My Dinh Stadium in Hanoi 1/10/08

A newspaper in Hanoi wrote this in French: "The public Hanoi will have the occasion to discover Bob Livingston, a famous American group of music country, which will interpret some of the titles which made its success like Country Rain, Cosmic Cowboy Memory, Ballad of The West and Better Thing To Do. Wishing to share its love for the music country with the Vietnamese music lovers, Bob Livingston, the father of this family of singers, affirmed to want to transmit through its songs a message charged of humanism."

I didn't know any of the songs they mentioned, but no matter, we were in famous Hanoi. So many TV newsreels washed over me as we drove through the city. "The American War!" Somewhere there were bombed out structures preserved as museums, but I never saw them. There was never time for sight seeing, we were on a mission. One thing for sure, we were in a progressive city with Land Cruisers, motorcycles and airplanes whizzing by.

The show at My Dinh Stadium had everything, including a certain amount flying by the seat of the pants (on the part of the promoters) and magic (on the part of the musicians) snatching victory from the jaws of humiliation and eternal damnation to musical hell. In the end the concert, on live national television, went off without a hitch...