TGDY 13 (How did I get here)

Apparently one of the guys from the Reunion chapter was involved in a university band that was less a band and more a full organization. I think they had more than thirty members, which means at that point the line between music group and small institution was already getting blurry.

Back in 2024, he invited Aba to join as what I can only describe as an outsourced guitarist. I still do not know whether they had a human-resource shortage or just wanted some extra diversity in the lineup. Maybe both. Mostly the second one, probably.

Before the main show, TGDY, they ran an internal songwriting contest. One of my friend's teams was missing a bassist, so he asked if I wanted in. I said yes, because saying yes to random music opportunities has been one of my more consistent character traits.

That was how I met a few more people who would become part of this whole arc: HP on vocals, AM on guitar, and PH on keys. HP was tall, playful, friendly, and slightly chaotic in a way I liked immediately. AM had that goofy but friendly energy even before becoming the next-generation president. PH was basically the easy-to-talk-to nerdy keyboard guy. We did not win anything, which was a very honest and grounding outcome, but I did make new friends, met some new mentors, and somehow ended up feeling more connected to their whole scene than I expected.

So even before the real chaos began, the quest had already started paying off.

Then May 2025 arrived, which meant my new university semester had started. This should have been the part where I returned to student mode, settled down, went to class, and behaved sensibly.

Instead, I kept hearing that Aba and Thao were joining TGDY, which was basically the biggest show of the year for that whole group. I was stuck in that horrible in-between state where part of me knew I should go back, focus on studying, and stop inventing new complications for myself.

The other part of me was experiencing elite-level FOMO.

One night we were at our usual coffee spot, Mai Ly, sitting around with Aba, Thao, Hnhat, and me, talking nonsense while the TGDY logistics floated around the table. They were discussing who might play which songs, who was joining which team, and all the usual pre-show chaos, even though none of them were the ones officially deciding everything.

The funny part is that Tuly, the club president, had already texted me before that night to ask if I wanted in. I said no. I told him I had university stuff and needed to head back to Can Tho like a sensible person.

Then something deeply unhelpful woke up inside me at that coffee table.

I texted him back.

Next thing I knew, Tuly was calling Thao to say I was in. Thao looked confused as hell, because literally the day before I had said I could not do it. Then he handed me the phone and basically told me to confirm it myself.

So I did.

That was the moment I made one of the craziest decisions of my life up to that point.

At that moment, only Aba and Thao knew the truly stupid part: I was supposed to go back to Can Tho to study.

So naturally the next question became: okay, genius, now how are you going to make this work?

The logistics were absurd. Saigon to Can Tho is already a long ride, around 150 kilometers. But because I had been away in Saigon for the internship for so long, I had not rented a room in Can Tho yet. Which meant if I needed to stay overnight, I often had to go even farther back to my hometown, another 30 kilometers on top.

So my routine around that time became deeply unserious.

A typical Sunday looked something like this: leave my hometown in the morning, ride up to Saigon for practice, spend hours rehearsing, then ride back at night because I still had class the next day.

And it was not like I was doing all that for one neat little set. I had three songs to prepare. Three different bands. Three separate piles of stress.

Some of those rides were fun. Some were just exhausting. Sometimes I was sleepy as hell on the road, sometimes my back was killing me, and every now and then I would remember that this little adventure was also burning a very real amount of gas money.

Also, just to be clear, I have never been some insane bassist. I cannot slap out ridiculous fireworks, I do not have those crazy licks ready on command, and if you throw jazz at me I will probably start looking for the nearest exit.

What I did have, though, was consistency. I knew how to hold down the root note, add fills when they actually fit, and be the kind of bass player who could survive in almost any situation without making life harder for everyone else. And honestly, after that whole period, my playing got a lot sharper.

The practice sessions themselves were actually one of the best parts. Those people had real skill, so the building process moved fast, and I learned a lot of music knowledge just by being around them. It was also fun because I was allowed to play songs I actually liked instead of forcing myself through something I felt nothing for.

That made the whole thing easier to commit to. I met a lot more people, added a lot more socials, had a bunch of nice interactions, and mostly stuck to the good old traditional bassist mission: do not try anything weird, do not overplay, just hold the thing together and make the song feel better.

Now that I am typing this out again, it sounds even dumber than it felt at the time.

The wildest part is that I repeated that whole loop around ten to fifteen times.

At the beginning of January 2025, the mileage tracker on my Wave Alpha sat somewhere around 38,000 kilometers. By the time the show wrapped up in early June, it had climbed to around 46,000.

Eight thousand kilometers. For university, rehearsals, side quests, and whatever kind of lifestyle experiment that month had turned into.

And somehow, it worked.

Also, at some point in the middle of all this, I wore a maid costume for one song, specifically Doa Hoa Hong. The singer, who was also the team lead for that performance, said she wanted something a little freaky, something that matched the whole be yourself spirit of the stage concept. So somehow, after what I assume was a chain of perfectly terrible decisions, this was what we came up with.

The show itself went alright. More importantly, I came out of it with new friends, new experiences, new music, and a whole new sense of what life could look like when I stopped being overly tidy about it.

TGDY 13 was not just a performance. It was also a crash course in saying yes before I had all the logistics figured out, then forcing myself to become the kind of person who could handle the consequences.

So if any of you from The Malg somehow end up reading this: thank you.

For letting the random guy from outside the university somehow become part of the chaos. For the music. For the rehearsals. For the ridiculous memories. And for giving me one of the funniest how did I get here? chapters on the entire board.

I said yes because of FOMO.

I left with a longer odometer, better bass habits, and proof that sometimes the dumbest logistics become the best memories.

Fair enough.