First time in HCMC: Air Supply performed two nights at Hoa Binh Theater last weekend.

Rain didn’t stop fans from coming out last weekend to see Air Supply, one of the first western acts to slip through embargoes against Vietnam in the 80s.

In the 1980s, listening to western music in general was rare and youngsters like me valued every chance we got to hear it.

To get western albums, you had to go to the flea market in Ho Chi Minh City. We called it Cho Cu (old market, or second-hand market). The tapes were smuggled from Thailand or brought back by local sailors who had docked at foreign ports. Nearly all copies were illegal bootlegs.

If you lived in the provinces and had no means to visit HCMC, there was no way for you to find cassettes of Air Supply.

Selling the albums was illegal in Vietnam as well. Flea market vendors had to run whenever they saw police.

In those days, the most popular foreign bands were ABBA, Boney M, Modern Talking and of course, Air Supply. Rock fans could also find some albums by AC&DC and the Scorpions. Europe was also a popular band at that time.

I got my first Air Supply album when I was in 11th grade. My friend’s elder brother was a sailor and he brought home the cassette from Singapore.

Our group passed the tape around for weeks from person to person, each anxious to hear it soon and none of us anxious to let it out of our hands. We had no photocopy machines, so we had to rewrite the lyrics by hand. The Air Supply tape was possibly the most valuable thing we owned. We never thought that one day we would enjoy a live Air Supply show in our home city.

But 20 years later, that dream came true.

Nearly 2,000 fans crowded the Hoa Binh Theater last weekend, many of them seeing their favorite band in person for the first time.

Three generations of Vietnamese were: the war generation, the postwar generation and even youngsters born in the 80s – we call them Generation 8X.

Air Supply appeared on a simple stage and in simple dress. Of course, they looked older and less glamorous than the pictures we had seen as kids, but Russell Hitchcock’s voice still soared and Graham Russell’s guitar still charmed…

They thrilled the audience with raw talent, and nothing else.

The performance reached its peak when they played “Goodbye.” They asked their throngs of excited fans to leave their seats and gather near the stage to sing with them.

They played all our old favorites: ”Every Woman in the World,” “Lost in Love,” “Here I Am,” “Making Love Out of Nothing at All”… but there was one song we ‘d never heard before: “Just A Little Bit More.”

With a guitar in his hand, Russell told the audience the story behind the new song.

He said he was deeply moved and touched at the wedding of two 19-year-old friends of his. He said he could see the depth of their love and knew nothing would ever split them apart.

At the wedding, the groom had asked Russell to write a song about the couple. After the marriage, the groom left the country to serve in the military. And he never came back.

After the groom’s death, Russell met the wife and she asked him to sing the song. He said he didn’t want to because he thought it would cause her more pain.

“Just a little bit more,” she said. Hence, the song’s title.

We in Vietnam were also happy to get just a little bit more Air Supply.

Russell said the tune would be on their next album, their 35^th in as many years.

I thought about that: one album every year for 35 years… quite an achievement.

I’m now looking forward to buying their next album, and I know I won’t have to go to the flea market to find it.

Reported by Le Huynh Le