Rocking Out With the Youth of Saigon-Part II

Turn down the volume on your computer speakers before you play this video, because it rocks hard.

Actually you'll want to turn it down because the audio quality is very poor. The mic on my camera was overwhelmed. But I wanted to show this very enthusiastic crowd enjoying themselves at a nightclub. I take back what I implied in an earlier post about the reserved way kids listen to music. They apparently just hadn't heard their favorite song yet.

This is a cover of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," and twice now we've seen people go nuts for it. This is in a club called Live Acoustic in District 3. It's a large room set up cocktail lounge style with a fair sized stage and pretty high-end furnishings and decor. Like the other place we went to, there's no cover, but the drinks are about 4 times the usual price. It was super crowded, mostly with people college age.

The band came on about 9 and was still going at 11 when we left with our ears ringing. Their repertoire was the power ballads of Bon Jovi, Guns and Roses, Bryan Adams and some of the lesser metal bands of the 80's. A lot of nostalgic songs about the regrettable transition from carefree adolescence to complicated adult relationships. "The Summer of '69" and that kind of thing. The singer was a dead ringer for Sean Lennon, but did a fair impersonation of Axl Rose.

When the band started, there was an air guitar champion in front already too drunk for his friends to control. He was on his feet and shouting through all the songs. Two private security guards who looked like retired army to me came out to him about four times to warn him. Then they hauled out his less drunk and less obnoxious sidekick, kicking and screaming, as a last warning. Then they finally led him out relatively peacefully. (I put the camera away for that, and you'll notice that there are no police or military in any of my pictures, even though it's not easy to point a camera in Saigon without capturing someone in uniform.)

The heckler had everyone on edge, and when he was finally gone, the crowd really loosened up. This song broke the seal, and after that point the singer stayed away from the mic and let the crowd take lead vocals on the rest of the songs, the lyrics to which they all knew by heart.

-Robert