Concert «Tình Anh Là Đại Dương» (My Love Is an Ocean)

   There are songs by which Vietnam measures out its own youth, and almost all of them will be sung here by the man who wrote them. The singer-songwriter whose melodies the whole country knew in the mid-2000s appears on this promoter's stage for the first time.

   The title of the evening is an inverted quotation of himself. Duy Mạnh was born in 1975 in Hải Phòng and studied piano at the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory; his debut album in 2004 was called «Tình em là đại dương», your love is an ocean. He wrote every song on it, and «Kiếp đỏ đen» and «Hãy về đây bên anh» made him the phenomenon of that year: the record went through three pressings and sold around twenty thousand copies, an enormous figure for a market then dominated by pirated discs. The concert turns the same phrase back on himself: «tình anh», my love.

   Who else is on stage:

   Phượng Vũ — singer
Triệu Hồng Ngọc — the evening's invited guest
Tom Chat Band — the venue's house band

   The show is built for people whose own 2000s are bound up with these songs, and that is precisely its audience: the programme runs on recognition rather than new material. If you are still finding your way into Vietnamese pop, Duy Mạnh's repertoire is a short route to what people here actually sing at karaoke.

   The room is The One by the Red River. Seating is assigned, chosen from a plan, and the seat price follows your choice: Reserve a seat.

   Hearing these songs from their author rather than a covers band is a difference you catch in the first line.