Lee says she had a hard time finding “loud and heavy” rock gigs in Hong Kong, compared with other East and Southeast Asian cities such as Tokyo and Bangkok, where “shows happen almost every night”, she says.
It was really nice seeing people dancing and rolling on the floor, covered in mud and not caring
“Even when we had rock concerts, it’d be something that everyone went to for the big act. It won’t be small bands. [I thought that] if no one’s doing that, I might as well do it myself.”
So she founded Rice, a “guerilla” gig promoter, in February 2023. The name plays on a British ticketing app called Dice that she would often use to browse live music shows and buy tickets.
Last April, Rice held its first show, in an industrial building in Kowloon with three Hong Kong post-punk bands and a four-sided stage that “breaks away from what people would normally expect from rock gigs”, Lee says, adding that she wanted something “slightly different and more immersive”.
“My ideal show would have the crowd standing right next to the performers so they merge,” she says. “Intimate gigs are always better; you get to crowd surf or mosh right in front of the band.
“You can see them looking at you; they’re smiling, you’re smiling – it’s the best kind of experience.”
Her stalls sold everything from Hong Kong indie bands’ T-shirts to cassettes and vinyl, with 100 per cent of the profits being given to the musicians.
She has also been developing Rice branded T-shirts, matchboxes and, most notably, folded paper fans that read “sick” on one side and “fan” on the other.
She laughs: “It’s a sick-looking fan, but ‘sick fan’ also sounds like ‘eat rice’ in Cantonese. It’s our most popular item.”
Aside from the quintessentially Hong Kong quality of its Cantonese-English wordplay, the fan will come in handy during the city’s notoriously humid summers.
Rice’s second gig, “Thrash Pass”, took place last month and featured four Hong Kong hardcore bands in an outdoor area under a bridge near Tsing Yi.
Lee says organising the show was stressful, particularly the logistics of moving the sound system and equipment all the way out to an empty field.
But the biggest obstacle was selling tickets, she says. “I wanted to do a hardcore show, knowing there’s not a big market in Hong Kong. I knew it was going to be difficult, and there were virtually no ticket sales until the last few days, which is terrifying for a promoter.”
Luckily, it was a success, with a dedicated crowd willing to “trek all the way out to the middle of nowhere”.
“It was really nice seeing people dancing and rolling on the floor, covered in mud and not caring. Not to mention how heartwarming it was to know that our events could be an outlet for people to just let loose and be themselves,” she says.
“Some of them came up to me after the show to thank me, which made all the stress worth it.”
And she’s going to do it all over again. For April’s guerilla gig, Lee has invited two bands from Chicago: Your Arms Are My Cocoon, which she categorises as “lo-fi, emo, screamo”; and Blind Equation, which she calls “emo cyber-grind” – “it’s a subgenre of hardcore, like cyber music meets grindcore”.
While the event details are yet to be confirmed, Lee is certain of one thing: “I want to focus on pushing lesser-known bands that need the publicity and are genuinely excited to play, which excites me as well.”
Meanwhile, she has also been encouraging others to start their own projects.
“I found out one of my friends used to be in a hardcore band, and that another friend was contemplating starting one.
“They didn’t know each other, but I told them, ‘Why don’t you go and talk to this person, and you guys can start something? There aren’t enough bands in Hong Kong, so just start one.’
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work – at least you tried, right?”