As a pleasant post-Tết gift for fans in Vietnam, a stop in Saigon was announced as part of the Asian leg of keshi’s world tour.
Just last week, regional promoter Midas Promotions unveiled that Vietnamese American R&B star keshi would perform in Hồ Chí Minh City. Keshi himself confirmed the date via Instagram earlier yesterday.
According to Midas, the Saigon concert will take place at the Nguyễn Du Gymnasium on March 7 with special guest BOYLIFE. Tickets are slated to be available from 12pm on February 12, ranging from VND2.5 million to VND5.5 million.
Keshi is the stage name of Casey Thai Luong, who was born in 1994 to Vietnamese parents. Casey grew up in Sugar Land, Texas amid a large Asian American community. He taught himself how to play the guitar using his grandfather’s classical guitar and Vietnamese music book.
After graduating from college with a degree in Nursing, Casey worked as an oncology nurse at the Texas Medical Center for two years, while posting his music anonymously on SoundCloud under the account “keshi.”
“I was very reluctant to leave the (dis)comfort of a stable career to chase a dream I felt I didn’t deserve,” he told Schon Magazine. “I made keshi in college as an anonymous account on Soundcloud. It was a project to see where I could take my creativity.”
“I’d begun to grow really resentful towards the job and I couldn’t handle the stress of living two different lives. It culminated for months and came to a head one day at work when I just broke down and everything became really clear to me. It was just time to go. I put in my two weeks the next day, and the next week I flew to New York and signed with Island Records.”
While there have always been touches of R&B in keshi’s works, he’s perhaps best known and loved during his early days when the style leaned more towards acoustic bedroom pop and lo-fi. In “Gabriel,” his debut full-length album, R&B became a more central element driving the creative thread. Keshi often writes intimate, narratively rich, and tender lyrics that explore the raw vulnerability of romantic relationships.
[Photo via Rotterdam Ahoy]
