Saigon Punk Chronicles
It’s been far too long since I’ve been to a show and I feel like I’ve been neglecting my long term personal project, Saigon Punk Chronicles, so when I saw there was a show this past Saturday, I jumped at it. With work and travel, it’s been a whirlwind since… January. Going to shows keeps me in check, keeps me young at heart, and every time I go, the words of 7 Seconds get stuck in my head “I’m gonna stay young until I die!” Even with work and the everyday responsibilities, the legacy of punk and the scene still shapes who I am every day of my life. DIY, the merry band of misfits, forgetting the outside world and escaping into a community made by us, for us. It’s forever weaved into my DNA.
I didn’t catch the whole show, but I did catch Tariot, Bao, Low Fat, and Cut Lon. I’ve seen Tariot and Cut Lon before but didn’t know what to expect from the others. They both killed it and Low Fat, in particular was soooooo fun. They’re a Japanese outfit out of Bangkok and their energy was wild. Raw, loud and fast… just the way it should be.
For the photography folks, I decided I’d make life hard for myself, though not consciously. I’ve been having so much fun shooting with the Fuji x100v, I decided to give it a whirl shooting live music. I knew this could provide some challenges, and I wasn’t wrong. At all. Probably not the right tool for this type of job, and shooting with a fixed lens in such a high paced environment made for more misses than I’d even like to admit. That said, I don’t mind how gritty these are. I grabbed a tiny little speedlight I hadn’t used before and brought some extra batteries, but of course they weren’t the right size, so I had to crank the iso, shoot available light and hope for the best. Noisy, maybe not tack sharp, messy… I had to keep reminding myself, moment is more important that technical perfection. To let go… kinda the same idea of going to a show in the first place. To let go. Besides, punk is noisy, maybe not the cleanest, a bit messy. Just the way it should be.