Hong Kong Venue Y-Concept To Celebrate 10 Year Anniversary in Immense Style

Hong Kong venue Y-Concept is a quiet staple in the underground community of Hong Kong bands. The venue doesn’t make a big fuss and thus seems to be placed safely in the background of most people’s psyche here. However, if you have ever performed here, what you always get is a fun show with excellent lighting and audio. The venue is inside a youth center in the Kwun Tong portion of Hong Kong and during the day the area right in front of the stage (where the mosh ensues later on) is full of toddler height tables and chairs for all the youth activities. It’s always amusing to watch new bands who haven’t performed here come up to soundcheck and see this sight. The rest of us know that later on when the youth activities are done and all these tables and chairs are retired to a back storage room somewhere, the venue turns into an amazing place that supports local homegrown bands regardless of genre.

The venue started 10 years ago – January 2011 to be precise – by a Hong Kong-based NGO (Jockey Club Youth Leap). From very humble beginnings the venue has staged over 600 Hong Kong performances featuring Hong Kong bands and even have held some shows for overseas acts from Korea, Japan, and Beijing. The venue is often used by Hong Kong underground acts for record release shows, and the venue even released its own compilation series sponsoring up to 35 bands. The compilation series is called ‘Indieseries’.

Unto The Dawn Live at Y-Concept (2019)

Why did Y-Concept begin in the first place? According to the hard-working machine behind this beautiful venue, Don, puts it, “There are so many bands in Hong Kong but with very few opportunities to perform especially if they’re a newer band. So since we’re already an NGO serving the youth of Hong Kong, we already know that music is a wonderful way to help with the personal development of our youth whether it be stress-relieving activities and/or communication skills, music addresses all of these areas. We thus realized that there needs to be some sort of platform for our youth in order for them to sustain their music and band. As an NGO we have less financial burden because we steady access to money, so we consider it our responsibility to let the unseen been seen. This has been our passion for the past 10 years.”

Planck Live at Y-Concept 2016

So how is the venue celebrating 10 years of serving Hong Kong? They’ve been promoting a really cool series of mini-shows (mini because of the current crowd-distancing measures enforced by the government) dubbed 時代。變化 Music Festival where they’ve invited 10 very different sounding local bands to record their sets (video and audio). Up to 15 people are allowed to be in the venue to watch as these bands perform. The full video performance of all the bands will be released in March. Furthermore, there is a special book being drafted featuring 100 Hong Kong indie bands to be released later this year as well.

Insects Wake Live at Y-Concept 2017

The lineup for the 10 acts is as follows – and if you want to attend any of these shows, make sure to DM the venue at this link HERE.

February 20 (Day 1)
Session 1 // 2PM
BAND 1: 初久

BAND 2 — 及時雨 Rain In Time

Session 2 // 5PM
BAND 3 — Blaster

BAND 4 — WHIZZ

February 21 (Day 2)
Session 3 // 2PM
BAND 5 — CHIMERAS

BAND 6 — Stain The Welkins

Session 4 // 5PM
BAND 7 — 立秋

BAND 8 — Unto The Dawn

Session 5 // 9PM
BAND 9 — VIRT

BAND 10 — Jason Kui