The cathartic roar of Vietnam’s hardcore punk scene

This story is originally published in Huck 83: Life Is a Journey – The 20^th Anniversary Issue. Order your copy now.

A forearm smacks a jaw with the force of a hammer as roundhouse kicks cut through the air. A shirtless boy, drenched in sweat, collapses to his knees. As he slumps prostrate more in reverence than defeat, a girl barely 5ft tall emerges, headbanging and grinning, raising her fist in celebration. From the bass speakers, a young man leaps, performing the splits in midair as the drum snare cracks, on an intake of breath before the intense groove drops.

Vietnam’s hardcore punk scene is thriving underground. In contrast to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, which experienced a surge of bands challenging authority and social norms in the ​’90s, stricter state control and limited access to foreign media delayed the movement’s emergence in Vietnam until the mid-2000s. Since then, numerous new bands have joined a growing DIY community in Saigon, following the end of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021.

In the summer of 1982, punk bands like Circle Jerks and Minor Threat swept angrily across the United States, while Blade Runner played to half-empty movie theatres. 40 years later, Saigon is illuminated by neon-lit skyscrapers and a new wave of punk, suggesting the future has finally arrived. It is a scene shaped more by hope than by despair.

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Tonight’s opening act, ElbowDrop, tear into their instruments. A guitar riff spirals out of control as kids hurl their flailing bodies through the room, urging the band on until the last crashing chord. The venue – more commonly known as expat bar with a roof garden on a wet Monday night – may not be full, but the overwhelming majority of those present are Vietnamese, under 25, and driven by abandon. After the set, I speak with the singer, Quân, and ask about the more positive mindset in Saigon’s scene compared to punk rock’s notorious desire to burn everything down. ​“I think being a punk would get you the death sentence in the past, but after the culture shift around the year 2000, foreign culture is no longer seen as the enemy.”

I ask whether the rise of consumerism has affected punk’s anti-establishment ethos in Vietnam. 

“In Saigon, I can tell you, we love doing business, but hardcore has given us the freedom and confidence to let our feelings out,” Quân replies. ​“Expressing emotion openly, discharging negative emotion – it is our release.”

The Đổi Mới (renovation) reforms launched in 1986 shifted Vietnam from a country built around surviving through war to a consumerist, globally integrated society. While the Communist Party remains in control, Vietnam has adopted capitalist practices, leading to rapid economic growth and significant poverty reduction. Over 40 million people have moved out of poverty in around two decades. It prompts the question: has punk’s anti-establishment core been diluted or strengthened by these changes?

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Before disappearing to enjoy the post-show high I ask him what is the future for Saigon’s scene. ​“I am 27 but the bands are getting younger, there’s more new faces, more girls – even playing in bands. Something has happened since Covid that made things crazy.”

At the bar, I meet Joshua Hirem Banks, a retired teacher wearing a well worn Adolescents T‑shirt. Originally from Southern California and now residing in Hanoi, he frequently attends shows – even when they require air travel – and is a well-respected figure within the scene. He’s enthusiastic, and has been part of the scene since the early ​’80s.

“Punk rock has always been a big ​‘fuck you’ to everything. Here, you have strict parents in a strict society, in a country that for years only played government-approved music. Now, kids are getting Bad Brains tattoos, man,” he says. ​“This is not just a way for them to express themselves. It is a way to escape the mainstream. It’s DIY, and it’s real, even if a lot of smaller venues have closed down – that’s why we’ve ended up here.”

The next band, 9XACLY (pronounced chin-zacly), commands attention from their opening riff, transporting us away from a venue known mostly for French and Belgian-style shared plates. With Vui Qá of the prominent Saigon band Cút Lộn, on bass, 9XACLY are something of a localised supergroup of swaggering disruptors. A videographer is happily bulldozed aside as the crowd erupts in bedlam.

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All lyrics are delivered in Vietnamese by the hyperactive and diminutive frontman Chu Tong, prompting a deafening call-and-response from the audience. Two tall young men perform a bounding two-step dance, while a muscular teenager with spiky peroxide-blonde hair leaps from the bar, windmilling his arms as the moshpit closes in around him.

During one song, the chorus includes several discernible English words, most notably ​“real deal,” as Tong emphatically repeats, ​“Stay real or fuck off..”

After the performance, Hardy, the band’s guitarist, explains how the band’s energy mirrors the changes occurring in the city: ​“We want people to dance, feel the energy, the heat. We’re not great musicians – we have no musical skills at all – but we know how to make people move.” 

I respond by saying that although I didn’t understand the lyrics, the audience’s reaction was enough to convey the message. Hardy continues, ​“Our story is about growing up on the streets and what a teenager has to live with. In Saigon, you have to make money fast and deal with bullies. If you’re a poser or you talk shit, you get beat down.”

While overtly confrontational politics may not be as overtly present in the scene as the West, the emotional intensity within the venue is obviously apparent, echoing VHS recordings of classic hardcore concerts in historic venues such as CBGB in New York.

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“Being a punk in Saigon is not about making a career. It’s about playing fast and raw, expressing aggressive emotion. That’s what drives us,” Hardy explains. Their singer, Tong, does not speak English and was someone the band ​“met on the street”, who is described as a ​“hustler using music to set himself straight”. After the performance, Tong appears tense, a large fish tattoo spanning his back. It becomes evident that, regardless of one’s stance toward the system, aggression is necessary for survival. 

The windows steam over as Vui Qá coils his bass lead around his elbow, absorbing the energy he has helped generate in the room. I enquire about the forthcoming Cút Lộn album, whose hype has already attracted international recognition within the hardcore community.

“We are living in a world that is falling apart, with modern wars and rebellions emerging everywhere. Technology is eroding core values in unstable times. Our album, Dzữa, is our way to reveal these realities,” he explains, with no sense of resignation. ​“In Vietnam, we have a unique youth culture and a unified community with its own voice.”

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Later, his band delivers an explosive performance that enthralls the audience. During their set, with the crowd in disarray, the narratives of Dzữa are vividly realised on stage. Cút Lộn demonstrate their readiness for the international stage.

Before them, BIB – a band from Omaha, Nebraska who touring across Southeast Asia, introduce themselves to the anticipatory audience. Vocalist Nathan Ma channels raw, unselfconscious energy. The audience, many wearing the band’s merchandise, respond with eagerness. It’s a cross-cultural exchange that for a moment feels like a singular, shared hardcore culture. At one point during their set, I watched a boy gulp beer from a can, purse his lips and then spray fine mist, forcing the beer to split and atomise, all white and airy, in an upward arc that gently washed over us all. Breath and liquid escaping together.

As I leave the venue and walk along the Saigon River – my hearing shot and my shirt clinging to my back – I am left with the conviction that hope endures as a raised fist. Despite rampant consumerism, communities of resistance persist, driven by the need to gather, to sweat and scream together in a collective struggle. Even if it’s to only wear a t‑shirt and say ​‘No, not me’, conformism and mainstream thought are challenged by youthful defiance.

Frank L’Opez is a freelance journalist and photographer. Follow him on Instagram.

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