da nang - PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the emo/pop punk band, da nang, reveals what they do before taking the stage. You can check out the rituals below:

The day of any show always kicks off with a flood of chaotic memes from Calum in the group chat. Right after that, the conversation inevitably devolves into logistics you’d expect from a super amateur band of ADHDish musicians: who’s bringing what, what time is load-in, what songs are we playing again, and so on and so forth. We’re keeners, so of course, we always show up right at load-in, not a minute late, stimming with excitement. Calum is bouncing off the walls while the rest of us try to look cool, which usually means grinning like absolute idiots.

Dinner is part of the ritual too. We keep it light, just enough to fuel up without regretting it later. John once got our drummer Sean hooked on House of Gourmet shrimp dumplings during one of these ceremonial meals before our show at the Horseshoe Tavern. It has officially become part of the lore. Somewhere in the mix, one of us grabs a notepad and scribbles the setlist four times over, because otherwise, there is a 100 percent chance we’ll forget what we’re playing the second we step on stage.

Back at the venue, we drift into hanging with friends and family who came out to support. At this point, John is usually in full monk mode, sitting quietly like he’s meditating while the rest of us are trying to remember how guitar pedals work. He claims it’s all about conserving energy before letting it rip, and honestly, it works. Then it’s vocal warmups, a sweaty heads-in group hug, and suddenly we’re on stage wondering why we ever thought this was a good idea. And of course, it’s at that moment we realize John and Jarrad are wearing the same t-shirt.

Keep up with da nang on Instagram and Spotify.