Johnny Congo - A truly wonderful 3-piece band in Da Nang

I normally can't stand live music at small venues or even worse, DJ's. When I pay money to intentionally go see a band perform I understand that it is going to be extremely loud and prepare accordingly but when I go to a bar or restaurant and see some people setting up equipment to play for the customers more often than not I am worried because I didn't come there to see them, and they are almost certainly going to play entirely too loud. This is especially true in Vietnam but it was also true in Thailand as well.

When a bar has a live band, I think that it actually takes away from the atmosphere rather than add to it because it has been a while since I went somewhere that the performers were not taking their amplification to the absolute maximum. When this massive increase in volume happens, I can no longer enjoy myself because unless I am sitting or standing right next to the person that I am talking to, I am not going to be able to hear what they say. Forget about meeting new people, that isn't going to happen when you have to be 5 inches from their ears and shouting in order for them to even be able to hear you. I hate this aspect about almost all live music and I think other people do as well.

The other night at a local bar they were celebrating their 3-year anniversary and they had a band in there. When I saw them setting up I was already preparing to make my segue out of the place but figured I would give them a couple of songs before hitting the road. I was delighted that someone out there that does live music understands what "reasonable volume" actually is.

They were also really good at what they do and were different from other bands. They are called Johnny Congo

This 3-piece band has only a minimum amount of instrumentation with them and I also enjoy that. Back when I was in college I was in an unsuccessful band where all of us seemed to be having a competition to see who could bring the most crap with them on stage. The singer had a massive P.A. system. As the bassist I really only needed a little bit of gear but no, I brought 3 amps of varying size, two basses (one of which I never used), and a floor rack system to unnecessarily alter the sound of the bass. The drummer was on a totally different level and it took him several hours to put together and take apart his monstrosity of a drum-kit. It was stupid and it is good to see a group be sensible like Johnny Congo

While the picture is blurry on my new, really cheap phone, you can see that especially for the drummer, they brought only the amount of stuff that they need in order to get the job done. I think that if you are a good enough musician, you don't actually need all of that stuff to do a gig and man, did these guys ever nail it.

For one thing, you don't often see anyone playing on a stand-up fretless bass, let alone be the singer at the same time. The vocalist, who I am presuming is Johnny, sang in an Elvis type style and I think that was his intention. They did a lot of Elvis covers so I think it was their shtick.

While it doesn't look like there are a ton of people here from my photo, that was a selective shot because otherwise it would have been a pic of the back of peoples' heads. The place was relatively packed for a Da Nang Friday. Johnny Congo put on one hell of a show and they also played at a volume that was just perfect. If you wanted to listen to them intently you could, but they weren't so loud that you were basically forced to listen to them the way that every single other band i have ever seen in this city does.

Instead of staying for a few songs and then hitting the road, I stuck around for their entire first set. At that point the rain had died down and I am not the kind of person that stays out until midnight anyway.

Because of the way in which Congo approached the amplification issue, I will definitely be looking for them in the future when they play. They are the only band in Da Nang that I can say this about. There are other spots that I go to on the regular but when I see that it is live music night, I will normally intentionally not go there. Let this be a lesson to musicians out there: Unless it is a paid gig where people are going there intentionally just to see your band, maybe don't take the equipment up to 11!