- Vietnam is establishing an electronic music scene. There's Equation Festival, and clubs like Observatory in Ho Chi Minh City and Savage in Hanoi. On Saturday, the latter hosted the one-year anniversary of its LGTBQ-focused party, Snug. The event, which ran for 24 hours, featured Berghain residents Boris and Roi Perez, smartbar's Chrissy and a handful of local residents. It was a daring effort in a city like Hanoi, where parties start and end early, and 24-hour sessions are a novel concept.
A nondescript grey door—a product of Hanoi's strict curfew policy—led to Savage. Through it was a large outdoor area with the main bar, an outdoor dance floor and a few sofas, surrounded by colorful trees and plants. Nestled in the corner was the main dance floor, an indoor space named Red Cube. The party started with a series of short documentaries about Hanoi's queer scene—part of Hanoi International Queer Film Week. Straight after, local hero Quan opened Red Cube with a live set. The early activities meant the dance floor was full from the start, as Quan gradually moved into his trademark acid sound.
Over time, Red Cube got more crowded, cramped even. Outside, the patio filled with a diverse and wild crowd. Local promoter Ouissam led the way, replaced by Chrissy at around 1:30 AM. The Chicago favourite stuck with disco, throwing in the occasional Italo track that had the dance floor singing along. Back inside, Roi Perez built on Quan's acid tones before shifting in a darker and faster direction, feeding the crowd's increasingly rowdy energy with tracks like Smart Systems' "Zip Code." At this point, the room was filled with smoke, giving it a Tresor-like atmosphere. During the last 30 minutes of his set, Perez decreased his tempo and switched into breaks, ending with Trance Wax's "Trance 3." The sweaty, smoky floor was left shouting, whistling and calling for more.
Boris followed, leading with a more mellow, subdued techno sound than you might expect from him. Meanwhile, the vibe outside had turned near carnivalesque. As the night slowly faded, much of the crowd moved onto a terrace overlooking various temples. Here, some local DJs began playing ambient records. It proved the perfect soundtrack for the morning, the blissful tones enhanced by the neighbouring construction workers, who contributed welding, hammering and sawing noises. The audience moved into a slower gear, fading away, no doubt helped by the vast amounts of laughing gas balloons. Sunday passed slowly with dancers snoozing on the sofas, only to be revived late afternoon by Observatory's resident Hibiya Line, who managed to squeeze the last bit energy from the dance floor.