Late October, the Dishonorable Edward Pastanga and I visited Wilhelmus von N's place, as we had been invited once again for a vinyl evening.
I had prepared myself by digging up some old singles and albums from my collection, as well as buying a new platter: Go Go Crankin’ - Paint The White House Black…
Afterwards, we sat down in his vinyl sanctuary, opened the beers, and started playing some discs, which is a kind of ancient ritual for us by now.
I had prepared myself by digging up some old singles and albums from my collection, as well as buying a new platter: Go Go Crankin’ - Paint The White House Black…
Afterwards, we sat down in his vinyl sanctuary, opened the beers, and started playing some discs, which is a kind of ancient ritual for us by now.
Most of the brought along 45s I couldn’t play as W’s record player missed one of those plastic adapters, but we still had more than enough music to enjoy.
Fuelled by copious amounts of beer, conversation typically went all over the place: Artificial Intelligence, politics, music, books, the mystery of the never-matching socks in our households, etc.
Suddenly, W announced that we hadn’t been to any real concert for a while, to which both DEP and I agreed, but didn’t have any suggestions at hand to rectify this sad state of affairs.
Not discouraged at all, W consulted his smartphone and suddenly exclaimed: “Oh, this is cool, Clockenflap Festival in Hong Kong, 5-7 December, we should go there!”
He shared the festival’s lineup with us, of which we recognised exactly two bands: Sparks and Franz Ferdinand…
Even so, we agreed that it really looked cool, and W immediately started booking tickets!
Other details, such as getting there + accommodation, we would look at later…
Once sobered up the next day, I texted DEP: "Did he really book tickets for that festival???"
Suddenly, W announced that we hadn’t been to any real concert for a while, to which both DEP and I agreed, but didn’t have any suggestions at hand to rectify this sad state of affairs.
Not discouraged at all, W consulted his smartphone and suddenly exclaimed: “Oh, this is cool, Clockenflap Festival in Hong Kong, 5-7 December, we should go there!”
He shared the festival’s lineup with us, of which we recognised exactly two bands: Sparks and Franz Ferdinand…
Even so, we agreed that it really looked cool, and W immediately started booking tickets!
Other details, such as getting there + accommodation, we would look at later…
Once sobered up the next day, I texted DEP: "Did he really book tickets for that festival???"
To make a long story short, it turned out that W had exactly done that, so we started booking flights and hotels, which was relatively easy.
Friday: Passenger, Sparks, Digitalism DJ-set
Saturday: Phum Viphurit, Chilli Beans, L’Imperatrice
Sunday: Marcin, Jeremy Zucker, TV Girl, Franz Ferdinand, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Our overall impression was that the festival was very well organised (unlike some of the Dutch events I attended back in the day), very clean, plenty of toilets, food stands, beer taps, etc., impressive!
Unfortunately during those 3 days, it became frightfully obvious that our decrepit bodies no longer could survive standing for more than 3 hours straight, no matter how much we shuffled around: lower back aches, leg cramps, and sore feet, our litany of complaints could have come from a bunch of pensioners in a nursing home...
As a result, we missed a lot of bands/artists, but from those we did see, here are our reviews:
Name: Passenger
Date Performing: Friday, 5 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Entertaining acoustic stuff, good interaction with public.
Wilhelmus von N: If you like buskers, you like Passenger. It takes courage to be alone with a guitar on stage. Knows how to involve the crowd - but there is only so much you can do with a guitar to really get the crowd going.
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Chatty. He enjoyed sharing his new stuff, but no one in the crowd really recognized any of it. This became more obvious when he got a huge roar near the end when he played the only song everyone knew. Can imagine it gets tiring to play one song all the time, although he put on a brave face, claiming he enjoyed playing it.
Name: Sparks
Date Performing: Friday, 5 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Epic stuff! But how can Russell Mael (77!) jump around on stage like that? And Ron Mael doing his Suburban Homeboy shuffle was priceless!
Wilhelmus von N: I just want to age like Russell. They played an amazing set!
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Excellent fun from the very off when they sang "Shall we start?". Great show, good music. Embarrassing for the grumpy old men who, quite rightly, avoid jumping around like that especially in public.
Name: Digitalism DJ set
Date Performing: Friday, 5 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: DJ shite
Wilhelmus von N: Forgettable. Which I apparently did instantly.
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Don't recall them. Must have been thinking about anything else.
Name: Phum Viphurit
Date Performing: Saturday, 6 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Funky Thai band, cool background videos too.
Wilhelmus von N: Really enjoyed this band - flute, violins, and all. Technically really good, and they clearly had a ton of fun being on stage. Great background videos too!
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Started inauspiciously with a head-wobbling love song kind of track that Thai girls love. Once they got going though, it turns out, they are well funky with excellent production management. Fun show.
Name: Chilli Beans.
Date Performing: Saturday, 6 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Cute Jpop girl band who can rock!
Wilhelmus von N: They rocked - good bass player too!
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Fun and rocking with cuteness overload from the lead singer.
Name: L'Impératrice
Date Performing: Saturday, 6 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Loud but fun, at times a bit like Level 42.
Wilhelmus von N: For me the best discovery of this Clockenflap. Funky, some Level 42 bass action, and sampling Massive Attack (Diamonds in the back, sunroof down, digging the scene... ). As it's all in French, it's hard to sing along and to remember songs, but I find myself listening to their playlist and liking their tunes more and more.
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: It had a good beat, and you can dance to it. They played a great many songs, but I cannot recall a single one and, if they played the song again, I would not recognize ever having heard it. Ultimately, the songs had no real distinguishing feature, unlike the lead singer who was extraordinarily lithe and had two very distinguishing features.....her voice and her dancing (not what Wilhelmus was thinking).
Name: Marcin
Date Performing: Sunday, 7 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Clever, but boring after a while, showoff…
Wilhelmus von N: No wonder he's a hit on TikTok
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Extraordinary guitar player, clearly sleeps with his instrument and plays it in his sleep. The guitar that is, not what Wilhelmus was thinking. Something to be seen live, not really suitable for say listening to on a long drive.
Name: Jeremy Zucker
Date Performing: Sunday, 7 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Ouch, delete!
Wilhelmus von N: Time to get another beer....
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Oh yeah. Him.
Name: TV Girl
Date Performing: Sunday, 7 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Better than expected.
Wilhelmus von N: Enjoyable for a few numbers - West Coast American pop.
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Oddly enjoyable, I would add them to a playlist. Not something to get lost in for hours though.
Name: Franz Ferdinand
Date Performing: Sunday, 7 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Highlight of the festival, they ROCKED!
Wilhelmus von N: I am a big fan to start with and they were my main reason to sign up for this year's Clockenflap. And boy, they rock! What is it with Glasgow and great bands?
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Proper rock band. Absolute highlight. Wanted to go back and listen to their entire back catalogue.
Name: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Date Performing: Sunday, 7 December 2025
Grumpy Old Men Verdict:
Art58Koen: Nah, didn’t really work for me…
Wilhelmus von N: What?
The Dishonorable Edward Pastanga: Noise.
Afterwards, we submitted our in-depth reviews to Clockenflap's organizers, who were mightily impressed and consequently released a special MP3 compilation, which is riding the Hong Kong charts right now!
Unbelievable, right?! Right! ;-)
Link: https://mega.nz/file/zAEFiQyR#PdAMo8fn_JymfmQbxhVCnYSVT5YsAk5t8n79OOdgjXk
ReplyDeleteAs usual the zip file contains the music and a PDF with more (ridiculous) details as well as more pics & background info on the bands / artists.
A much expanded version of this story can be found here: https://www.art58koen.net/single-post/grumpy-old-men-in-hong-kong
Question: Tell us about a festival or concert you visited where things went 'wrong'.
Thank you Koen, I don't know where to start. I was twenty and she was fifteen, and we took our bicycles and off we went over the border an hour into Belgium to see a hardcore party with the early version of Napalm Death. That went all well untill we came home and her parents. Yes they called police etc. Honest people as she and I were, police did nothing.
ReplyDeleteI also remember playing in a conference hall from Shell where we got asked to leave in a less friendly way. We were apparantly making things impossible with our music/me shouting. Another time, we were finishing a local festival and we weren't allowed off, that was a first. They had blocked the way out and we played for another half hour and the end of it was, the audience took over the last song with sticks, ashtrays, bottles and everything they could find to beat the rhythm. Ashtrays, chairs yes, they were also thrown at us when we played another small festival and we were somewhere halfway in. They really hated and I mean hated us.
I (only once) had to have security to take me to safety. Apparantly I had annoyed some local hotshot heavy dude. He had come on stage to shout Satan abuse and we let him. I offered him a drink from my Gin-bottle-filled-with-water and he was not amused to find out i had turned "wine into water". A few minutes later he and some pals wanted revenge for the humiliation, and I just laughed at him, and humiliated him there for real from stage. Security came, I had no idea he actually was a criminal, and made sure we were safely off. We had some good laughs and disruptive gigs....
Brilliant story, thanks for sharing!
DeleteHé, it says anon above, where it is Richard.
DeleteI love that first image with the logo of the festival on the smartphone, Koen!
ReplyDeleteI was a gigantic Robin Lane & The Chartbusters fan. They were one of the coolest bands I ever discovered just buying an album "cold" without knowing anything about the group. When they played nearby, I went with the intention of taking some 35mm shots of the band. But I wound up so altered by the time they took the stage that I sadly don't remember much! I thought I might at least have gotten a couple of good shots of the band, but when I developed the film, there was one frame that was in focus--of Robin's feet. Ah, youth!
Thanks Stinky! It wasn't easy taking photos, but being tall and having long arms helps a bit ;-) At first, I was irritated with that guy in front of me until I saw that photo possibility! Great story by the way, although I must admit never having heard of Robin Lane & The Chartbusters before, but I'll check them out.
DeleteRobin Lane & The Chartbusters sounds very cool!
DeleteWhen Lollapalooza was a traveling festival in the early and mid 90s, the closest it got to Baltimore/DC was a harness racing track in Charlestown, West Virginia. It was a 350 mile drive one way. In retrospect, it would have been closer to travel to Camden, New Jersey. But in my teenage mind, I was taking two girls I had the hots for, so a two day adventure to exotic West Virginia was just the ticket to Smooch Town. We arrived the night before, slept rough in my Pontiac Sunbird, and got up bright and early to see the stars. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones! Hole! Beck! Elastica! And my prime reason for going...Sonic Youth!
ReplyDeleteIt turns out that an unshaded West Virginia racetrack is a terrible place to be in the summer for the fair skinned. Sure I got to see the Jesus Lizard, Superchunk, Helium, and Built To Spill all on the same day, but I also got the most gnarly sunstroke. Did I bring any sunscreen? No, I did not. I hid from the sun throughout Cypress Hill's and Hole's sets, and threw in the towel before Sonic Youth took the stage. I didn't get any casual make out, either. It put me off outdoor concerts for almost a decade.