SMTown Live LA
Warning: This post is long and will be filled with pictures of the concert, none of which will be resized because I am lazy. BUT I will put everything under a cut so as not to flood your friends' list.
So, after a few hours at Disneyland (a post of which will probably come this weekend), Sarah and I went to LA. Actually, first we had to go back to the hotel room since I forgot the FREAKING CAMERA! But we were only about 10 minutes out of the hotel, so it wasn't that bad. We thought we would go eat Chinese Food... but that didn't happen.
We got a little bit lost looking for the Staples Center (Sarah's phone has a GPS, but Helga, as we call her, is a temperamental little thing), and then we got even MORE lost looking for the parking lot (which Helga could not find), but eventually we did find both and we walked to the Staples Center.
The line was long. SO long. I took a pic of the line with my phone but not with my camera. Anyway, we didn't even bother getting anything to eat because the line was too long. And when it finally did open, at 6, it took quite some time to get inside. It really was quite annoying. I didn't like the line at all at the Staples Center. Sarah and I were hungry, so we had to make due with what they had for food. I got Nachos and water. She got a hot dog, a pretzel and some sprite. I was making my way over to the merch section, only to find out that THEY DID NOT HAVE ONE!!! NO MERCH!!!! NO FUCKING MERCH! Not a good way to start the concert considering how I wanted to spend like 500 bucks on merch...
Eventually we got our seats. I was not in front of anyone, which made me happy because I'm so tall that I'm always afraid of getting in the way of people who are shorter than me. Here's a view from our seats.
It looks a lot worse than it was. Oh, and my camera has shitty flash. I should get a new one with better zoom/flash at some point.
The LCD screen thingy shows us stuff, like who is on the stage and such.
The concert starts by showing some cute little video with some of the SM town members making the logo or something. I didn't get a pic of that. The first act is some lady named J-Min. She's a Japanese star, and I'm not sure if she's actually signed to SM or maybe just Avex and they used her as an opening act. Regardless, Japanese lady with a nice voice who played the guitar. Very Sheryl Crow, I approved.
After J-Min, two members of the Grace (my favorite SM Town female group that is currently in play due to the disbandment of my beloved SES) came out, Sunday and Dana. They came out by themselves and sang a song each before they came together and sang My Everything. First song that I knew the words too, I sang, I did. Very good times. It sucked that Lina wasn't there, because Lina is my favorite The Grace member, but it was nice that The Grace was there. I miss them. I want to support them more.
After the Grace, Zhang LiYin came out. Zhang LiYin has undoubtedly the best female voice in the company. She's this generation's Bada. She's amazing. I love her. She sang SES's I Will (it was a cover song on her album), so I freaked out a little bit because, hello, SES my girls! So is Zhang! Then she sang Fireflies, a Chinese song.
The first "Big" Group comes out after this. F(x). People go crazy. I don't particularly care for F(x), and Sarah thinks that one of them might be sick. It's entirely possible. I took a picture of the pretty one. I have no idea what her name is, but she has good hair.
Then, one of the F(x) member stays, and one of the Girls' Generation members comes out. They're sisters in real life. They sing Tik Tok. The world mourns.
The next artist to come out was Kangta! Kangta has been with the company for the longest time out of anyone outside of the founder and a few of the staff people, but Kangta's no longer at the height of his popularity. Which is a shame, because Kangta is beloved and amazing and should be respected. I respected him! I took many Kangta pictures for girltype to look at when I see her.
The first songs that Kangta sang were Pine Tree (my favorite Kangta song!) and Polaris (his first solo song!). Kangta sings ballads, and ballads please the hell out of me, so I was quite pleased. Then some lady came out for a third song. It was a duet where they sang to each other and had a little play thing going on. It was very cute. One of the Shinee boys (bleh) came out and people went crazy. I learned that the lady's name is Ara, and she's a member of SM but mostly an actress. Her voice was decent, however.
Some guy who I'm not entirely sure is comes out. I think he MIGHT be the former leader of Blackbeat, but I could be entirely wrong about that...
And some girl comes out. She sings a ballad entirely in English. Kind of crappy English, but the beat is nice and she's pretty. I approve.
Shinee comes out for the first time. People go crazy. I'm annoyed because Shinee is meh. They sing too many songs, most of which suck (the second one was decent, though!), and am glad when they leave. Alas, it would not be the last time that they would torment me.
The Trax comes out next. They sing their new song Oh My Goddess, which is very un-Trax, but it is a damned good song. They also sing another song, which is the lead single off of their second mini-album. It's not as good as Oh My Goddess, but it is still good. I enjoy the Trax and will buy both mini-albums soon.
Guy playing the violin who kicks ass comes out next. And then the member of Suju that looks like a woman comes out and practically makes out with violin boy. People got apeshit, Sarah declares that's hot.
Boys from Suju or Shinee or maybe both come out and sing Sea of Love. I am pissed, because Sea of Love is Fly to the Sky, and none should touch the greatness that is Fly to the Sky EXCEPT for Fly to the Sky. Fatty and some other rappers make an appearance. I love my Fatty.
Girls' Generation comes out, and again, people go insane. They sing some songs (inferior songs, including Run Devil Run) before they talk in English. Someone behind me screams take off your clothes.
Super Junior comes out after Girls' Generation, and again, people go crazy. I go a little crazy because, hello, Siwon is my boy, and Fatty is my boy, so I have some interest in them. I take pictures that mostly focus on Siwon, Sarah declares he has a nice ass. I see no reason to object, although I do not look. Later he shows his abs, and they're like 'damn...' I don't think I got pictures of the abs, however.
After Suju leaves.... BoA COMES!!!! I make sounds that only dogs can apparently hear, basically destroy my voice, but I don't care. BoA is in front of me. This is my destiny, this is my life, this is the reason that I came and dealt with lines and lesser groups and batshit crazy fangirls. BoA, I love you! I wish you still had your normal, gorgeous hair, but hey, you can work anything.
Her first song is My Name, and then she sings I Did It For Love featuring a member of Shinee, Key.
I run down the aisle when BoA goes to the middle stage to get better pics, and while people run down the asile ALL the time during the performance for the boy bands, I am the only person to do so for BoA, and I get told to go back to my seat. What the fuck was that bullshit? I want to kill the girl who tells me to go back to my seat, but as that would probably get me ejected from the concert, I have to be a good boy and go. Bitch, retribution will come for you.
BoA says some stuff in English and then she leaves. 2 songs... I'm sad, but I know she will return.
The Suju boys return (this time with Siwon and the abs of unf) before they go again.
BoA RETURNS!
She returns in a new outfit and sings some more songs from her new album. This includes Let Me and Dangerous (apparently, during Dangerous, there is some tech difficulty as the stage goes black and you can hear BoA say that she can't hear her voice in her earpiece, they try again). After those she gets out a stool and she sings a BALLAD!!! BoA IS SINGING A BALLAD!!! She didn't sing a ballad, to my knowledge, in Seoul, so I choose to believe that she knows that I am there and sings a ballad for me. Yes, indeed. After the ballad she sings more fast songs.
These are just a few of my BoA pictures, of course.
After BoA leaves, DONG BANG SHIN KI comes out. And everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE goes crazy. They get the hugest pop. We're going crazy, too. They're each on one of the ends of the stage and then they go up via harnesses. It is so bad ass. Max and U-Know, we missed you!!!
They sing a few of their hits (not Triangle or Balloons, sadly!) before they go on their way.
Some of the people get together for a jam session. INCLUDING TRAX who return and sing Paradox!
The QUEEN returns and sings Hurricane Venus and shows everyone how it is done! BoA I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!! By this point my voice is running on empty and I kid you not when I say that when I cheer it feels like I am going to pass out, but I do so anyway. For BoA I will risk a concussion!
Then the whole group gets together for their finale. They sing an HOT song! Hope! SO GOOD!!! It is at this point that the queen goes center stage and waves to the crowd. She looks at me and waves. At least I choose to believe that she looks at me and waves. I am very tall, and the Korean people are very tiny. DO NOT DESTROY MY DENIAL!
Overall, the concert was excellent. I REALLY could have done without the constant reappearing of Shinee, F(x) and Girls' Generation. Super Junior I can understand, they've been around long enough, but the others? No. Shinee had the most songs, I think, even more than BoA, and this is just WRONG to me. I am still upset about the lack of merch to be bought, but overall it was an excellent concert and I am so glad that I went.
Apparently, BoA went to the afterparty and took pictures with fans.
Sigh.
But I don't think I was in the right headspace to MEET BoA. Maybe next time.
So, after a few hours at Disneyland (a post of which will probably come this weekend), Sarah and I went to LA. Actually, first we had to go back to the hotel room since I forgot the FREAKING CAMERA! But we were only about 10 minutes out of the hotel, so it wasn't that bad. We thought we would go eat Chinese Food... but that didn't happen.
We got a little bit lost looking for the Staples Center (Sarah's phone has a GPS, but Helga, as we call her, is a temperamental little thing), and then we got even MORE lost looking for the parking lot (which Helga could not find), but eventually we did find both and we walked to the Staples Center.
The line was long. SO long. I took a pic of the line with my phone but not with my camera. Anyway, we didn't even bother getting anything to eat because the line was too long. And when it finally did open, at 6, it took quite some time to get inside. It really was quite annoying. I didn't like the line at all at the Staples Center. Sarah and I were hungry, so we had to make due with what they had for food. I got Nachos and water. She got a hot dog, a pretzel and some sprite. I was making my way over to the merch section, only to find out that THEY DID NOT HAVE ONE!!! NO MERCH!!!! NO FUCKING MERCH! Not a good way to start the concert considering how I wanted to spend like 500 bucks on merch...
Eventually we got our seats. I was not in front of anyone, which made me happy because I'm so tall that I'm always afraid of getting in the way of people who are shorter than me. Here's a view from our seats.
It looks a lot worse than it was. Oh, and my camera has shitty flash. I should get a new one with better zoom/flash at some point.
The LCD screen thingy shows us stuff, like who is on the stage and such.
The concert starts by showing some cute little video with some of the SM town members making the logo or something. I didn't get a pic of that. The first act is some lady named J-Min. She's a Japanese star, and I'm not sure if she's actually signed to SM or maybe just Avex and they used her as an opening act. Regardless, Japanese lady with a nice voice who played the guitar. Very Sheryl Crow, I approved.
After J-Min, two members of the Grace (my favorite SM Town female group that is currently in play due to the disbandment of my beloved SES) came out, Sunday and Dana. They came out by themselves and sang a song each before they came together and sang My Everything. First song that I knew the words too, I sang, I did. Very good times. It sucked that Lina wasn't there, because Lina is my favorite The Grace member, but it was nice that The Grace was there. I miss them. I want to support them more.
After the Grace, Zhang LiYin came out. Zhang LiYin has undoubtedly the best female voice in the company. She's this generation's Bada. She's amazing. I love her. She sang SES's I Will (it was a cover song on her album), so I freaked out a little bit because, hello, SES my girls! So is Zhang! Then she sang Fireflies, a Chinese song.
The first "Big" Group comes out after this. F(x). People go crazy. I don't particularly care for F(x), and Sarah thinks that one of them might be sick. It's entirely possible. I took a picture of the pretty one. I have no idea what her name is, but she has good hair.
Then, one of the F(x) member stays, and one of the Girls' Generation members comes out. They're sisters in real life. They sing Tik Tok. The world mourns.
The next artist to come out was Kangta! Kangta has been with the company for the longest time out of anyone outside of the founder and a few of the staff people, but Kangta's no longer at the height of his popularity. Which is a shame, because Kangta is beloved and amazing and should be respected. I respected him! I took many Kangta pictures for girltype to look at when I see her.
The first songs that Kangta sang were Pine Tree (my favorite Kangta song!) and Polaris (his first solo song!). Kangta sings ballads, and ballads please the hell out of me, so I was quite pleased. Then some lady came out for a third song. It was a duet where they sang to each other and had a little play thing going on. It was very cute. One of the Shinee boys (bleh) came out and people went crazy. I learned that the lady's name is Ara, and she's a member of SM but mostly an actress. Her voice was decent, however.
Some guy who I'm not entirely sure is comes out. I think he MIGHT be the former leader of Blackbeat, but I could be entirely wrong about that...
And some girl comes out. She sings a ballad entirely in English. Kind of crappy English, but the beat is nice and she's pretty. I approve.
Shinee comes out for the first time. People go crazy. I'm annoyed because Shinee is meh. They sing too many songs, most of which suck (the second one was decent, though!), and am glad when they leave. Alas, it would not be the last time that they would torment me.
The Trax comes out next. They sing their new song Oh My Goddess, which is very un-Trax, but it is a damned good song. They also sing another song, which is the lead single off of their second mini-album. It's not as good as Oh My Goddess, but it is still good. I enjoy the Trax and will buy both mini-albums soon.
Guy playing the violin who kicks ass comes out next. And then the member of Suju that looks like a woman comes out and practically makes out with violin boy. People got apeshit, Sarah declares that's hot.
Boys from Suju or Shinee or maybe both come out and sing Sea of Love. I am pissed, because Sea of Love is Fly to the Sky, and none should touch the greatness that is Fly to the Sky EXCEPT for Fly to the Sky. Fatty and some other rappers make an appearance. I love my Fatty.
Girls' Generation comes out, and again, people go insane. They sing some songs (inferior songs, including Run Devil Run) before they talk in English. Someone behind me screams take off your clothes.
Super Junior comes out after Girls' Generation, and again, people go crazy. I go a little crazy because, hello, Siwon is my boy, and Fatty is my boy, so I have some interest in them. I take pictures that mostly focus on Siwon, Sarah declares he has a nice ass. I see no reason to object, although I do not look. Later he shows his abs, and they're like 'damn...' I don't think I got pictures of the abs, however.
After Suju leaves.... BoA COMES!!!! I make sounds that only dogs can apparently hear, basically destroy my voice, but I don't care. BoA is in front of me. This is my destiny, this is my life, this is the reason that I came and dealt with lines and lesser groups and batshit crazy fangirls. BoA, I love you! I wish you still had your normal, gorgeous hair, but hey, you can work anything.
Her first song is My Name, and then she sings I Did It For Love featuring a member of Shinee, Key.
I run down the aisle when BoA goes to the middle stage to get better pics, and while people run down the asile ALL the time during the performance for the boy bands, I am the only person to do so for BoA, and I get told to go back to my seat. What the fuck was that bullshit? I want to kill the girl who tells me to go back to my seat, but as that would probably get me ejected from the concert, I have to be a good boy and go. Bitch, retribution will come for you.
BoA says some stuff in English and then she leaves. 2 songs... I'm sad, but I know she will return.
The Suju boys return (this time with Siwon and the abs of unf) before they go again.
BoA RETURNS!
She returns in a new outfit and sings some more songs from her new album. This includes Let Me and Dangerous (apparently, during Dangerous, there is some tech difficulty as the stage goes black and you can hear BoA say that she can't hear her voice in her earpiece, they try again). After those she gets out a stool and she sings a BALLAD!!! BoA IS SINGING A BALLAD!!! She didn't sing a ballad, to my knowledge, in Seoul, so I choose to believe that she knows that I am there and sings a ballad for me. Yes, indeed. After the ballad she sings more fast songs.
These are just a few of my BoA pictures, of course.
After BoA leaves, DONG BANG SHIN KI comes out. And everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE goes crazy. They get the hugest pop. We're going crazy, too. They're each on one of the ends of the stage and then they go up via harnesses. It is so bad ass. Max and U-Know, we missed you!!!
They sing a few of their hits (not Triangle or Balloons, sadly!) before they go on their way.
Some of the people get together for a jam session. INCLUDING TRAX who return and sing Paradox!
The QUEEN returns and sings Hurricane Venus and shows everyone how it is done! BoA I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!! By this point my voice is running on empty and I kid you not when I say that when I cheer it feels like I am going to pass out, but I do so anyway. For BoA I will risk a concussion!
Then the whole group gets together for their finale. They sing an HOT song! Hope! SO GOOD!!! It is at this point that the queen goes center stage and waves to the crowd. She looks at me and waves. At least I choose to believe that she looks at me and waves. I am very tall, and the Korean people are very tiny. DO NOT DESTROY MY DENIAL!
Overall, the concert was excellent. I REALLY could have done without the constant reappearing of Shinee, F(x) and Girls' Generation. Super Junior I can understand, they've been around long enough, but the others? No. Shinee had the most songs, I think, even more than BoA, and this is just WRONG to me. I am still upset about the lack of merch to be bought, but overall it was an excellent concert and I am so glad that I went.
Apparently, BoA went to the afterparty and took pictures with fans.
Sigh.
But I don't think I was in the right headspace to MEET BoA. Maybe next time.