[Personal] 06.24.2014 Block B D.C. Showcase at the Warner Theater + VVIP Fan Report
I'm coming back from a LJ hiatus to post a fanreport of an incredibly special night for me at the D.C. Block B Showcase at the Warner Theater on June 24, 2014. It took me a couple of days to calm down from everything and recall all of the small details, but if you're interested in a report of this showcase from the point of a fan who got to experience something very special, keep reading! :D
**ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY ME.**
I have to admit - I only got around to buying my showcase ticket the week before it happened since I actually forgot that tickets went on sale due to so much craziness at the end of the school year! Thankfully, I noticed that they opened up some random VVIP seats when I was perusing the site, and I was able to snag an awesome seat in row B, seat 8, which was located in the second row of the right orchestra section. The VVIP package included not only a showcase ticket, but also access to fansign and “high touch” events. I had been debating whether or not I should spend the money for the showcase, but I am so glad I did!
My friend Jane and I met up at the Vienna metro station close to our houses at 5:30pm, and we took the metro to the Metro Center stop. Since Jane had a Living Social deal for Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown that was expiring soon, we decided to hit up the restaurant for dinner before going to the concert. By the time we made it to the restaurant, it was already 6:30pm, which didn’t leave us much time for food (the concert was scheduled to start at 7:30pm). On a side note, the food was really good and I feel terrible that we couldn’t take our time eating. I’ll have to go back with Jane sometime when we’re not pressed for time…
We sped walked to the Warner Theater from the restaurant, which took about 15 minutes, so we ended up somehow making it there at 7:25pm. Yikes, we cut it close, but we weren’t late and we didn’t have to stand in line, so it turned out perfectly fine. Jane and I split up upon entering the venue since we had decided to get different ticket types, so I went by myself to where my seat was located. It was a little interesting being by myself, since I’m usually with friends or my sister at these types of events. The fans around me were really upbeat and full of energy, which made it all much more exciting. I was REALLY close to the stage, so I was looking forward to the awesome view I was bound to have.
They started the showcase right on time, and Block B kicked the whole thing off with a rendition of “Very Good” - which is one of my favorite songs - dressed in black velour/velvet suits and bowties. Fans were going nuts and rushing the stage in the aisles and the sides, and the security detail did their best to get them to clear the aisles (I felt sort of bad for them). The girl who was sitting to my left hopped the row of seats ahead of us so I got to slide over and have an even better view. GAH! They were so energetic and AWESOME. Loved all of their performances to bits!!
I unfortunately didn’t keep a tally on their set list, but I was a bit sad they didn’t perform “Nillili Mambo” or “Jackpot”. However, what they did perform was awesome and there was a lot of fanservice goodness in terms of interacting with fans and moving around the stage. At one point, they pulled out 7 chairs for each of the members and asked them questions about how they like D.C. and about their feelings concerning performing in the U.S. I don’t think the MCs did a very good job translating - anyone could tell that they left out A LOT of what the boys were saying. Hopefully Jazzy Group can hire a better interpreter next time! D:
After the interview, they announced that they’d have each member draw a seat number out of a box and they’d bring that fan up on stage for a special rendition of “Romantically”. The box apparently contained seat numbers from the whole theater since some of the fans on the upper balcony were selected in addition to the orchestra level fans. P.O was the last to draw and he drew row B, seat 12, which was just 2 seats to my right. However, the girl sitting in that seat looked confused and didn’t go up or anything, which I thought was strange. The ushers thought it was strange too since they kept telling us it was our row. I later found out that those girls didn’t have tickets for those seats and they randomly moved up somehow once the showcase started. Hmmm…
So P.O ended up redrawing and some other fan got the last seat, but at that point, I was thinking how close that chance was. Wasn’t disappointed or anything, since the chances of them picking me was really low. Each member serenaded their chosen fan and presented each girl with a rose at the end of their solo parts of the song. It was adorable, and I loved watching the fan reactions. I love it when Kpop groups interact with their fans like that!
They performed a few more songs afterwards, and then they announced that they’d do another fan interaction segment by playing charades with some more fans chosen via lottery. They pulled Zico out to be the moderator to make the teams even, and made the rest of the members play rock-paper-scissors with each other to determine the teams. The members who won the matched became the “winning team”, which Zico lovingly dubbed A Team, and they consisted of Taeil, Kyung, and Ukwon. The “losing team”, or B Team as Zico called them, was made up of P.O, Bbomb, and Jaehyo. Each member then drew another seat number out from the box to double the size of each team, making each team consist of 6 people.
I was just watching with amusement for the most part, but when they got to P.O, he actually drew my seat number. As in, he said, “ROW B, SEAT 8”. I didn’t really know how to react but I turned to my left and told the girl next to me, “Oh wow, that’s me!” My rowmates were all cheering for me as I headed up on the stage. I kept an eye out for Jane to see if I could find her, because we had been joking on the metro that it would be hilarious of I was chosen to go on stage (I had read fanreports of the NY showcase and knew a bit about the extra fan interactions). SO funny that it ended up happening!
When I got up on the stage, the members, especially the ones on the B Team (the side I was closest to), were all like, “Ooooooh!! *insert lots of super rapid Korean*!” They tried to talk to me right away with lots of Korean while I stood next to P.O trying to make sense of everything going on and freaking out a little bit on the inside. (On a side note, I am Chinese-American but I get mistaken for being Korean all the time for some reason.) They all were excited to see a “Korean” fan that they could communicate with maybe?? P.O and Bbomb kept bombarding me with lots of Korean and in a moment of intelligence, I just stared back at them and gave them the classic “…er…?” response. From my right, Zico suddenly comes over, stands really close to me, leans really close to P.O and I, and says really loudly IN ENGLISH , “YO, SHE ISN’T KOREAN.”
HILARIOUS. I thought it was even funnier because he said it in English. Immediately, P.O turns to me, wide-eyed and starts apologizing in his accented English - “Sorry sorry!” Zico then leans in close again (gah!) and asks in English, “Are you from D.C.?” I tell him that I am from Virginia, and he nods at me and repeats, “ohh, Virginia.” (Zico’s English was really good! He barely had an accent while he was talking to me.) Then P.O. cuts in and asks me, in accented English, “What is your name?” I told him my name was Grace and he repeated it several times (gah!) and said, “Okay, I will remember Grace!”
The girl standing on the other side of Zico to my right kept looking at me and mouthing, “OMG WHAT DO I DO?!” which I thought was funny and cute. She looked pretty jittery and in disbelief - I definitely felt the same way on the inside, though I have a better grasp on my emotions on the outside, haha. Once they had 3 fans for each of the teams, they told us we had 20 seconds to come up with a team name. I really had no clue what to suggest for our team, but thankfully one of the other fans on my team suggested “Team Bumblebee” which was cute, so we just all agreed. We all high-fived each other once we made the decision! I made a flapping gesture and buzzed at P.O in a moment of my weirdness, and when they announced our team name to the audience, P.O copied me and buzzed around on stage while flapping his “wings”. I laughed so hard! The other team decided on the name “Team Turnup”.
The MCs were not very good at giving us instructions because they just told us to face the right side of the stage, and didn’t explain what exactly how the charades game was to be set up. Turns out that the game was to be the Korean/Asian style of charades: everyone lines up facing one way, the first person gets shown what they have to act out, and then they tap the next person’s shoulder, acts it out to the person, and hopefully that person will understand, and then that person taps the next person’s shoulder, acts it out to that person, and so on and so forth. The last person in the line will have to guess what was acted out, and whichever team passes on the acting and guesses correctly in the shortest amount of time wins. The point is to hope that nothing gets lost along the way, and that hopefully each person will understand what’s going on.
The other fans and I did not understand that we were supposed to be in a line at first, and it was kind of funny because we were clueless the whole time. P.O grabbed my shoulders firmly and maneuvered me into the forming line, with me facing Bbomb’s back. He then joined the line behind me as the first person on our team, making me the second person to go on our team. Our team went first as the team that lost at rock-paper-scissors before, and since we weren’t allowed to turn around or anything, I only assume what happened next was that Zico wrote out what we had to act out on his flipboard and showed it to P.O and the audience. Judging from the audience reaction it was something good/funny.
So, a few seconds later, I feel the tapping on my shoulder and I turn around to see P.O chuckling semi-awkwardly and he starts acting out something that made no sense to me. He drew an imaginary rectangle in front of him then mimed pushing it forward, which made me immediately think of a cart? But I still didn’t know what it meant. He then gestured something that looked like a stick, and then started waving around the imaginary stick. I actually didn’t understand what the heck he was doing until he said, “Wingardium leviosa,” which made everything click immediately. (P.O my dear, don’t think you were supposed say anything, but no one else heard so it’s okay!) He made the “OK?” sign at me and gave me a questioning look while smiling, so I made the sign back at him and smiled back at him.
I turned around and tapped Bbomb’s shoulder, and he turned around and stared at me (which was a little bit funny yet unnerving at the same time). Unfortunately I had no idea how I was going to act our topic out, so I start miming the wand, and making spell-casting gestures. In Korean he starts saying things to me like, “What? Lasso? Huh?” and it was amusing yet embarrassing for me, haha. I made circles around my eyes to indicate glasses and did the wand gestures again. I really tried my best, but at that moment I couldn’t think about what I was doing…so I felt like I did horribly. OH WELL.
Bbomb looked super confused but he turned around and started mimicking what I did to the next girl, who immediately asked if he was acting out a wand. I discreetly nodded at her and I think she got it right away, especially when he did the same glasses gesture that I did. She then did an AWESOME job of miming out the lightning bolt scar on the forehead, the glasses, the wand gesture, and broomstick riding. Jaehyo got it pretty quickly with the girl’s awesomeness and there was a pause before he taps the last girl’s shoulder and starts acting out the wand gesture, pointing it at his water bottle on the ground and then lifting it up to try to indicate it was “floating”. And then he makes the broomstick riding gestures and when they asked the last girl what she thought it was she immediately said the correct answer of “Harry Potter” - yay!!
While the second fan on our team was awesomely acting, Bbomb turned to me and kept asking me, in Korean, what our topic was while glancing at our other team members. Ukwon also came over to stand next to me at this point. I told Bbomb that I was trying to make a wand gesture, and while Jaehyo was acting he suddenly got it, turned to me, and was like, “OH. MAGIC? HARRY POTTER?” I nodded enthusiastically and smiled at him and he starts laughing with me. When our team got it the answer right Bbomb turns around and gives me a HUGE high-five (so hard that it made my hand sting for a few seconds), and we jumped around with the rest of our teammates while giving each other high-fives (yay for high-fiving P.O, Bbomb, and Jaehyo!). We chanted “Bumblebee, Bumblebee!” and screamed together. The second girl in our lineup came over and gave me a huge hug, and screamed, “THIS IS HAPPENING TO US RIGHT NOW!” which I thought was a lot of fun.
The other team went next and they got “Else from Frozen” as their topic. Thank goodness our team didn’t get that topic since I haven’t even seen the movie! P.O kept making funny sounds in his mic as the other team started off with Ukwon. He gestured a long braid, and started doing some side-to-side movements that might have made more sense if I had seen the movie. It seemed like the first girl understood what was going on, but when it came to passing on the acting it got a little bit more confusing. Kyung somehow tried passing it onto the second girl on their team, and by the time it got to Taeil it was more confusing than ever. Since they were getting stuck so badly, the other Block B members started singing “Let it Go” and making more sound effects to help out. It took some time, but with a lot of help, the last girl guessed if their topic was “Frozen”, which the MC said was close enough to the actual topic.
They asked the audience who they think won and everyone said our team name…turns out we did win! Our team was cheering and clapping and this lady comes up on stage and stuffs three signed tshirts into P.O’s hand, who then gives them to me and the other two girls on our team as prizes and all of the members shake all the fans’ hands, which was amazing! Jaehyo, Bbomb, and P.O gave me huge high fives in addition to handshakes as well. P.O did the buzzing gesture on stage again and grasped my shoulders again as we were celebrating. They then asked us to return to our seats and it just felt so surreal! Can’t believe that actually happened to me!!
When I got back to my seat my rowmates were all congratulating me and they all wanted to shake my hand, haha. Gosh, I was on such a high! They were SO good-looking, polite, cute, funny, and taller than I thought they would be. They all had such nice skin and looked exactly like how they do on TV and in pictures, which I think is amazing.
The showcase continued from there with more songs, and the members came really close to the fans multiple times, so it was pretty awesome. I got some great videos of them, but the lighting was too bright to get any great focus on them with my dinky cellphone camera. Although the showcase was shorter than I had expected, but they did build in an encore, which included “Nalina” and a rock version of “Very Good”. When it all ended, it was finally time for the hi-touch and fansign events! They first called the people who won the photo opportunity up to the stage, and then they called the fans for the hi-touch starting from the back, leaving the VVIP fans as the last group to be called since the fansign was included as well in the most expensive package. The hi-touch was sort of strange; the staff members literally just herded lots of fans super quickly onto the stage, had them high-five the members quickly, then herded the fans off the stage. It was super quick for each fan, and I felt like it would have been nice if it was a bit slower-paced. I enjoyed watching the fan reactions though!
I made friends with a girl who was in my row, and it was really fun talking to her about kpop and concerts and life. I ended up Facebook friending her, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to talk lots soon! Finally, the VVIP fans were called to the stage, and they brought out seats for the Block B members to sit on at the tables for the fansign event. Each fan got to go up, get a signature on an event-provided poster by each of the boys, and get a handshake as well. It was definitely at a much slower pace than the hi-touch event, but they were pretty adamant that you get in and get out as fast as you could. I joked around with the staff members a bit as I was waiting in line, and most of them seemed to be pretty cool people.
When I got to the table, the members remembered me from the charades game earlier in the showcase. They kept saying, “Oh, it’s you!” in Korean while giving me wide-eyed surprised expressions and smiles and responding to my hellos. Taeil, the little cutie that he is, told me, “Ooh, you’re so pretty!” in Korean, which was a really nice confidence-booster. I told him he was pretty too and gave him a huge smile. ;D
P.O saw me and got all excited while he was signing my poster. “I will always remember you!” he declared loudly in perfect but accented English, and that totally made my day!! I told him I’d remember him too pointed at him with a wink. He then gave me a handshake and a high five and then said, “See you next time!” GAH. <3
Bbomb made a surprised face when he saw me and then he was like, “HELLO AGAIN,” in Korean with a small bow. He then said a bunch of stuff in Korean but I didn’t catch everything he said but he smiled at me and gave me a nice long handshake. At the end of the table, Zico saw me and said “Hello again!” in Korean with a small bow and in English he said, “See you next time!” I thanked him and walked off the stage feeling awesome!!
I felt bad Jane had been waiting for me all this time, but at least there were a lot of people waiting outside! We made the short walk to the Metro Center station and caught the orange line back to Vienna, after which she gave me a ride back to my house. I told my parents about what had happened and they got so excited for me. As my friend Illy always says, “the kpop gods are on your side.” I truly feel like a super lucky fan and I’m glad I got the opportunity to go to this showcase and have so many cool things happen to me!
Block B was amazingly hardworking, talented, and a ton of fun to interact with. They’re handsome and cute, funny and cool, and I love them even more now if that’s possible. I hope they come back to the US sometime! :D
**ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY ME.**
I have to admit - I only got around to buying my showcase ticket the week before it happened since I actually forgot that tickets went on sale due to so much craziness at the end of the school year! Thankfully, I noticed that they opened up some random VVIP seats when I was perusing the site, and I was able to snag an awesome seat in row B, seat 8, which was located in the second row of the right orchestra section. The VVIP package included not only a showcase ticket, but also access to fansign and “high touch” events. I had been debating whether or not I should spend the money for the showcase, but I am so glad I did!
My friend Jane and I met up at the Vienna metro station close to our houses at 5:30pm, and we took the metro to the Metro Center stop. Since Jane had a Living Social deal for Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown that was expiring soon, we decided to hit up the restaurant for dinner before going to the concert. By the time we made it to the restaurant, it was already 6:30pm, which didn’t leave us much time for food (the concert was scheduled to start at 7:30pm). On a side note, the food was really good and I feel terrible that we couldn’t take our time eating. I’ll have to go back with Jane sometime when we’re not pressed for time…
We sped walked to the Warner Theater from the restaurant, which took about 15 minutes, so we ended up somehow making it there at 7:25pm. Yikes, we cut it close, but we weren’t late and we didn’t have to stand in line, so it turned out perfectly fine. Jane and I split up upon entering the venue since we had decided to get different ticket types, so I went by myself to where my seat was located. It was a little interesting being by myself, since I’m usually with friends or my sister at these types of events. The fans around me were really upbeat and full of energy, which made it all much more exciting. I was REALLY close to the stage, so I was looking forward to the awesome view I was bound to have.
They started the showcase right on time, and Block B kicked the whole thing off with a rendition of “Very Good” - which is one of my favorite songs - dressed in black velour/velvet suits and bowties. Fans were going nuts and rushing the stage in the aisles and the sides, and the security detail did their best to get them to clear the aisles (I felt sort of bad for them). The girl who was sitting to my left hopped the row of seats ahead of us so I got to slide over and have an even better view. GAH! They were so energetic and AWESOME. Loved all of their performances to bits!!
I unfortunately didn’t keep a tally on their set list, but I was a bit sad they didn’t perform “Nillili Mambo” or “Jackpot”. However, what they did perform was awesome and there was a lot of fanservice goodness in terms of interacting with fans and moving around the stage. At one point, they pulled out 7 chairs for each of the members and asked them questions about how they like D.C. and about their feelings concerning performing in the U.S. I don’t think the MCs did a very good job translating - anyone could tell that they left out A LOT of what the boys were saying. Hopefully Jazzy Group can hire a better interpreter next time! D:
After the interview, they announced that they’d have each member draw a seat number out of a box and they’d bring that fan up on stage for a special rendition of “Romantically”. The box apparently contained seat numbers from the whole theater since some of the fans on the upper balcony were selected in addition to the orchestra level fans. P.O was the last to draw and he drew row B, seat 12, which was just 2 seats to my right. However, the girl sitting in that seat looked confused and didn’t go up or anything, which I thought was strange. The ushers thought it was strange too since they kept telling us it was our row. I later found out that those girls didn’t have tickets for those seats and they randomly moved up somehow once the showcase started. Hmmm…
So P.O ended up redrawing and some other fan got the last seat, but at that point, I was thinking how close that chance was. Wasn’t disappointed or anything, since the chances of them picking me was really low. Each member serenaded their chosen fan and presented each girl with a rose at the end of their solo parts of the song. It was adorable, and I loved watching the fan reactions. I love it when Kpop groups interact with their fans like that!
They performed a few more songs afterwards, and then they announced that they’d do another fan interaction segment by playing charades with some more fans chosen via lottery. They pulled Zico out to be the moderator to make the teams even, and made the rest of the members play rock-paper-scissors with each other to determine the teams. The members who won the matched became the “winning team”, which Zico lovingly dubbed A Team, and they consisted of Taeil, Kyung, and Ukwon. The “losing team”, or B Team as Zico called them, was made up of P.O, Bbomb, and Jaehyo. Each member then drew another seat number out from the box to double the size of each team, making each team consist of 6 people.
I was just watching with amusement for the most part, but when they got to P.O, he actually drew my seat number. As in, he said, “ROW B, SEAT 8”. I didn’t really know how to react but I turned to my left and told the girl next to me, “Oh wow, that’s me!” My rowmates were all cheering for me as I headed up on the stage. I kept an eye out for Jane to see if I could find her, because we had been joking on the metro that it would be hilarious of I was chosen to go on stage (I had read fanreports of the NY showcase and knew a bit about the extra fan interactions). SO funny that it ended up happening!
When I got up on the stage, the members, especially the ones on the B Team (the side I was closest to), were all like, “Ooooooh!! *insert lots of super rapid Korean*!” They tried to talk to me right away with lots of Korean while I stood next to P.O trying to make sense of everything going on and freaking out a little bit on the inside. (On a side note, I am Chinese-American but I get mistaken for being Korean all the time for some reason.) They all were excited to see a “Korean” fan that they could communicate with maybe?? P.O and Bbomb kept bombarding me with lots of Korean and in a moment of intelligence, I just stared back at them and gave them the classic “…er…?” response. From my right, Zico suddenly comes over, stands really close to me, leans really close to P.O and I, and says really loudly IN ENGLISH , “YO, SHE ISN’T KOREAN.”
HILARIOUS. I thought it was even funnier because he said it in English. Immediately, P.O turns to me, wide-eyed and starts apologizing in his accented English - “Sorry sorry!” Zico then leans in close again (gah!) and asks in English, “Are you from D.C.?” I tell him that I am from Virginia, and he nods at me and repeats, “ohh, Virginia.” (Zico’s English was really good! He barely had an accent while he was talking to me.) Then P.O. cuts in and asks me, in accented English, “What is your name?” I told him my name was Grace and he repeated it several times (gah!) and said, “Okay, I will remember Grace!”
The girl standing on the other side of Zico to my right kept looking at me and mouthing, “OMG WHAT DO I DO?!” which I thought was funny and cute. She looked pretty jittery and in disbelief - I definitely felt the same way on the inside, though I have a better grasp on my emotions on the outside, haha. Once they had 3 fans for each of the teams, they told us we had 20 seconds to come up with a team name. I really had no clue what to suggest for our team, but thankfully one of the other fans on my team suggested “Team Bumblebee” which was cute, so we just all agreed. We all high-fived each other once we made the decision! I made a flapping gesture and buzzed at P.O in a moment of my weirdness, and when they announced our team name to the audience, P.O copied me and buzzed around on stage while flapping his “wings”. I laughed so hard! The other team decided on the name “Team Turnup”.
The MCs were not very good at giving us instructions because they just told us to face the right side of the stage, and didn’t explain what exactly how the charades game was to be set up. Turns out that the game was to be the Korean/Asian style of charades: everyone lines up facing one way, the first person gets shown what they have to act out, and then they tap the next person’s shoulder, acts it out to the person, and hopefully that person will understand, and then that person taps the next person’s shoulder, acts it out to that person, and so on and so forth. The last person in the line will have to guess what was acted out, and whichever team passes on the acting and guesses correctly in the shortest amount of time wins. The point is to hope that nothing gets lost along the way, and that hopefully each person will understand what’s going on.
The other fans and I did not understand that we were supposed to be in a line at first, and it was kind of funny because we were clueless the whole time. P.O grabbed my shoulders firmly and maneuvered me into the forming line, with me facing Bbomb’s back. He then joined the line behind me as the first person on our team, making me the second person to go on our team. Our team went first as the team that lost at rock-paper-scissors before, and since we weren’t allowed to turn around or anything, I only assume what happened next was that Zico wrote out what we had to act out on his flipboard and showed it to P.O and the audience. Judging from the audience reaction it was something good/funny.
So, a few seconds later, I feel the tapping on my shoulder and I turn around to see P.O chuckling semi-awkwardly and he starts acting out something that made no sense to me. He drew an imaginary rectangle in front of him then mimed pushing it forward, which made me immediately think of a cart? But I still didn’t know what it meant. He then gestured something that looked like a stick, and then started waving around the imaginary stick. I actually didn’t understand what the heck he was doing until he said, “Wingardium leviosa,” which made everything click immediately. (P.O my dear, don’t think you were supposed say anything, but no one else heard so it’s okay!) He made the “OK?” sign at me and gave me a questioning look while smiling, so I made the sign back at him and smiled back at him.
I turned around and tapped Bbomb’s shoulder, and he turned around and stared at me (which was a little bit funny yet unnerving at the same time). Unfortunately I had no idea how I was going to act our topic out, so I start miming the wand, and making spell-casting gestures. In Korean he starts saying things to me like, “What? Lasso? Huh?” and it was amusing yet embarrassing for me, haha. I made circles around my eyes to indicate glasses and did the wand gestures again. I really tried my best, but at that moment I couldn’t think about what I was doing…so I felt like I did horribly. OH WELL.
Bbomb looked super confused but he turned around and started mimicking what I did to the next girl, who immediately asked if he was acting out a wand. I discreetly nodded at her and I think she got it right away, especially when he did the same glasses gesture that I did. She then did an AWESOME job of miming out the lightning bolt scar on the forehead, the glasses, the wand gesture, and broomstick riding. Jaehyo got it pretty quickly with the girl’s awesomeness and there was a pause before he taps the last girl’s shoulder and starts acting out the wand gesture, pointing it at his water bottle on the ground and then lifting it up to try to indicate it was “floating”. And then he makes the broomstick riding gestures and when they asked the last girl what she thought it was she immediately said the correct answer of “Harry Potter” - yay!!
While the second fan on our team was awesomely acting, Bbomb turned to me and kept asking me, in Korean, what our topic was while glancing at our other team members. Ukwon also came over to stand next to me at this point. I told Bbomb that I was trying to make a wand gesture, and while Jaehyo was acting he suddenly got it, turned to me, and was like, “OH. MAGIC? HARRY POTTER?” I nodded enthusiastically and smiled at him and he starts laughing with me. When our team got it the answer right Bbomb turns around and gives me a HUGE high-five (so hard that it made my hand sting for a few seconds), and we jumped around with the rest of our teammates while giving each other high-fives (yay for high-fiving P.O, Bbomb, and Jaehyo!). We chanted “Bumblebee, Bumblebee!” and screamed together. The second girl in our lineup came over and gave me a huge hug, and screamed, “THIS IS HAPPENING TO US RIGHT NOW!” which I thought was a lot of fun.
The other team went next and they got “Else from Frozen” as their topic. Thank goodness our team didn’t get that topic since I haven’t even seen the movie! P.O kept making funny sounds in his mic as the other team started off with Ukwon. He gestured a long braid, and started doing some side-to-side movements that might have made more sense if I had seen the movie. It seemed like the first girl understood what was going on, but when it came to passing on the acting it got a little bit more confusing. Kyung somehow tried passing it onto the second girl on their team, and by the time it got to Taeil it was more confusing than ever. Since they were getting stuck so badly, the other Block B members started singing “Let it Go” and making more sound effects to help out. It took some time, but with a lot of help, the last girl guessed if their topic was “Frozen”, which the MC said was close enough to the actual topic.
They asked the audience who they think won and everyone said our team name…turns out we did win! Our team was cheering and clapping and this lady comes up on stage and stuffs three signed tshirts into P.O’s hand, who then gives them to me and the other two girls on our team as prizes and all of the members shake all the fans’ hands, which was amazing! Jaehyo, Bbomb, and P.O gave me huge high fives in addition to handshakes as well. P.O did the buzzing gesture on stage again and grasped my shoulders again as we were celebrating. They then asked us to return to our seats and it just felt so surreal! Can’t believe that actually happened to me!!
When I got back to my seat my rowmates were all congratulating me and they all wanted to shake my hand, haha. Gosh, I was on such a high! They were SO good-looking, polite, cute, funny, and taller than I thought they would be. They all had such nice skin and looked exactly like how they do on TV and in pictures, which I think is amazing.
The showcase continued from there with more songs, and the members came really close to the fans multiple times, so it was pretty awesome. I got some great videos of them, but the lighting was too bright to get any great focus on them with my dinky cellphone camera. Although the showcase was shorter than I had expected, but they did build in an encore, which included “Nalina” and a rock version of “Very Good”. When it all ended, it was finally time for the hi-touch and fansign events! They first called the people who won the photo opportunity up to the stage, and then they called the fans for the hi-touch starting from the back, leaving the VVIP fans as the last group to be called since the fansign was included as well in the most expensive package. The hi-touch was sort of strange; the staff members literally just herded lots of fans super quickly onto the stage, had them high-five the members quickly, then herded the fans off the stage. It was super quick for each fan, and I felt like it would have been nice if it was a bit slower-paced. I enjoyed watching the fan reactions though!
I made friends with a girl who was in my row, and it was really fun talking to her about kpop and concerts and life. I ended up Facebook friending her, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to talk lots soon! Finally, the VVIP fans were called to the stage, and they brought out seats for the Block B members to sit on at the tables for the fansign event. Each fan got to go up, get a signature on an event-provided poster by each of the boys, and get a handshake as well. It was definitely at a much slower pace than the hi-touch event, but they were pretty adamant that you get in and get out as fast as you could. I joked around with the staff members a bit as I was waiting in line, and most of them seemed to be pretty cool people.
When I got to the table, the members remembered me from the charades game earlier in the showcase. They kept saying, “Oh, it’s you!” in Korean while giving me wide-eyed surprised expressions and smiles and responding to my hellos. Taeil, the little cutie that he is, told me, “Ooh, you’re so pretty!” in Korean, which was a really nice confidence-booster. I told him he was pretty too and gave him a huge smile. ;D
P.O saw me and got all excited while he was signing my poster. “I will always remember you!” he declared loudly in perfect but accented English, and that totally made my day!! I told him I’d remember him too pointed at him with a wink. He then gave me a handshake and a high five and then said, “See you next time!” GAH. <3
Bbomb made a surprised face when he saw me and then he was like, “HELLO AGAIN,” in Korean with a small bow. He then said a bunch of stuff in Korean but I didn’t catch everything he said but he smiled at me and gave me a nice long handshake. At the end of the table, Zico saw me and said “Hello again!” in Korean with a small bow and in English he said, “See you next time!” I thanked him and walked off the stage feeling awesome!!
I felt bad Jane had been waiting for me all this time, but at least there were a lot of people waiting outside! We made the short walk to the Metro Center station and caught the orange line back to Vienna, after which she gave me a ride back to my house. I told my parents about what had happened and they got so excited for me. As my friend Illy always says, “the kpop gods are on your side.” I truly feel like a super lucky fan and I’m glad I got the opportunity to go to this showcase and have so many cool things happen to me!
Block B was amazingly hardworking, talented, and a ton of fun to interact with. They’re handsome and cute, funny and cool, and I love them even more now if that’s possible. I hope they come back to the US sometime! :D