Beyond

For those that listened to some of their parents' old Chinese music (or a friends' parents' old Chinese music, that friend happens to be Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese), there's no doubt that they may have heard of the band, Beyond.

I remember back in the mid-90's (vaguely), my dad would bust out his bootleg Beyond CD and play it in the car.

Songs like 光輝歲月 (Glorious Days), 大地 (Great Earth), Amani, 長城 (Great Wall), and the most notable song, 海闊天空 (Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies).

So I got tired of listening to Dave Wang (王傑) and his sad songs because I'm in better moods nowadays to not listen to them.

In fact, it was from watching a live cover of the song 海闊天空 that was done by Wang that I felt like listening to some Beyond.

Brief history lesson.

Beyond was a band that was formed by Wong Ka Kui (黃家駒) and Yip Sai Wing (葉世榮) back in the early 80's. At the time, popular Chinese music was dominated by love songs while rock music was more "underground" to the mainstream media.

Although not the only band to try to hit mainstream in Hong Kong, Beyond was the most successful of the bands. It was at the earlier stage of mainstream publicity that Paul Wong (黃貫中) joined the band as the lead guitarist and Ka Kui's younger brother, Steve Wong (黄家强) joined the band as the bassist. Ka Kui remained as the lead vocalist and guitar player as well as Sai Wing being the drummer.

After the big uphill struggle to garner publicity for the band, Beyond finally went to the top of the mountain among a sea of pop and love songs. It was with this popularity, that Beyond went to the third worlds to promote peace and harmony to the poor through their music. Beyond were also very vocal of South African suffrage and the works of Nelson Mandala.

In 1993, Beyond took their popularity to Japan where they began performing and making music in the Japanese language. This feat was stopped tragically in late June when Wong Ka Kui died after suffering from head injuries from a stage accident that lead to a coma and death.

The music world in Hong Kong and much of Asia were left to utter sadness and silence as news broke out and the immediate funeral which caused the shut down of many streets in Hong Kong.

Beyond continued without Ka Kui but (in my opinion) their music just wasn't the same without him. Although they made several albums afterwards, not many of the songs managed to capture the original and moving lyrics and vocals of the "glory days". Nowadays, the members of the band are pursuing new opportunities and ventures in music but come together once and while to perform.

Back to the blog:

For the past few days, I've been listening to some of the more unfamiliar tracks that I have in my collection and hopefully find more favorites to add to my list. It's a shame that Ka Kui has been gone for 16 years. Just think how different Hong Kong's musical landscape would be if he had been around. Given the power of their lyrics and songs, they may have had some presence in America had things been different.

Here's one of my new favorites. 抗戰二十年 (Combat for 20 years), a song that was once a Ka Kui demo but transformed into a full song and performed by the band.