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COVID-19 curbs leave Hong Kong musicians on their 'last dollar'
The coronavirus has battered live performances around the world, especially in the first 18 months of the pandemic, but nowhere has that hardship lasted longer than in Hong Kong.
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This picture taken on September 9, 2022 shows director of Hong Kong Musicians Foundation Adrian Fu posing for a photograph at The Wanch, a live music venue in Hong Kong. A thundering thrash metal riff reverberates through a Hong Kong bar but the music is being live streamed from a studio across town to obey pandemic rules that have outlawed small gigs for more than 650 days.
(AFP /Isaac Lawrence )
A
thundering thrash metal riff reverberated through a Hong Kong bar, but the music was being live-streamed from a studio across town to obey pandemic rules that have outlawed small gigs for more than 650 days.
The coronavirus has battered live performances around the world, especially in the first 18 months of the pandemic, but nowhere has that hardship lasted longer than in Hong Kong.
While gigs, festivals and international touring have returned with a vengeance globally, Hong Kong's musicians have had no such luck.
For the vast majority of the pandemic the Chinese city has banned live performances in any place that serves food or drink.
Venues such as The Wanch, one of the city's oldest live music bars, have had to get creative.
"We're just trying to do what we can to stay alive and keep the music going," John Prymmer, the bar's co-owner and a fixture of Hong Kong's live music scene, told AFP.
In a sound-proofed recording studio next door, local metal act Ozmium are careening through a mixture of their own tracks as well as covers of Iron Maiden and Metallica.
