Epigraph: Craziest night ever! Everybody’s gone wild!!!
As
I said in a status just some minutes before the show time, the way to
this MTV Exit Concert was actually not paved with roses. At the
reportedly gate-opening time (4p.m), I was still at home, grieving at my
bad destiny: why I “fought tooth and nail” (no injury, even the
slightest one, has been caused in fact :P) to get the ticket but ended
up staying at home, watching the concert in my imagination? My dad was
skeptical about my safety if I attended the concert. I guess he was
thinking of something like a stampede? Or fainting because of the lack
of Oxygen or of hysteria? My hard chance of going to the concert was
also attributed to the torrential rain, which had been lasting for
nearly a week. Does any father ever want his daughter to get soaked in
the rain and catch a cold? A lot of reasons AGAINST my wish Y___Y While I
was “sobbing”, my phone didn’t stop ringing as there were messages
coming from my buddies who got the luck to attend the concert. They
reported to me they were standing outside the stadium, waiting to get
in. Oh I can’t stand this pain! Gotta show my daddy I am dying to go
there to have the moment of my life that I will never get the second
chance to enjoy.
- Daddy, it stops raining!
- No, it doesn’t and never will
- *Silent, coming back to my room, shaking head to my sis*
A few more messages … I must “reload” my courage to talk to my dad again
5 minutes later…
“Yayyy! I made it! Let’s set off. My Dinh Stadium, here we come!”
If you are curious about how I had turned the tide then, well…it’s all about the art of negotiation (me bragger! :P)
Some
things seeming bad had happened, like: I was in such a haste that I
couldn’t prepare a raincoat/umbrella in case the weather was back to the
soppy mode; I bought bread thus missed the bus; my sis left the ticket
at home… But I don’t want to go into details of those “trifles” because
after all, the problems had been solved and we only had one more mission
left: storming into the stadium to reserve the slots for our own. After
getting ourselves through the crowd, we finally settled down in an area
large enough to put both feet on the ground. Some drops of rain started
to fall and although we proudly said to each other that “Rain? That
only adds to the crazy rocking ambiance. Yo!”, I must confess that it
did bother me. The security forced us to sit down while waiting for the
show time. Meanwhile, I ingested a bread to get the calories for rocking
the night away. The camera went around recording the overview of the
stadium before the concert. They said this video would be shown on TV
later and I rejoiced at the fact that the camera didn’t reach where I
was sitting because: (1) I might look kinda slovenly then as the result
of the hurry, (2) it would be humiliating to be caught on the camera
while chewing the bread briefly.
Well, skipping all the trivia
to the main content. Despite a couple of rumors, the concert began
sooner than I had expected, 7.15p.m or so. Here is the show in my
summary:
1. A hiphop dance by a Vietnamese crew.
2. A
performance of several young Vietnamese singers. They sing a song
specially written for the cause of this concert, which is Ending
Exploitation and Human Trafficking.
3. Some rap songs by a musician called Karik. I think this guy is somewhat influenced by Eminem.
4.
Kate Miller – Heidke, a singer from Australia impressed the audiences
with her soprano voice and her special cover of “Toxic”.
5. The
Vietnamese rock band “The Wall” appeared, turning up the heat with their
uptempo sounds. I love the way they have carried and passed the flame
of rock through some generations of we students.
Let me stop here and take a deep breath….
From this moment on, the atmosphere had got hot, stuffy, and the air started to be filled with an unpleasant smell of sweat.
6.
A lot of screaming and shouting. Guess what? Brown Eyed Girls – the
Korean girl band showed up. This was of no interest to me as I never
follow the trend of K-Pop fever. So I stood still. But this seemed to be
a bad decision as waves of young K-Pop fanatics kept hustling forwards.
This time, I was really annoyed by the screams of the fans. You may
wonder why I didn’t feel the same when it came to Simple Plan’s
performance with the noise manyfold, then my answer, which I have
discovered by myself, is the difference lies in whether you scream along
with the crowd or not :D During that crazy K-wave, a fellow standing
next to me “kindly” gave me one hit or two in the head without an
apology. But I was fully aware that I couldn’t expect a polite demeanor
in this chaotic scene, plus the thought that I might do the same
“innocent” thing to someone later when Simple Plan performed, so I
didn’t react furiously; instead, I kept being silent, waiting for the
time come for me to “explode” :P
7. The next performance was of
Mỹ Tâm – a well-known Vietnamese female voice. She sang well and got the
big support from the crowd.
8. The most-wanted performance of the
night..The reason I am present here…Yeah, that is SIMPLE PLAN!!! The
whole stadium looked as if it were going to explode! The band opened
their show with “SHUT UP”, a boisterous song. Everyone had gone crazy
already! They jumped, screamed and sang along. I wasn’t the exception,
of course. I felt breaking free! The show went on with more than 10
songs! They sang their hearts out and really burnt up the atmosphere.
Everything, from singing to playing guitar and drums, is PERFECT! I
thought I must get ADDICTED to their songs. During the intervals between
two songs, Pierre said a few sentences. He reminded us to join the
fight against human trafficking, he told how much he was in love with
our country and the people here. I guess the band was much surprised and
amazed at the exploding ambiance, the zealous supporters…That’s why he
spoke out something like this was the biggest show they’d ever made in
Asia! Pierre was very humorous when he tried some Vietnamese phrases :P
As for me, I jumped up and down like a coil, both to immerse in the
musical mania and to see the band on stage. I CAN’T KEEP MY…eyes OFF
YOU, Pierre, David, Chuck, Sébatien and Jeff ! I wished I were much
taller so that I wouldn’t have been weary trying to jump and crane so
hard. That effort made me sweat a lot and my body felt sticky. You
should also know that when everyone was shouting and jumping, someone
splashed the water from a bottle to the crowd where I was standing. This
is a little dirty, but in a crazy night like this, that shouldn’t be a
big deal. When it came to Simple Plan’s songs in the new album, I felt
so proud because around me, there were not many people knowing and
singing the song. I know I would only be a greenhorn supposing I stood
among the Simple Plan’s FC members, who had already gathered near the
stage, but in the current position, I had my chance to show off a little
bit :P
Oh, I forgot to tell about my sister. If I go crazy
about the show, then she must ...lose her mind :P She is a much more
dynamic person than I am. Besides enjoying the music, she had a super
important task to do: recording the performance of Simple Plan ;D
Even
when I was in the midst of my most ecstatic moment, I could remember
clearly I gotta go home before it was too late and I might got stuck in
the crowd trying to make my way out until after midnight. So I, together
with my sis, reluctantly left the show when there were still a few
songs left. My father had waited outside to ride us home. On my way
home, I continued to ramble with my sister about the show, about our
wonderful experience. Going back from the concert, my arms (raising up
and beating nonstop in the air), legs (jumping), neck (craning) and back
(keeping straight during the whole show) were all aching because of
weariness.
We didn’t make it to the end of the show,
however, we felt satisfied. After all that I’ve experienced: standing in
line waiting to get the ticket, begging my father for permission to go,
standing the heat as well as the suffocation among thousands of people
…. it has been indeed a long way to the night of true music, to the
SUMMER PARADISE.
This is the second time I’ve attended a
concert and I feel that I have been a keener concert-goer. Hoping so
much that the next concert I attend is MLTR’s :)
Thank Simple Plan and other performers for a superb music fest.
Thank daddy for believing in my promise that I will be back safe and sound.
Thank sis for accompanying me the whole journey and leading me through a sea of people.
Thank all the audiences for the frenetic atmosphere.
Thank the organizers for letting us enjoy great music while raising our awareness of human trafficking.
