SMTown Paris June 10th, 2011 - Part II, pre-concert jitters!
Disclaimer: Before I begin retelling the experience that was SMTown Paris, I'd like to mention that any fancams that I post are most likely going to contain somewhat bad sound quality, a lot of extremely loud screaming and shrieking, and an overly hyperactive, excited and high Sae.
I am not to be held liable for any damages that my shrieking might incur, nor for any possible damages that may be caused by your random attempts to throw yourself at the screen after seeing some of these performances.
With that said, I hope you enjoy reading, watching, listening and most of all, I love you all... please, don't hate me. XD ♥
★ Pre-concert jitters~
I mentioned how we didn't get around to leaving the hotel room until almost 5PM on June 10th. We were supposed to pick up our glow bracelets at 5:30PM at the latest, and our goodie bags from 6PM. The concert itself was set to start at 7:30PM, so needless to say, I felt incredibly stressed at this point. I just wanted to get to the concert hall and meet my wonderful livejournal friends so we could spazz together.
I also knew that the lines would be absolutely ridiculous.
We had lunimag 's concert ticket because she purchased it from us, so I was texting her the same time I was trying to get my ass over to the concert hall. Finding her was incredibly difficult, because of the massive amount of fans standing outside the concert hall. But with a little bit of luck and desperation, we finally managed to find one another and Luni quickly joined us while we went to take our place at the very end of the line.
The line was humongous. It was actually split into two; the one right outside the concert hall, then another one a little further away from its end with a large space in between where security guards would carefully usher smaller groups forward to the bigger line.
It was raining, it was kind of chilly and there were a lot of excitement in the air. In the picture below to the right, you can see some of the line and how long it really was, despite the blurriness of the photo.
I was actually standing on my tip-toes and reaching up as high as I could (my arm was straight up in the air, right hand holding the camera at the tip of my fingers) with my camera to take this picture, which is why it ended up blurry. I seriously couldn't see over the people around me, and the thousands and thousands of umbrellas didn't make things better. XD Short Sae is short!
I kept trying to keep the girls as close as possible as the line was moving, because people were pushing from behind. They weren't pushing very aggressively, but you could easily lose your spot if you looked away or didn't move fast enough.
1stepcl0ser and I were texting back and forth, trying to find one another. I found out they showed up about ten minutes after we did so while we were in the middle of the second line, they were at the far back. Trying to be smart about things, we held up our very orange/white/flower-printed umbrella high above everyone else to help it serve as a beacon for Vanessa (1stepcl0ser) while she and her friend were trying to find us. It worked, but they were unfortunately unable to get to us because the large crowd between us wouldn't let them pass. :(
I also texted haebin unni to see where she was, and she had the fortune of being about 50 meters away from the entrance, soaking wet because she'd been standing there in the rain for hours. Unni, I'm so sorry we couldn't make it to you before the concert! :( We could have shared our umbrella with you. ;3; ♥
I managed to get a hold of kasayu too, but she was also further ahead in the line than we were, so we had no hope of meeting up with them either.
I felt incredibly helpless because I had been looking forward to meeting them all for weeks, and the fact that I didn't get a chance to hang out with them before the concert killed me a little. T_T But I was happy to be there with my friends, and so glad that we had managed to find Lunimag too.
Things didn't get better when we realized that we wouldn't be getting our glow bracelets because we couldn't find the distributor. BUT, there were a few kind souls who were handing some out to the queue, although none that were really SHINee specific so I was a little bummed out. XD I think I managed to nab an SNSD one and a Super Junior one outside while we were waiting in the rain.
I think we stood in the second line for about 45 minutes before we were shuffled forward to first one. As soon as we got closer to the Le Zenith, I could seriously feel my heartbeat getting faster. XD
About 50 meters away from the entrance, we noticed there wasn't a line for the package goodies, so we asked the nearest security guard where to go. His answer was plain and simple, "No, it's over," in French. He didn't speak a lick of English, and he wouldn't give us any information at all. Luni even asked him in French which way we were supposed to go, but he kept insisting that there were no package goodies left.
My three-set reaction was this:
Disbelief. Irritation. Rage.
I was half tempted to jump the fence to knock some sense into the guy, and to demand my package goodies... but I refrained from doing that. <.<;
So we toddled on ahead in the line, met some other Swedes on the way who told us they'd been interviewed by Korean media at least four times. SWEDEN IS DOING GOOD ON THE CHARTS, YEHEAAAH~
Finally around 6:45PM, we were directed to the left side of the line where people with package goodie tickets were allowed to pass through. There was a tent outside the hall, near that line, selling SMTown goods. Fuu and I bought a number of objects, including an SMTown t-shirt. Then we continued on to the entrance of the hall and slipped inside to find another desk/area set up where they were handing out the package goodies for those with tickets. :D
We got an SMTown handbag, a towel and another SMTown t-shirt. I was ecstatic at this point.
In the hall, I called Haebin to see where she was seated, and it was so difficult to hear her and vice versa because there were buzzing fans all around us. Giving up after a few minutes of trying to hear her over the phone, Lunimag left to go to her seat and we went to find ours. As soon as I entered the concert arena, I shrieked a little to myself. We had to queue to get to our seats too, because they had hostesses showing people to their seats... yeah, I still have no idea why. D:
Originally when we bought our tickets, all four of us had seats in separate areas of the arena. But luck struck again and Umi and I managed to find a group who were willing to switch seats with us so we could sit next to each other. AND AS SOON AS I TOOK MY SEAT, THIS IS WHAT I WAS GREETED BY:
MY EXCITEMENT LEVEL PEAKED AS SOON AS I SAW THE LOGO, AND HOW FREAKING CLOSE WE WERE TO THE STAGE.
So to get this party started, I present to you the first fancam of the concert, complete with a short commentary from yours truly.
Beware, I shriek and I'm very loud. XD
Stay tuned for part III? 8D
I am not to be held liable for any damages that my shrieking might incur, nor for any possible damages that may be caused by your random attempts to throw yourself at the screen after seeing some of these performances.
With that said, I hope you enjoy reading, watching, listening and most of all, I love you all... please, don't hate me. XD ♥
★ Pre-concert jitters~
I mentioned how we didn't get around to leaving the hotel room until almost 5PM on June 10th. We were supposed to pick up our glow bracelets at 5:30PM at the latest, and our goodie bags from 6PM. The concert itself was set to start at 7:30PM, so needless to say, I felt incredibly stressed at this point. I just wanted to get to the concert hall and meet my wonderful livejournal friends so we could spazz together.
I also knew that the lines would be absolutely ridiculous.
We had lunimag 's concert ticket because she purchased it from us, so I was texting her the same time I was trying to get my ass over to the concert hall. Finding her was incredibly difficult, because of the massive amount of fans standing outside the concert hall. But with a little bit of luck and desperation, we finally managed to find one another and Luni quickly joined us while we went to take our place at the very end of the line.
The line was humongous. It was actually split into two; the one right outside the concert hall, then another one a little further away from its end with a large space in between where security guards would carefully usher smaller groups forward to the bigger line.
It was raining, it was kind of chilly and there were a lot of excitement in the air. In the picture below to the right, you can see some of the line and how long it really was, despite the blurriness of the photo.
I was actually standing on my tip-toes and reaching up as high as I could (my arm was straight up in the air, right hand holding the camera at the tip of my fingers) with my camera to take this picture, which is why it ended up blurry. I seriously couldn't see over the people around me, and the thousands and thousands of umbrellas didn't make things better. XD Short Sae is short!
I kept trying to keep the girls as close as possible as the line was moving, because people were pushing from behind. They weren't pushing very aggressively, but you could easily lose your spot if you looked away or didn't move fast enough.
1stepcl0ser and I were texting back and forth, trying to find one another. I found out they showed up about ten minutes after we did so while we were in the middle of the second line, they were at the far back. Trying to be smart about things, we held up our very orange/white/flower-printed umbrella high above everyone else to help it serve as a beacon for Vanessa (1stepcl0ser) while she and her friend were trying to find us. It worked, but they were unfortunately unable to get to us because the large crowd between us wouldn't let them pass. :(
I also texted haebin unni to see where she was, and she had the fortune of being about 50 meters away from the entrance, soaking wet because she'd been standing there in the rain for hours. Unni, I'm so sorry we couldn't make it to you before the concert! :( We could have shared our umbrella with you. ;3; ♥
I managed to get a hold of kasayu too, but she was also further ahead in the line than we were, so we had no hope of meeting up with them either.
I felt incredibly helpless because I had been looking forward to meeting them all for weeks, and the fact that I didn't get a chance to hang out with them before the concert killed me a little. T_T But I was happy to be there with my friends, and so glad that we had managed to find Lunimag too.
Things didn't get better when we realized that we wouldn't be getting our glow bracelets because we couldn't find the distributor. BUT, there were a few kind souls who were handing some out to the queue, although none that were really SHINee specific so I was a little bummed out. XD I think I managed to nab an SNSD one and a Super Junior one outside while we were waiting in the rain.
I think we stood in the second line for about 45 minutes before we were shuffled forward to first one. As soon as we got closer to the Le Zenith, I could seriously feel my heartbeat getting faster. XD
About 50 meters away from the entrance, we noticed there wasn't a line for the package goodies, so we asked the nearest security guard where to go. His answer was plain and simple, "No, it's over," in French. He didn't speak a lick of English, and he wouldn't give us any information at all. Luni even asked him in French which way we were supposed to go, but he kept insisting that there were no package goodies left.
My three-set reaction was this:
Disbelief. Irritation. Rage.
I was half tempted to jump the fence to knock some sense into the guy, and to demand my package goodies... but I refrained from doing that. <.<;
So we toddled on ahead in the line, met some other Swedes on the way who told us they'd been interviewed by Korean media at least four times. SWEDEN IS DOING GOOD ON THE CHARTS, YEHEAAAH~
Finally around 6:45PM, we were directed to the left side of the line where people with package goodie tickets were allowed to pass through. There was a tent outside the hall, near that line, selling SMTown goods. Fuu and I bought a number of objects, including an SMTown t-shirt. Then we continued on to the entrance of the hall and slipped inside to find another desk/area set up where they were handing out the package goodies for those with tickets. :D
We got an SMTown handbag, a towel and another SMTown t-shirt. I was ecstatic at this point.
In the hall, I called Haebin to see where she was seated, and it was so difficult to hear her and vice versa because there were buzzing fans all around us. Giving up after a few minutes of trying to hear her over the phone, Lunimag left to go to her seat and we went to find ours. As soon as I entered the concert arena, I shrieked a little to myself. We had to queue to get to our seats too, because they had hostesses showing people to their seats... yeah, I still have no idea why. D:
Originally when we bought our tickets, all four of us had seats in separate areas of the arena. But luck struck again and Umi and I managed to find a group who were willing to switch seats with us so we could sit next to each other. AND AS SOON AS I TOOK MY SEAT, THIS IS WHAT I WAS GREETED BY:
MY EXCITEMENT LEVEL PEAKED AS SOON AS I SAW THE LOGO, AND HOW FREAKING CLOSE WE WERE TO THE STAGE.
So to get this party started, I present to you the first fancam of the concert, complete with a short commentary from yours truly.
Beware, I shriek and I'm very loud. XD
Click to viewStay tuned for part III? 8D