KVT – Music Night with Scott Ezell and VNTG

Rock City didn’t rock

I’m a big fan of Vu Nhat Tan’s noise compositions and I like reading Scott Ezell’s poetry. So I was full of heightened anticipation when I went to Rock City to catch Ezell’s ‘Migration’ read by the poet to an improvised score by The ‘Vu Nhat Tan Group’.

Dunno really….It was a brave concept but unfortunately the words sort of got swallowed up by music and all we sort of got was NOISE. Would love to migrate towards it again, perhaps in a different venue….outdoors? with a more user friendly amplification for the poet.
If I squinted a bit I could have imagined I was in an updated, Hanoian reincarnation of the Beat generation. The Beats in the 1940’s and 50’s sort of embraced originality and individuality in the way people thought and acted….they chucked out the old rules of literature, music etc etc and promoted liberations of all sorts and types and awoke an environmental consciousness (how’s that for a beat up in a nut shell?). But I suppose it’s a bit of a hard ask to expect the gen Xers or Yers or whatever letter is generationally applied to give themselves over to the listening intensity that the little group in Hanoi demanded. Rock City’s coolly sophisticated clientele sort of obviated the mood as soon as the early Bob Dylanish style of the first set of song/poems gave way to the headlined work. Migration was what sort of happened from the auditorium to the alfresco.

It all got under way about an hour and a half after the scheduled starting time so I had to miss the last set by the Group to catch the tail end of a gathering of Baby Boomers which could certainly have done with a bit of Beat philosophy emphasis.

Anyway If I was writing this for the New Hanoian I’d give ‘Migration’ five stars for originality. I’d also give Rock City’s outdoor bar a fiver too …though I’m glad I’m not a residential neighbour.