mogwai – though no surprises there. I, however, spent most of the remaining night enjoying The Raveonettes and The Vaccines, who played out the Replay stage. With a haunting piano intro, The Raveonettes – who play as a trio these days – emerged and delivered a powerful 45 minute set. Mixing in their latest material from Pe’ahi alongside some older favourites, the Danish born, LA based group were loud, rockin’ and blinding – with strobes attacking the crowd all the way until their final track, “Aly Walk With Me”, in all its droney splendour.

Other highlights of the set included the amazing “Attack of the Ghost Riders”, “Endless Sleeper”, and “Killer In The Streets” off the latest record, with some crushing, beautiful bass licks. I have to say it’s when the band get more instrumental that they really blow me away. It’s a pity they won’t be coming to Australia on this tour, because the new album sounds phenomenal live, too. They also wouldn’t be the last band to praise the beauty of the venue – though they may have been the first, exclaiming “They has got to be the most beautiful venue we’ve ever played…”

The Vaccines meanwhile, returned to the stage for one of their first shows in over a year, delivering what feels now like a greatest hits setlist, accompanied by three new tracks and a gusto of energy. Of the 15 track set, the crowd was singing along for most of it, and their popularity spawned something of an encore in “Norgaard”, which closed out the night with the catchy “Her mind’s made up, she don’t wanna go steady. She’s only seventeen, so she’s probably not ready.” Man, just typing those lyrics gets the song stuck in my head. If tonight was any indication, it seems that the band are going to be coming back swinging with their third record. You can read some of my other thoughts on their performance as one of my festival picks here.

Day two, which kicks things off much earlier than the opening night (12.30pm versus 5.15pm), also heralds the introduction of two extra stages – The Acorn, an acoustic performance area where the crowd lounge on beanbags, and Club Minky, a kids performance area by day, a more “experimental” area by night. The great Dan Deacon would play the latter after the sun set (his first of two sets at the festival), and Australia’s own Jess Ribeiro impressed on The Acorn a little earlier. She was followed by Rodney Branigan, a US solo artist, who jumped between originals and covers, with particular mention to be made to his version of “Creep”. Nic Tinworth, a UK born, Hong Kong based artist, opened up the stage, playing originals and an impressive cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Though not all Hong Kong based artists were ex-pats, nor did they all sing in English.

Locals New Youth Barbershop were an acoustic trio who sung in Cantonese, as were five piece Yukilovely, who proved an impressive indie rock group, mixing in prog and psych elements to make their music something more interesting than the usual. Project Ace played a mix of originals and covers, and like Yukilovely, brought a female onto the lead vocals, with a three piece and a DJ behind her, mixing in everything from hip hop to reggae.

A special mention for the day has to go to Sultan Ali and the Red Stripes all the way from Jamaica, with plenty of brass and a vibe that would make them perfect for Bluesfest. Sydney’s own Jagwar Ma followed, with the festival helping them round out what has been something of an incredible year for the trio, playing just about every festival on the planet, from Coachella to Glastonbury and everything in between. They were the perfect band to watch as the sun set, with “Come Save Me” the highlight, exploding in a world of splendour.

Second last on the main stgae, Kool & The Gang performed a set with impressive amounts of energy, keeping the crowd moving from start to finish. They’re that sort of “oh, they did this song!?” band, with the some ten on stage members not having to work too hard to get the thousands of people in the crowd to sing along. The songs are just that well known. Everything from “Fresh” (which opened the set) to “Jungle Boogie”, “Ladies Night”, “Get Down On It” and “Celebration” (which closed it out) made the cut. After all these years, the group – who the same weekend were recipients of the Soul Train Legend Award – remain one of the most energizing live acts around.

But the headliners of the night – and of the whole weekend it would seem, judging by the incredible attendance – were Travis, a Scottish band who made huge waves in the late 90s and early 00s with tracks like “Sing” and “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” becoming international hits. But it seems like we all knew their music better than we give the band credit for, because it felt like a set full of favourites and well known anthems. Like Kool & The Gang before him, a heavily bearded Fran Healy (pictured above) didn’t have to do much to get the crowd to singalong, but he nonetheless proved an enigmatic and engaging frontman, closing the night out in style. It was impossible not to sing along and get swept up in it all. This is clearly a much loved band here in Hong Kong.

Though their performance would herald the end of the second night of performances, the party continued in the nearby W Hotel, where the “Woostage” played host to the nightly afterparty. We headed along to check out Jagwar Ma’s Jono Ma dropping a few tracks before calling it a night ahead of the third and final day…

It was a day which would once again kick off with some local talent. Celestial stood out, and gave precedence to their name with a spacey set. The Stray Katz Big Band, meanwhile, brought their big band vibes to a set of covers featuring a variety of vocalists and plenty of brass. Everything from “I Will Survive” to Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke (You Can Feel It All Over” sat amongst the set, which had the locals groovin’.

By now you may have read my rave about local indie folk outfit Noughts and Exes, and indeed they were a highlight of the day, with track “Lovely Day” worth a particular mention. But the day – as did my entire weekend, perhaps – belonged to Dan Deacon, the self-appointed “villain of all picnics”, who will stop at nothing to make sure everyone in the crowd is having the best time of their lives. “Rule number three: No Cowards.” From dance offs to human chain tunnels and that thing where everyone runs around in a giant circle (it has a name doesn’t it?), he had everyone acting like idiots for an hour while he played his high energy electronica. One of the best performers around – he throws a party you just can’t miss.

About to play Meredith and some sideshows in Australia, The Lemonheads played a lengthy set which paraded over their entire career, opening with “Hospital”, moving through rockin’ renditions of “Down About It”, “The Great Big No”, “Confetti” and “It’s a Shame About Ray”. But then the four piece stripped back, with just Evan and his guitarist left on stage for “The Outdoor Type”, before Dando took away all backing all together, performing vocals only for “Frank Mills” and “Gloomy Sunday”. “Hard Drive” was excellent, as was “All My Life”, which brought back the guitars but not the rest of the band, as Evan commented “I hope you don’t mind this chilled out Sunday shit…”. And we really didn’t – the slower numbers proved a highlight of the night. An encore of “Dawn Can’t Decide” and “Rudderless”, with the full band in tote, closed out the set.

Tenacious D played a standard, rockin’ and often hilarious set as they moved through tracks off their three records. Unlike their last “acoustic” tour of Australia, they were back to full band mode here – and I think they had Brooks Wackerman back on the drums, who you may remember also filled in for Travis Barker on the Blink shows in Australia. The set surprisingly kicked off with “Tribute” and ended with a jam session and “Fuck Her Gently”. A shout out also to the unexpected jazz routine which broke things up… “What you want is Metal… but what you NEED is Jazz!”.

But, in spite of the American comedic rockers holding onto a bigger crowd, it was The Flaming Lips‘ duty to close out the festival with plenty of silver confetti, Wayne in a giant ball (though surprisingly halfway through the set, rather than at the start) and a mix of material. The highlight of the set had to go to “The Golden Path”, which was a collaboration between The Chemical Brothers and The Lips from 2003. “Yoshimi”, which was dedicated to Jack Black (who was visably enjoying the set from side of stage), went down well, as did “Do You Realize?”, which kicked off the two track encore, but it was the final number of the show I had personally been waiting for. Having just released a Sgt. Peppers cover record in With A Little Help From My Fwends, I was a bit surprised we only got to hear one track off the record, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – and it sits right behind “The Golden Path” as the best moment in the set. It’s a phenomenal cover, and given how close we are to the album’s release, it’s a pity they didn’t give us more off the record.

But they’re about crowd pleasing with a wealth of material from their career, rather than dwelling on something new – they’ve always been like that. It makes it a bit frustrating when you’ve seen them quite a few times before knowing you’ll essentially be seeing the same thing again, but with some hilarious moments, great energy and a stellar live show, you can’t help but enjoy yourself every time. Though I don’t know what was going on with that whole fake baby thing…

And with that, the festival was over. Clockenflap was a phenomenally well run event set against an incredible backdrop. The staging and set out were excellent and the sound was, for the most part, impressive, with the bands delivering stellar performances throughout the three days. It seems a pity that there aren’t more festivals like this in the city, it seems built for an experience like this. I for one will definitely be coming back for seconds.

Photos by Johnny Au

Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.