Sydney's KPop adventure
Nov. 16th, 2011 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeThe whole reason the House o'Squid (minus selvage but plus selvage) trekked up (or down) to Sydney over the weekend was for the KPop Music Fest taking place on Saturday night. It's the first time any KPop artists have performed in Australia, and although it was officially to celebrate 50 years of friendship between Australia and South Korea, it seems likely it was also testing the waters for both the Korean-speaking market here and potential interest among English speakers. (A similar event was recently held in Madison Square Garden, and Girls' Generation have just released their new single in English as well as Korean.)
Most of my knowledge of KPop comes viapiecesofalice, but I made an attempt beforehand to get to know every artist on the bill. And failed miserably, mostly because "Lucifer" is a really amazing song, but playing it over and over again doesn't exactly familiarise a person with, say, 2AM. But considering I knew only a third of the artists, and I don't speak Korean, the concert was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing.
The show opened with SHINee doing "Lucifer", which -- well, with no support act, I wouldn't have opened with a showstopper. But it was amazing, especially with the audience singing along and Taemin dancing his little heart out. Here's a fancam:
The sound is dodgy, but it really captures the energy of the whole thing.
On the other hand, where can you go from there but down? SHINee did three songs, including "Ring Ding Dong", which basically has a ringtone for its chorus.
Then came Miss A,Pieces' girlfriends. They only did two songs, which made us go WTF a lot, because they're notable for every member having a strong singing voice. But they kept coming back, pairing up with other groups for the 'special stages', which were mostly covers. In fact, I think they may have ultimately done more songs than any other group, so it makes a certain amount of sense that their own set was somewhat curtailed. BUT STILL.
Now, we had spent the entire day walking around in quite hot weather, so I'm sure you'll understand when I say that, being indifferent to Sistar, I made like an old lady and had a nice sit during their set.
Sistar were followed by 2AM, which meant MORE SITTING and also a game of solitaire on my phone. It's not that they were bad, but it was like an edition of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine had come to life and started singing to me. (The middle-aged couple sitting in front of me, who were escorting their daughter and three of her friends, seemed to feel the same way.) On the other hand, from the sound of things one of the girls behind us was having a sexual awakening, so at least someone got something out of it.
ON THE OTHER HAND, 2AM were followed by Secret, who are delightful and retro, and "Madonna" is a really good song. (And the video for it is basically an homage to '90s pop music, so OF COURSE I love it.)
Then members of 2AM (zzzzzzzzzzzzzz), 4Minute and Sistar covered Beyonce's "Halo". It was a pretty great moment -- and I don't even like that song much -- but the fancams mostly capture the audience singing off-key. I guess you had to be there.
I'm pretty sure this was followed by Girls' Generation, but I'm piecing things together via my own tweets, and by this stage my phone's reception was going wonky. Anyway, GG opened with "The Boys" (in Korean), then did two of their older songs, neither of which set my world on fire. I felt bad about that, but it's their more recent stuff that I really like.
Their set ended with a couple of the girls having a bit of a wobble, which I'm told is fairly common at their shows. (Personally, I don't think they get enough to eat.) So that was awkward, although not as awkward as 4Minute later.
Then came B2ST, who I had always dismissed as a poor girl's Big Bang. HOW WRONG I WAS.
I mean, it totally helped that it was finally dark, and B2ST brought out the lasers, but they went off. And so did the audience. It ... probably says a lot about them that I could sing along with a song I was hearing for the first time, but the energy and sense of fun were both amazing. And, really, even a poor girl's Big Bang is still pretty good.
We were just over the halfway mark, and next up were MBLAQ, which was my cue for a bathroom break. After that was 4Minute, another girl group who don't set my world alight. Their set was notable (to me) for three things: the absence of Hyuna's solo song, "Bubble Pop" (except for a couple of moments of the choreography), a possibly-related sense of sulkiness radiating from Hyuna, and the total weather-inappropriateness of their costumes. This was a pretty common factor throughout the whole night, but 4Minute looked notably uncomfortable and unhappy.
On the other hand, then Miss A and 4Minute covered Kylie.
It wasn't perfect -- personally I think their voices are a bit high for the song, and the dancing was not up to their usual standards. I strongly suspect it was a last minute choice, selected both for the iconic nature of the song and the extreme simplicity of the lyrics. But it was still amazing.
After that was CNBlue, who play actual musical instruments. Although they were miming here (except for the drummer, who was pounding away happily), in what I think we decided was an homage to The Monkees especially for Pieces. They were quite great, but I don't actually know any of their songs, and by this stage I was too exhausted to do much beyond think, "I really must listen to their music sometime."
Then was Kara, who are just kind of ... eh to me. I like KPop a lot, but I feel like only a handful of the girl groups get really interesting material. (And then, not consistently, SPEAKING OF 2NE1'S SECOND ALBUM OF SNOREZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.)
On the other hand, the last act of the night was TVXQ, another group who were unknown to me, even though I've since learned they rival Super Junior for longevity and achievement. They opened with "Maximum", and it was here I fell in love, because ... well, I tweeted:
"TVXQ are serious like Zuko presenting a paper on earnestness at a seriousness convention. I LOVE THEM."
And that just about sums it up. So even though I knew nothing about them, I was madly in love by the end of their three-song set, which was also the show's finale. And then I went home and read all about them on Wikipedia, learning along the way that they have the world's largest fan club (I may have been lurking around the Australian branch's Facebook page, where the squee is so wholesome and nice, and also they sell glowsticks), they used to be a quintet but then three of them quit and sued the record label over an unfair contract, singer Yunho was poisoned by an anti-fan who gave him a drink laced with superglue (COME BACK, DOCTOR WHO FANDOM, ALL IS FORGIVEN), and I am pretty sure they are trolling me personally in this video.
SO THAT'S NICE.
Then we crawled home on a very crowded train, and I had a vivid dream that I was a rapper in a KPop musical, and woke up with a song that doesn't exist in my head. But luckily it's gone now, because I have no rhythm and also am not Korean.
selvage but plus selvage) trekked up (or down) to Sydney over the weekend was for the KPop Music Fest taking place on Saturday night. It's the first time any KPop artists have performed in Australia, and although it was officially to celebrate 50 years of friendship between Australia and South Korea, it seems likely it was also testing the waters for both the Korean-speaking market here and potential interest among English speakers. (A similar event was recently held in Madison Square Garden, and Girls' Generation have just released their new single in English as well as Korean.)Most of my knowledge of KPop comes via
piecesofalice, but I made an attempt beforehand to get to know every artist on the bill. And failed miserably, mostly because "Lucifer" is a really amazing song, but playing it over and over again doesn't exactly familiarise a person with, say, 2AM. But considering I knew only a third of the artists, and I don't speak Korean, the concert was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. The show opened with SHINee doing "Lucifer", which -- well, with no support act, I wouldn't have opened with a showstopper. But it was amazing, especially with the audience singing along and Taemin dancing his little heart out. Here's a fancam:
The sound is dodgy, but it really captures the energy of the whole thing.
On the other hand, where can you go from there but down? SHINee did three songs, including "Ring Ding Dong", which basically has a ringtone for its chorus.
Then came Miss A,
Now, we had spent the entire day walking around in quite hot weather, so I'm sure you'll understand when I say that, being indifferent to Sistar, I made like an old lady and had a nice sit during their set.
Sistar were followed by 2AM, which meant MORE SITTING and also a game of solitaire on my phone. It's not that they were bad, but it was like an edition of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine had come to life and started singing to me. (The middle-aged couple sitting in front of me, who were escorting their daughter and three of her friends, seemed to feel the same way.) On the other hand, from the sound of things one of the girls behind us was having a sexual awakening, so at least someone got something out of it.
ON THE OTHER HAND, 2AM were followed by Secret, who are delightful and retro, and "Madonna" is a really good song. (And the video for it is basically an homage to '90s pop music, so OF COURSE I love it.)
Then members of 2AM (zzzzzzzzzzzzzz), 4Minute and Sistar covered Beyonce's "Halo". It was a pretty great moment -- and I don't even like that song much -- but the fancams mostly capture the audience singing off-key. I guess you had to be there.
I'm pretty sure this was followed by Girls' Generation, but I'm piecing things together via my own tweets, and by this stage my phone's reception was going wonky. Anyway, GG opened with "The Boys" (in Korean), then did two of their older songs, neither of which set my world on fire. I felt bad about that, but it's their more recent stuff that I really like.
Their set ended with a couple of the girls having a bit of a wobble, which I'm told is fairly common at their shows. (Personally, I don't think they get enough to eat.) So that was awkward, although not as awkward as 4Minute later.
Then came B2ST, who I had always dismissed as a poor girl's Big Bang. HOW WRONG I WAS.
I mean, it totally helped that it was finally dark, and B2ST brought out the lasers, but they went off. And so did the audience. It ... probably says a lot about them that I could sing along with a song I was hearing for the first time, but the energy and sense of fun were both amazing. And, really, even a poor girl's Big Bang is still pretty good.
We were just over the halfway mark, and next up were MBLAQ, which was my cue for a bathroom break. After that was 4Minute, another girl group who don't set my world alight. Their set was notable (to me) for three things: the absence of Hyuna's solo song, "Bubble Pop" (except for a couple of moments of the choreography), a possibly-related sense of sulkiness radiating from Hyuna, and the total weather-inappropriateness of their costumes. This was a pretty common factor throughout the whole night, but 4Minute looked notably uncomfortable and unhappy.
On the other hand, then Miss A and 4Minute covered Kylie.
It wasn't perfect -- personally I think their voices are a bit high for the song, and the dancing was not up to their usual standards. I strongly suspect it was a last minute choice, selected both for the iconic nature of the song and the extreme simplicity of the lyrics. But it was still amazing.
After that was CNBlue, who play actual musical instruments. Although they were miming here (except for the drummer, who was pounding away happily), in what I think we decided was an homage to The Monkees especially for Pieces. They were quite great, but I don't actually know any of their songs, and by this stage I was too exhausted to do much beyond think, "I really must listen to their music sometime."
Then was Kara, who are just kind of ... eh to me. I like KPop a lot, but I feel like only a handful of the girl groups get really interesting material. (And then, not consistently, SPEAKING OF 2NE1'S SECOND ALBUM OF SNOREZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.)
On the other hand, the last act of the night was TVXQ, another group who were unknown to me, even though I've since learned they rival Super Junior for longevity and achievement. They opened with "Maximum", and it was here I fell in love, because ... well, I tweeted:
"TVXQ are serious like Zuko presenting a paper on earnestness at a seriousness convention. I LOVE THEM."
And that just about sums it up. So even though I knew nothing about them, I was madly in love by the end of their three-song set, which was also the show's finale. And then I went home and read all about them on Wikipedia, learning along the way that they have the world's largest fan club (I may have been lurking around the Australian branch's Facebook page, where the squee is so wholesome and nice, and also they sell glowsticks), they used to be a quintet but then three of them quit and sued the record label over an unfair contract, singer Yunho was poisoned by an anti-fan who gave him a drink laced with superglue (COME BACK, DOCTOR WHO FANDOM, ALL IS FORGIVEN), and I am pretty sure they are trolling me personally in this video.
SO THAT'S NICE.
Then we crawled home on a very crowded train, and I had a vivid dream that I was a rapper in a KPop musical, and woke up with a song that doesn't exist in my head. But luckily it's gone now, because I have no rhythm and also am not Korean.
