“Is that…? No. Can’t be. Can it?”.
Oh but it was. As I wait for my flight to Asia, Britney Spears is sitting in the terminal across from me sporting bug-eyed shades and a posse of giant chisels. Spears is flying out after a Milwaukee Summerfest performance the night before. From this point on, Britney Spears would follow me for the rest of the journey across Vietnam.
Spears is enormous in Nam. Her videos are in regular rotation on any music channel and her face is in the minds, hearts, and magazines of Vietnamese kids and adults. Her promiscuous image is the same that it was ten years ago, and it sells hard. Spears’ lyrics are jammed with as many sexual innuendos as the FCC will allow. Avril Lavigne is even bigger than Spears. There is a strange pop culture delay that hits Vietnam 4-10 years after its peak in the USA. What we thought was dead in America people will die for in Vietnam.
But the undisputed champion in concert popularity is The Backstreet Boys. The boy band phenomenon that dominated the American 90’s is alive and touring in the arenas of Nam. While boy bands were an addiction many Americans would prefer not to talk about, Vietnamese of both genders will wear Backstreet Boys shirts loud and proud. Notably, there is a popular clothing line called “Backstreet Boys”. Whether this brand is officially licensed by the band remains unknown. Either way, someone is cashing in on Howie, Brian, AJ, and Kevin.
Overall, the live music landscape of Vietnam is an odyssey of cover bands that study American Rock n’ Roll from top to bottom and back to top. The guitar players will memorize the solos of Stairway and Hotel California note for note. The lead singers will imitate Steven Tyler to the last crow’s foot. And for some odd reason, half of the band always wears T-shirts of old school American rock bands. This would be like Dave Grohl wearing a Foo Fighters shirt during his own show. It is an unwritten cardinal sin in concert etiquette and only accepted in Western culture if…
A) You are a dad wearing the shirt of your kid’s band
B) You are at a Journey reunion performance
C) You are Vietnamese, and you are at a Backstreet Boys concert
But the rules don’t apply here. Vietnam is a country where the drunk driving penalties are a $15-20 fine. Jaywalkers hate it, but Mel Gibson would love it.
As the night continues, the locals take me to “Seventeen Bar”, a live music venue that looks the old-west theme at Six Flags Great America. Plastic wood lines the rails and over-sized cowboy hats arm the wait staff. It’s a John Wayne movie set gone wrong, but the band is tremendous. They cover everything from Ozzy to No Doubt in perfect Western dialect (yet they don’t speak English). The guitar player wears a tattered Guns n’ Roses T-shirt as he rips the guitar solo to “November Rain”. The drummer rocks a black Motorhead tee and the bass player lingers in the cig smoke with a Kiss tour shirt from the 80’s. They play through “Crazy Train” and make sure to cover at least two songs from each respective band T-shirt. Ozzy would be proud, Gwen Stefani would be flattered, and Axl Rose would definitely take them to court for infringement on his material.
Vietnamese man sings "Livin' on a Prayer" at Karaoke
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