Hanoi party promoters CAMA and motorcycle tour group Minsk Club Vietnam unveiled details of their upcoming Mag Music Festival this week, and revealed that Bangkok band Goo (the band formerly known as Futon) will be headlining the event.
The one day festival takes place on Saturday April 25, 2009 at The American Club in downtown Hanoi and also includes New Zealand electro trio Minuit (New Zealand), I Am David Sparkle (Singapore) and DJ Jase from Ho Chi Minh City. Event organiser Giles said the event has two central goals.
“Firstly, we want to put on a successful event in its own right and raise a decent amount of cash for charity and secondly we want to contribute to moving the live music scene here forwards by showcasing different kinds of independent artists and mixing them with local bands and DJs to increase exposure and hopefully kick start some inspiration,” he told Skrufff.
“For the event itself, we expect to get some 2,000 attendees enjoying the day and we hope that there will be a fairly even split between local Vietnamese and resident foreigners,” he continued.
“To this end, the entry prices are ridiculously low: approximately US$11 to see 10 live bands, more than half of them from overseas, and 12 local and international DJs. Students will pay only half that amount. It's a delicate balancing act between ensuring we cover costs and raise money for MAG and not making it an exclusive event. This is our third festival and we're definitely learning and improving as we go,” he said.
MAG is Vietnam’s mine clearance organization and still struggles with a massive quantity of ordinance, said Giles.
“Mines are not a huge problem in Vietnam, it is more the unexploded bombs, mortars, grenades and cluster munitions that still pose a threat to the Vietnamese,” he explained.
“The Vietnamese military did a good job clearing the minefields laid by US and South Vietnamese troops when the war ended in 1975 as the minefields were generally well marked and could be located easily.”
“Unfortunately, estimates suggest that the amount of munitions dropped during the war was more than for every previous war combined, including both world wars, and the failure rate means there’s still a huge amount of explosives left lurking in the earth. In the cities, Vietnamese are not too concerned about the threat from UXO, although every so often there is a report of a death or injury in Hanoi, usually when somebody is trying to process a bomb as scrap metal. There was also a report on Jan 3, 2009 of telecom workers unearthing a 1.6m bomb weighing 250 kg on the same street in Hanoi that the festival will be held. The bomb was successfully defused,” he said.
Festival co-promoter Dan Dockery runs the Minsk Club Vietnam taking independent tourists on motorcycle runs in the country on Soviet era Minsk bikes, a connection that brought them directly in contact with the dangers MAG tackles, said Giles.
“The Minsk Club is all about getting off the beaten track and exploring parts of Vietnam that most people never get to, so working with an agency that focuses on making rural communities a safer place to live attracted our interest,” he said.
“We do travel through a lot of the areas that are marked on US bombing data maps as having been targeted so knowing that MAG has been through an area certainly increases our confidence in taking the road less travelled. MAG also has the advantage of having a very rock and roll logo so is a very marketable NGO to link to a music festival. The skull and cross bones scream hardcore rock,” he laughed.
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): What role does MAG- the organization- play in Vietnam typically?
MAG Festival (Giles): “MAG and other agencies work closely with people who have either been injured by unexploded bombs or have had family members killed by a bomb. It is young men who are most at risk, but any injury or death has a huge impact on the entire community in terms of the care needed and lost income, remembering that some people still live on less than a dollar a day in some parts of the country.
Skrufff: How many people are being injured by unexploded bombs still?
MAG Festival (Giles): “The actual casualty rates are unknown due to poor reporting and the fact that many injuries or deaths happen in very remote communities a long way from a hospital or will go unreported because the person was taking part in the illegal activity of harvesting scrap from bombs. Every village you go into seems to have the same tale of woe and most people know where there may be unexploded bombs dropped by planes or moved when fields were being opened. This is why MAG’s work is so important.”
Skrufff: What kind of incidents happen?
MAG Festival (Giles): “One story we heard last year that was particularly tragic and senseless involved a scrap yard where one of the workers was cutting up a large bomb with a grinder to remove the explosives and harvest the metal. As many of the bombs are still fused it is apretty risky job and in this case the bomb exploded killing four people. One of the men was killed as he rode his motorcycle past the scrap yard. He was the father of two children and was not involved in any way with the scrap yard. This is a common story that happens so frequently that it is not news to most Vietnamese, but I bet such a story would probably make front page news in the western press. It would certainly make the Darwin Awards; grinders create sparks, sparks set explosives alight, explosives as is their nature, explode.
When MAG was called out to the scene of the accident they removed more than 1,500 items including projectiles, mortars, artillery shells and a big bomb. And this was just one small scrap yard in a tiny village, so you can see how much UXO (unexploded ordinance) is still out there and the threat it poses to some communities, especially if someone decides to cut open a 2,000lb bomb close to your house.”
Skrufff: Where are the main danger zones?
MAG Festival (Giles): “Rural Vietnamese in certain areas are very concerned by the threat, and a lot of the time will not let their children play in front gardens, or expand their fields into uncleared areas. Being limited in where they can farm can have a huge affect on their income. In the last decade MAG has destroyed over 130,000 items of UXO and this is only one player in the industry, there are other NGOs out there as well as the military who are also clearing up the bombs. The latest estimate from the Vietnamese military states that it will take another 300 years to remove all the remaining bombs and mines that pose a threat in Vietnam.”
Skrufff: Back to the festival itself, you have a DJ tent: any positive developments in Hanoi nightlife since I was there in December?
MAG Festival (Giles): “Sadly, there's been very little. However, there's been some encouraging mumblings that the social evils police are taking a bit more of a back seat at present and letting events go ahead without the usual headaches.. Perhaps it's being recognised that in these dire economic times it’s especially important to have a bit of fun. CAMA intends to be balls to the floor this year and bring a series of DJs and bands to town for one-off performances.”
Skrufff: How much are you aiming the event at tourists to come into Hanoi?
MAG Festival (Giles): “We have little or no desire to attract tourists to the event to be honest. The venue has a maximum capacity of just over 2,000 and we think we can hit that by targeting locals and resident foreigners, including some from other cities in Vietnam. Tourists come and go and generally get much more opportunity than we do to experience quality live music.”
http://www.minskclubvietnam.com/magmusic
Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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