Review | Hong Kong band David Boring’s deliciously terrifying show mixes post-punk with horror

David Boring’s intimate sold-out show in Hong Kong on March 15 was definitely not your regular gig. Perhaps even calling it a “gig” is inaccurate. By mixing local underground sounds with horror-based contemporary art, the cult indie post-punk band did something rarely seen in the city’s music scene, or indeed any indie music scene. The official terminology for the event – held at Current Plans, an independent art space on the south side of Hong Kong Island, just two weeks before the start of Art Basel, Hong Kong’s largest annual international art fair – was “a one-off performance curated by David Boring”. Titled “Stare Out From Your Own Burning”, it began with the band live-scoring three new music videos followed by a Butoh (Japanese dance theatre) performance, before the band played their main set. DJ sets from the new art-rave collective Panic Library rounded the night off. Directed by three Hong Kong filmmakers, the music videos spanned three very different horror subgenres, all scored by new David Boring songs from an album set to come out at the end of 2025. The band’s performances for the videos were typically energetic and mesmerisingly gothic. Wrapped in a black shawl, frontwoman Janice Lau sang from the edge of the stage, while the black-clad male instrumentalists played in the shadows to not distract the audience. “Short films” is perhaps a better way to describe the music videos. The first was Nancy Nightmare by eclectic indie filmmaker Joe Choi, who has garnered a niche following online for his comedic, low-budget, body-horror B movies Cannabis Holocaust (2020), So F*****g Scary (2021) and Twenty Cigarettes (2022). A blood-soaked, absurdist portrait, Nancy Nightmare is set in a bathroom and features all five members of David Boring. Lau sits in a bathtub as her guts are ripped out by guitarist Jason Cheung. Blood is everywhere, from the white walls to the pale floor tiles. Everyone is shouting and breaking down. It is unclear whether Lau, looking at the bloody intestines pouring out of her torso, is crying or laughing. The audience was captivated as David Boring scored the video with its post-punk track of the same name made up of seemingly nonsensical noise. The second video was completely different. Jenny Rotten was filmed to look like a first-person role-playing video game by Laiki Wong, a rapper, DJ and now filmmaker who previously went by Fotan Laiki. As the protagonist explores an abandoned school in the rain, she encounters a haunted doll. She runs back to her house, only to be greeted by the doll again. None of the band members are seen on screen, and none of the subtitles are spoken. David Boring’s darkly atmospheric noise music that accompanied emitted a dreamy sense of dread, with an experimental sound that reflected the event’s venue in a Wong Chuk Hang industrial building. In the third video, Still/Life – filmed by video artist Kitty Yeung Sik-yung – a half-naked Lau dances naked in the middle of a forest at night, contorting her body in spasmodic movements and periodically screaming, perhaps exorcising something from herself. She comes across as an ethereal forest creature, but manic, rabid and daunting. Still/Life showcases Yeung’s well-honed directing and filmmaking chops and was released on film platform Nowness Asia on March 18 in a surprise drop. Release dates for Nancy Nightmare and Jenny Rotten have yet to be announced. Lau’s performance in the video is raw, visceral and deliberate, not unlike her stage performances of fierce emotionality that have attracted audiences both locally and internationally. Choreographed by local Butoh collective Theatre Aether, Still/Life was an elegant segue into the next part of the evening: a special guest performance by Butoh artist Tomas Tse. Butoh, a dance form that teeters on the edge of performance art, has been called “unclassifiable” by some. Dressed in traditional Japanese garments with a face painted white, Tse exuded a powerful presence that demanded attention as he moved through the crowd. The intense physicality was evident as a shaken whisper of “Oh s***” escaped my mouth when I made accidental eye contact with the performer. Tse’s piece was the cherry on top of a terror sundae whose next act saw David Boring take to the stage for their main set, now in all-white outfits in contrast with the black clothing worn earlier in the evening. The whole event – unapologetically hostile, unbearably brash – was definitely on brand for the post-punk mavericks, who have built a significant cult following since forming in 2013. “Horror is highly subjective – it is, after all, a mirror to personal trauma, fears and pain,” Lau says of her band’s various interpretations of the genre. “What is terrifying or comedic to one might be beautiful or bizarre to another. Horror as a narrative often reflects and reveals the self, in both the creating and the consuming ends.” While not exactly a David Boring gig, “Stare Out From Your Own Burning” was the most David Boring thing I have ever experienced, with horror deep cuts that were deliciously aggressive. Always forging their own path and going against what the indie music scene may expect, the band have never been accessible or pandered to any audience. Instead, they position themselves with one foot in art and another in song, never fully committing or restricting to either. It was perhaps a little spicy as a harbinger of the more well-known art events coming up in Hong Kong, but according to one art world out-of-towner in the audience: “I had no idea what to expect. It was sick!”

Review | Hong Kong band David Boring’s deliciously terrifying show mixes post-punk with horror

The underground indie group’s one-off event included them live-scoring horror music videos by local filmmakers and a Butoh performance