VIETNAM, embracing popular Western music with a frenzy, will open its arms to some of the biggest names in the business over the next few months.
Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Roxette, Janet Jackson and James Brown are among the faces that will take to the country's stages.
Photographer Tim Page, who showed Vietnam's suffering during the war years, is behind a two-day concert in Hue starting on June 25, which will feature Dylan, Young, Springsteen, Sting, Van Morrison and Sinead O'Connor. Artists have agreed to work for flat fees or for free and profits will set up the city university's faculty of journalism.
The show will be held on a stage built within Hue's citadel - the ancient heart of the city virtually levelled during the Tet offensive of the war with the United States, which ended 20 years ago in April.
Page said the concert would be broadcast live Asia-wide on Star TV. US networks were still bidding for rights.
The show will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and Unesco, another backer of Page's 'personal dream', which has been five years in the making.
