Thanh Va (Thành Vá) concert «Ngay trước thiên đường» (Just Before Paradise)

   In the middle of Ho Chi Minh City there is a room where the distance from the microphone to the nearest table is a few steps. A Saigon phong tra — a live-music lounge built around tables rather than a dance floor — does not trade in volume: the voice has to stand up on its own. This night belongs to a singer whose Hanoi nights tend to fill up before the date itself.

   The short version
Title of the night — «Ngay trước thiên đường», roughly «Right Before Paradise»
On stage — Thanh Va (Thành Vá)
Guest singers — Hieu Minh (Hiếu Minh) and Minh Thanh (Minh Thành)
Format — phong tra, a seated lounge with table service
The singing starts half an hour after the room opens
No outside food or drinks in the room

   Thanh Va is a regular voice on the stage of Bee Night in Hanoi, where the crowd simply calls him «Vá». His nights there are handled apart from the rest of the schedule — phone bookings only, from the minute the line opens. He sings Vpop the room already knows by heart, the kind of repertoire a small hall tests instantly, because there is no arrangement to hide behind.

   The programme is titled «Ngay trước thiên đường». No set list has been published in advance, but the poster names two guests: Hieu Minh and Minh Thanh, both joining him on stage.

   The venue is worth a paragraph of its own. Cat&Mouse runs a room for 400 guests in the middle of the city; its sound and lighting rig was installed by engineers from Adamson, and there is a bar beside the stage. The monthly line-up deliberately mixes established names — Dam Vinh Hung (Đàm Vĩnh Hưng), Cam Ly (Cẩm Ly), Thanh Lam, Uyen Linh (Uyên Linh) — with young voices; the house states both as its purpose.

   The room works on two levels, and the seating categories differ by where you sit: the floor fans out in arcs around a semicircular stage apron, part of the seating there is sofas, and above it runs a mezzanine looking down on the stage. The furthest mezzanine seats watch the show on a TV screen — worth knowing before you pick a spot.

   Come if you would rather hear a singer than a sound system. Vietnamese pop in a room this size lands closer and more honestly than it ever does outdoors. If music at arm's length appeals to you more than music at stadium distance, this is your evening.