Saigon Punk Chronicles : Frank Turner, 7uppercuts & Papa Lam
Another chapter in the Chronicles and what a chapter it was. The fine folks at Loud Minority put together an absolute banger of a show. Frank Turner boarded a plane in London, got off of the plane, and played a show a few hours later… If you didn’t know this, you’d have been well impressed by his performance and the energy in the room. Knowing this, it’s ever more impressive… What an absolute professional road dog.
Callum from 7uppercuts started the night off with Skeleton Goode as his backing band with his solo stuff under the name Papa Lam. Really looking forward to see how this progresses, fun stuff in kind of the same vein as Turner. 7uppercuts then got on stage and ripped it up setting up for an absolute barn burner from Frank Turner. The fact that a guy can get up on stage with an acoustic guitar and have people lose their minds like I was watching Bad Brains is quite honestly mind boggling. Can’t give this man enough credit. He played one crowd favourite after the next and ended things with Skeleton Goode coming back on stage as his backing band. As I watched from the balcony, it felt like I had stepped back in time and was watching one of the great punk shows of my youth. This type of energy in a room isn’t the norm so being able to see it in Saigon was pretty special.
For the photographers, these were shot on my Sony kit with a 28mm prime lens that I’ve not used in ages. Normally I’ll use a 18mm for these type of shows and get up close and personal, but opted for a bit of a different feel for this. Allowed for a nice little happy medium in this venue.