It’s official, The Kandinsky Effect has added Asia to its list of places in the world that we’ve been fortunate enough to travel to play music.
We started off with a gig in Hong Kong at Orange Peel, which was awesome. We’ve definitely found our venue to hit up every time we come though. Folks, look for the Orange Peel. It’s a new place, but it’s a great room and in a crazy awesome part of the city. http://www.orangepeelhk.com/
After Hong Kong, we spent a week in Macau, performing and competing with 12 other bands from around the world. Apparently, we were lucky enough to be selected to be in the top 12 of about 200 applicants.
This festival had a heavy “New Orleans style Jazz Carnival” vibe, including lots of dancing, parties, beads being tossed from the stage, and dixie-brass-quartets strolling around between sets. Many of the other groups were arguably rooted in funk / latin / or rhythm & blues. Some even performed mostly covers.
In traditional Kandinsky Effect style, we chose this moment to debut a lot of our new, very difficult, material…. Which in hindsight might not have been the greatest idea as we encountered some challenges and didn’t advance to the final stages of the competition. That’s jazz life for ya.
That being said, there were some fantastic musicians and bands performing, and the winning bands put on some great shows.
For us, the reward was getting to travel to Asia, meet some awesome people in Hong Kong and Macau, and connect with 12 other world-class bands… The experience was more than worth it, and we hope to hang and perform with everyone again someday!
Below are some photos and memories from the experience.
-The Kandinsky Effect
Here’s some great shots from our performance by Hong Kong based photographer, Dino Zarafonitis. If you’re ever in the area and need some band photos, look him up. He’s passionate about what he does and will take some solid photos for you. | www.zarafonitis.com
Click here to view more of Dino’s Kandinsky Effect gallery
Here’s another gallery from our performance
photos by Francis Yuen
And here’s a few more of our own candid photos
