120. FANACCOUNT: 121109 Big Bang Alive Tour in Newark, NJ
As I’m typing this, it’s noon the day after the concert and I’m sitting in bed in my Alive Tour t-shirt, foregoing sleep after 24 hours of being out and about, because I don’t want to forget any detail about the whole experience of going to the Big Bang concert. Yesterday was a day that I definitely do not want to forget, because it is one of the best (if not the best) night of my life.
I want to preface this fanaccount by saying that on the morning the tickets were being sold for the Big Bang concert, my friends and I were extremely, extremely prepared. We each had our own computers ready to refresh the ticketmaster page at exactly 10:00AM and our efforts paid off, because we snagged three V.I.P packages right off the bat. (In fact, we were the 10th-12th people in the nation to buy the V.I.P packages for the November 9th concert, lol.) Yes, I cringe when I think about how much the V.I.P packaged cost us but we decided that this was going to be the first time and probably the last time Big Bang would ever come to the East coast (the East coast is almost always neglected when it comes to k-pop events), so #YOLO. (This is the only time you will ever hear or see me say YOLO, because it’s just too damn appropriate.) So considering we managed to get the V.I.P package, we were very excited when November 9th suddenly came upon us. We were an ecstatic mess the night before the concert, and I couldn’t fall asleep until a long time after I went to bed. I ended up only getting about 4 hours of sleep that night.
So on Friday, November 9th, 2012, I woke up before 8 in the morning to head out the door at 9:00AM. I met up with my friends and we headed to the bus stop where we took the Bolt Bus from campus to Newark. We had to take an early bus to get to Newark because we all had V.I.P tickets so we wanted to have a good spot in the line to have a chance of getting as close to the stage as possible; there aren’t seat numbers for the mosh pit, after all.
It was about a two hour ride, so we arrived at around noon, which is already considered late. Sure enough, when we walked over to the Prudential Center, where the concert was being held, there was a gigantic line already that ran from the front entrance and wrapped around one side of the building. (Later, when they started giving numbered bracelets to the V.I.P-ticket-holders in line, I would find out that I was #574… meaning, there were 573 V.I.Ps who arrived before me D:) The dumb thing I didn’t understand was why there was only one line for ALL the concert goers. So people who purchased the V.I.P package and those who purchased general admission (seated) tickets were all mixed together in the same line even though V.I.P-ticket-holders get earlier admission. That just didn’t make any sense to me, because if they had separated the two kinds of tickets, the whole process later of giving V.I.P ticket-holders earlier admission would have been a lot smoother.
But, anyway, my friends and I lined up, and were bored for the next hour while waited for 4:00PM, which is when the sound-check party was scheduled to start. While waiting in line, we naturally talked to some of the groups of fans ahead of us and behind us. There were a lot of people who cosplayed Big Bang costumes from their music videos (so think crazy-colored wigs and outlandish suits, haha). I saw plenty of people wearing G-Dragon’s One of A Kind sweatshirt too. There was a healthy range of ages and races among the V.I.Ps; there were also quite a lot of parents who were chaperoning their kids but who were also Big Bang fans themselves lol. There were a group of freshman high schoolers behind us who made my friends and I feel really old… lmao.
Around 2:00PM, the official merchandise stall opened and there was a mad rush of fans to one of the side doors in the building where the stall was. A Big Bang Alive Tour hoodie (which looks SO COOL) was $80, sob. But I did buy the Newark, NJ version of the Big Bang Alive Tour t-shirt (because I found out from another fan that the t-shirt included in the V.I.P package doesn’t even have “Newark” or the concert dates written on it.)
A girl sometimes came down the line handing out slips of paper with the entire set list written on it, along with fanchants that we were supposed to say at certain times (including singing happy birthday to T.O.P). Occasionally some of my friends and I would run up to the front of the line where some fanclubs of certain Big Bang members were giving out those little cloth banners to wave during the concert. We had to hang around at the front of the line sometimes in order to get a chance at getting those banners because by the time they would get down the line to where we were, they would be all out of banners ;A; I managed to get one for Seungri and another one for T.O.P (T.O.P is my bias, so my mission was a success!!). I really wanted the GD&TOP one but they ran out. There was a fanclub giving them out for Daesung too, but I didn’t see any for Taeyang or G-Dragon. It seems like they were mostly Chinese fan clubs. I know at least the girl who was giving out the Seungri banners said that she printed all of those banners with her own money. V.I.Ps may not be the most cohesive or intensely organized fanclub in the world of k-pop fandom, but they love their group just as much as anybody else.
Some time in between 2:00-2:30PM we started seeing these black vans with tinted windows rolling by on the avenue parallel to the line of V.I.Ps and everybody started SCREAMING because one of the black vans had the passenger seat window down (or untinted, I can't remember), and we saw Taeyang!!!!! Well, I could have sworn it was Taeyang, but then somebody else later said that she could have sworn it was Seungri because he was making the peace sign or something. Idk. The point is, we saw Big Bang arrive at the venue lol.
At around 3:00PM the line started moving and nobody had any idea why the line was moving if they weren’t letting people in yet but all was answered about half an hour later when we saw a guy coming down the line checking tickets one by one and giving out paper bracelets to those who bought the V.I.P package. (This was when I found out I was #574 and started despairing lol.) 4:30PM rolled by and the line started moving in earnest because they were letting the V.I.P-ticket-holders go into the stadium for the sound check party.
When I first entered the stadium, it took my breath away. I heard some people say later that they were expecting the stadium to be bigger, but idk, it just looked kind of awe-inspiring to see so many seats in such a large place all empty? (And I’ve been to Madison Square Garden for SMTOWN NYC too, but maybe that’s because when I arrived there, there were lots of people seated already.) Anyway, there was a T-shaped stage jutting out of the main stage area and the band was seating above the main stage area, and the crossbar part of the “T” was almost in a three-leaf clover kind of shape. I stood at one of the ends of the “T.” The band came out and started tuning their instruments when we came in. I was so surprised to see the band because I wasn’t expecting live music? I guess I wasn’t expecting it because there wasn’t live music at SMTOWN NYC since I suppose k-pop is mostly electronic/dance/pop. (I’m sorry but I’m going to be comparing the Big Bang concert to SMTOWN NYC a lot in this fanaccount because it’s the only other concert I’ve ever been to, so comparison is inevitable). The band gave a lot of songs a slightly-rockish sound to it but I really appreciated the fact that they were playing the music live, in addition to the live singing. Also, the band seemed pretty chill too; they were making hearts over their heads to the fans below, haha.
Finally, about 10 minutes later, Big Bang suddenly appeared on the main stage and everybody just started screaming. I think they started the sound check party with Fantastic Baby, if I remember correctly. Taeyang said some things in his cute and earnest Engrish (“are you ready for sound check partyyyyy we hope you have good time” or something like that lmao). I can’t remember all the songs they sang at the sound check, but they did "Fantastic Baby," "Feeling," and "Knock Out" at least. What I remember most from the sound check party was that GD was very aloof (he looked tired) and didn’t really interact with the fans. Neither did T.O.P, but I expected as much from my bias haha; he just stayed in the center of the “T” almost the entire time. Daesung was always smiling, and Taeyang and Seungri did the most fanservice. Seungri was so precious, omg. After this experience, I have a newfound appreciation for Seungri. He gives the fans what they want and he really lives off the energy the crowd gives back to him. He was the main driving force behind the sound check party, whereas GD&TOP seemed a little more closed in on themselves. He made us have a really good time. Towards the end of the sound check, he brought a little African American girl up on stage and asked her what was her name and started dancing with her (…Seungri, I don’t think you’re supposed to be dancing so provocatively with a little girl lmao) and the girl started dancing a little too, it was so freaking adorable. As were exiting the arena, somebody started playing Justin Timberlake’s "Sexy Back" and SEUNGRI STARTED SINGING IT IN ENGLISH. “I’M BRINGING SEXY BACK SLFKAWERGA DON’T KNOW WHERE IT’S AT” It was hilarious omg. Plus, Seungri is really, really good-looking in real life.
At this point, I just want to go off on a tangent for a short bit to describe how it was like seeing my bias, aka the bamf T.O.P. Not only is it surreal seeing one of your favorite k-pop groups living and breathing and singing and dancing right in front of you, after years of watching them as 2D figures on your computer screen, it is STUPENDOUSLY SURREAL TO SEE YOUR BIAS. Like, wow. It is nothing compared to seeing Donghae in SMTOWN NYC, because as much as I like Donghae, he was never a “main bias” like T.O.P was (before I got into EXO). T.O.P was wearing this long coat thing and being suave and handsome as eff. Because he didn’t move around that much, I couldn’t really see him until later during the actual concert but let me tell you, WOW I was looking at somebody else and I just turn my head and suddenly BAM T.O.P was there on stage and my breath was taken away. I was like speechless for three seconds and then I proceeded to scream myself hoarse. I was standing next to one of my friends (well, technically, a friend of a friend, but we became friends really fast because we were clearly the craziest vocally among all our friends) and we just started clutching each other and jumping and screaming and flailing our arms lol. I am not even joking when I say my throat already hurt after the sound check was over and, mind you, the sound check was only about half an hour long.
After the sound check, half the V.I.P ticket holders exited one side of the arena while the other half exited the other side. They made us line up upstairs by our wrist band number, ie the same exact order we were standing outside of the stadium. They had lines roped off for everybody to stand in order, and it was in this order that we were going to re-enter the arena at the start of the concert. This kind of sucked for me since I was number five-hundred-and-something, but it could have been worse. There were 1200 V.I.P ticket holders (at least) so I’m grateful to be in the first half of the V.I.P ticket holders at least.
By now it’s after 5:00PM, so we were anticipating waiting for at least 2.5 hours for them to start letting us in to the arena for the concert. Most of the V.I.P ticket holders sat in their lines and just started talking to each other. There were more merchandise stalls and food stalls selling really expensive pizza and water bottles set up on the second floor where we were waiting. Since Samsung is sponsoring the concert (their ads were everywhere), Samsung also had an entire exhibition/display set up. Some of my friends went there because Samsung was giving away some bracelets that lit up in blue light; we really wanted these because we heard about Project Blue (which was a fan project to hold up blue glow sticks when Big Bang sang “Blue”) but we didn’t get any blue glow sticks. Basically we had to listen to a sales pitch about Samsung’s phones and then they gave us a voucher for one bracelet and one photo op with a gigantic Big Bang Alive Tour poster (the one where the Big Bang members are locked in those space capsules). There was also another station where you could take a picture with the Big Bang Alive Tour diamond-shaped logo and then the Samsung people would turn it into a pin/button for you. So all in all, it was an enjoyable way to pass the time.
At around 6:30PM, there was another mad rush because the staff decided to start letting in the V.I.P ticket holders and most of us weren’t expecting to go in that early so a lot of people weren’t even at the lines (they were at the food booths or the Samsung booth). I have no idea why they decided to let us in that early because when we were all crammed into the mosh pit area, we literally had to stand there for at least 1.5 hours until the concert was scheduled to start. I wish they hadn’t let us in so early because I was enjoying being able to sit down in line upstairs quite a lot after standing for so long outside of the stadium that afternoon and, besides, I only had four hours of sleep the night before, so standing there and being bored was not very conducive to staying awake. The seats filled up really slowly, and only started to look full with half an hour to go before the start of the concert; I was beginning to get worried that V.I.Ps ended up not being able to come or something despite the concert being sold out. But I’m happy to report that the seats were mostly full except directly to the right and left of the center stage.
The concert started late (of course). To pass the time, they started playing Big Bang music videos on the two small-ish screens on either side of the center stage. But even that gets boring after almost two hours, especially when they played the music video for Fantastic Baby ten times lol. The fans screamed the loudest whenever it was Daesung’s and T.O.P’s lines (which was surprising to me), so it seemed like the crowd of concert-goers were very Daesung and T.O.P-biased. It was pretty tightly-packed in the mosh pit but for the most part V.I.Ps were nicely behaved. There was a girl behind me that insisted on pressing up against my back as if that was going to make me move up forward lol. I was like, no, I need room to breathe at least and if you want to press up against my butt and back as if you were feeling me up, then go right ahead cuz I ain’t moving an inch unless there’s room for me to. (And then she started singing almost directly in my ear when the music videos were playing fml.) That was starting to make a bit irritable since I was running on little sleep, but never mind that.
The concert started at around 8:15-8:20PM. They played the music video for Fantastic Baby for the umpteenth time, really loudly this time, and when it ended, the lights started going off. That was of course everybody’s cue to start screaming haha. They started playing the opening sequence for the Alive Tour (which depicted the five Big Bang members trapped in these space capsules and being fueled towards Earth) and the curtain hanging in front of the center stage suddenly dropped and revealed the five space capsules with the Big Bang members inside. There was fog and out stepped the Big Bang members singing “Tonight,” followed up by “Hands Up” and an intro talk, where all the Big Bang members introduced themselves. Seungri clearly only knew a handful of English phrases which he repeated throughout the entire night, especially “GD is a genius, I love you” lmao. T.O.P was adorably shy and reluctant to speak; understandably so, since he has the worst English out of them all haha. He spoke the least, just saying “I’m T.O.P” or something like that. (Sometimes the screaming from the fans was so loud I couldn’t even hear anything clearly when they were talking lol.) Taeyang made the most effort to speak without a script. He said something like “I heard about the storm. It was really hard to get to New York. We had to change three times the flight!” and he sounded so tired when he said that, the whole crowd was like awwwww.
My friends and I stood at around the same spot that we were standing in for the sound check, except more towards the center of the stage. The floor of the stage is at around eye level, so if, say, T.O.P was standing on our end of the stage, you had to really look up to see him; he towered over you since you were basically at the level of his feet. Whenever one of the members crouched down, though, it was amazing. It was almost as if you were face-to-face. For that reason alone, purchasing floor tickets was really worth it. That being said, I don't think I would ever purchase floor/mosh pit tickets ever again (for Big Bang, at least; if it were EXO, that's a different story). It really is only a once in a life time thing. Being able to see every single drop of sweat on their faces is AKDJF;LSDJF;ALSDF;ASD MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME but because there's so many people in the mosh pit with you, it's impossible to see everything that happens. Plus, if you're near the "T" part of the stage, it's harder for you to see what's happening on the main center stage, which was the case for me (unless you're in the first row of people, right up to the barricade).
So, anyway, when one of the Big Bang members come to your side of the stage, they look like giants even when they’re kneeling down and staring down at you. YEAH, THEY STARE DOWN AT YOU. I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW MANY TIMES I SCREAMED AND DIED WHEN T.O.P PRETTY MUCH EYE-FUCKS EVERYBODY IN THE CROWD BELOW HIM. HE IS SO MOTHEREFFING SUAVE AND HANDSOME, I CAN’T EVEN. Before at the sound check party, T.O.P didn’t really come to my side of the stage so it was not until the actual concert that I got to see him really up close. And when they’re standing on that stage with the stage lights lighted up behind them, they look like glowing angels. AND OH MY GOD HIS VOICE. HIS VOICEEEEEEEEEE. I swear if I went to the concert and I couldn’t see anything and could only hear his voice, I would have died of happiness anyway. T.O.P’S VOICE IS HEAVEN ON EARTH. PERIOD. It’s so deep and slightly gruff but at the same time velvety smooth, idek. IT’S JUST LOVELY AND HNNNNNNNNNGGGGH. There were a couple of times when T.O.P was beatboxing and, holy mother of god, it was the second sexiest thing ever. (The sexiest thing ever is watching and hearing him rap because he gets so serious omg.) When he beatboxes, you can see all his neck muscles flexing and you can really see how mothereffing sharp his jawline is. Sharp and aljf;alsdf;lasd;flasd;fasdfa so handsome. As handsome as T.O.P is already in pictures and videos, they don’t do him enough justice. It was otherworldly how handsome he was, how great his voice sounded. I was screaming “T.O.P I LOVE YOU!!!!” every time he came near lol. After the concert, I would go on and on about how insanely handsome T.O.P is and how eargasmic his voice is that my friends teased me whether I still love Kai or not haha. (The answer is, yes, I still love Kai and Kai is still my ultimate bias.)
I’m not going to go through the entire set list song by song because, honestly, Big Bang went through each song one after another, so everything is a blur. The longest break they ever took was only like two minutes, and it was towards the end of the show. Otherwise, they hardly ever took a break unless it was to quickly change costumes; and, even then, the costumes weren’t elaborate, so costume changes didn’t take much time. That’s why I think the concert felt so short because Big Bang sang every song one right after another. They must have amazing stamina because they sang every single song live (unlike at SMTOWN NYC, where some artists were clearly lipsynching some songs; understandably, because they had to sing while doing some really intense choreo) and never once did they sound tired or out of breath!
So I’m just going to go through some of my favorite performances of the night:
“Fantastic Baby” was an amazing, high-energy performance. I can see why they chose “Fantastic Baby” for the encore too because the song is just so catchy and gets the crowd really worked up. Same goes for “Feeling.” I just wish they hadn’t chosen “Fantastic Baby” for the encore because after hearing it at the sound check and then at the actual concert and after watching the music video too many times while waiting for the concert to start, I was starting to get a little weary of the song. But the encore of “Fantastic Baby” was enjoyable nonetheless, after I got over the initial “oh no, not again” - the song just has that much energy, and the boys seemed really excited to perform it too, they were jumping all over the place.
“Knock Out” was a surprising favorite performance of the night. I always sorta liked the song, but I never loved it; however, watching GD&TOP perform it changed my mind altogether. I was singing “Ppeugigayo, ppeugigayo~!” and “THIS IS DOUBLE DOUBLE, DOUBLE DOUBLE COMBO” along with everybody else, haha. Watching GD&TOP on stage, just the two of them, was really something to see.
Seungri’s solo performances was also great. He appeared on stage standing on a rising pillar and opened up with “Strong Baby” by holding a fake machine gun that shot a laser of green light into the crowd. It was really cool. My only complaint was that they cut “Strong Baby” short and sort of mixed it with his next song, “What Can I Do.” Also, I was really surprised at how strong Seungri’s voice has gotten? I wasn’t expecting him to be such a strong singer, but he sounds really good live. (They all sound really good live.)
“Number 1” was really great because it was just so nice to hear them sing an older song. Most of the songs they performed were their newer ones, which sound pretty different from their older songs, so I appreciated the performance for “Number 1” a lot. Next was “Café,” which was another surprisingly good performance. I’m not going to lie, I don’t like “Café.” But when the five microphones appeared on the “T” stage and the Big Bang members all stood shoulder to shoulder singing “Café,” it sounded incredibly smooth and sexy, and I like the song much better now.
I also pretty much lost my shit when I recognized the opening measures of "Gara Gara Go!!" I don't know, it's just such a fun song. I also really appreciated the fact that they sang it in the original Japanese, not the Korean.
“Love Song” was a great performance for T.O.P alone. You know how T.O.P opens the song by singing a few lines? It’s common knowledge that T.O.P doesn’t sing much, and that’s why “Love Song” is one of my favorite Big Bang songs, not only because it’s a good song in general, but also because of T.O.P’s opening lines. AND HE SANG THOSE LINES LIVE. PLEASE EXCUSE ME WHILE I SOB.
I was really really really happy to see that “Wedding Dress” was on the set list because it’s one of the first Big Bang songs that got me into them and, c’mon, everybody has heard of “Wedding Dress”! He danced some of it, but I was kind of disappointed that he didn’t dance all of it. Some parts of the sang he just did random dance moves and sang and didn’t do the choreo, which I love.
T.O.P was the only member who did not have a solo performance (Seungri had “Strong Baby” and “What Can I Do,” GD had “One of a Kind” and “Crayon” - I really wished for “Heartbreaker” or even “That XX” because I really don't like either of his newer songs - Daesung had “Wings” and Taeyang had “Wedding Dress” and “Look Only at Me”) so the fans had organized a fanchant to demand T.O.P for a solo performance of “Big Boy” but it kind of failed because the crowd was so loud. When you have a crowd that large and loud, it’s really hard to coordinate anything because nobody can hear above the immediate circle of people around them lol. For that reason too, singing happy birthday to T.O.P also failed, unfortunately.
I feel really bad because when Daesung came out singing “Wings,” (I swear, the concert was happening so fast, I wasn’t expecting Daesung’s solo to happen so soon already) I knew that meant that “Haru Haru” had to be next (thanks to the set list they were giving out when we were standing in line outside) and OH MY GOD I WAS SO ADKFJA;LSDFJA;SLDF EXCITED and couldn't pay attention to Daesung's performance at all. “Haru Haru” is my favorite Big Bang song and it’s one of my favorite k-pop songs of all time and if you had been reading my tumblr or twitter for the week before the concert THIS WAS THE ONE SONG I HAD BEEN WAITING FOR ALL THIS TIME. To hear Big Bang perform “Haru Haru” live has been a dream of mine ever since I became a Big Bang fan; I love this song to death. I can’t even describe in words how amazing it was. The moment we heard the opening piano notes, the moment Big Bang appeared seated on the center stage (IN SUITS!!!) and GD said “Finally I realize / That I’m nothing without you,” the crowd went nuts. Not the let's party!!! kind of nuts like during “Fantastic Baby;” more like an emotional oh my god this is my favorite song finally!!!! kind of nuts. They put so much feeling into singing the song and I could hardly contain myself. T.O.P was not only rapping like he does in the recorded album version of the song, he was sort of singing his lines too. Daesung sounded stupendous. Towards the end of the song, they let the crowd sing (Taeyang said, “You guys know this song, right?” YOU BET WE DO) and holy mother of god, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL TO HEAR ALL THE V.I.PS IN THE STADIUM SING ALONG TO THE CHORUS. SO. UNBELIEVABLY. BEAUTIFUL. “Dorabojimalgo tteonagara / Tto nareul chatjimalgo saragara / Neoreul saranghaetgie huhoeeopgie / Johatdeon gieongman gajyeogara / Geureokjeoreok chamabolmanhae / Geureokjeoreok gyeondyeonaelmanhae / Neon geureolsurok haengbokhaeyadwae / Haru haru / Mudyeojyeogane.” The Big Bang members started to sing along with the crowd too, and it was such a magical moment. It was an amazing experience.
When “Haru Haru” was finished and the members left the stage, all the lights in the stadium was turned off so that it was completely pitch black. This was the first time I really took the moment to turn around from my position in the mosh pit and really looked at the crowd of fellow V.I.Ps. I turned around and saw thousands and thousands of glowing yellow crown V.I.P lightsticks waving together among all the blackness. I’ve seen fancams of the ocean of crown lightsticks; I’ve seen gifs of it on tumblr. I know how it looks like. But seeing it for yourself, surrounded on all sides by V.I.Ps’ waving lightsticks, seated from floor to ceiling of the stadium, while you’re standing on ground level, it really sinks in. The sight was so amazingly beautiful that it moved me to tears. I had hardly choked out “It’s so beautiful!” to my friends standing next to me while waving my own crown lightstick in time with everybody else before I started crying. Not like the sobbing that I’m always saying I’m doing on tumblr (though I do actually make sobbing sounds when I say I’m sobbing haha), but actual crying. Maybe it was because this happened directly after I just heard Big Bang perform “Haru Haru,” my favorite song, but it was just an incredibly touching moment. I was so happy and so moved that nothing could really express what I was feeling except tears. The experience of being a part of the ocean of lightsticks of one of your favorite k-pop groups, with so many other fellow fans - this pretty much summarized my entire experience as a k-pop fan. As a k-pop fan, I’ve always wanted to wave my own official lightstick and be a part of that ocean, and my dream finally come true. It’s a moment I will never forget. To somebody who isn’t a k-pop fan, it may seem utterly ridiculous that waving a piece of plastic that lights up is that emotionally moving but it really is. Even my friends that were standing next to me thought it was really cool to see all the lightsticks, but they didn't cry. I was the only one who cried lol.
Then the stage lit up again and Big Bang were back, this time singing “Lies,” another classic favorite. They let us sing along to the chorus too, it was amazing.
After that, the lights went out again and Big Bang disappeared and the whole crowd chanted “ENCORE! ENCORE!” and of course they came back out to sing three or four more songs. At one point during the encore, somebody in the mosh pit threw a Simpsons doll onto the stage - except it hit GD in the head on its way lmao. GD kind of just brushed his head all smooth-like as if nothing had happened and looked sort of amused lol. They sang “Last Farewell” for the encore too - another older song, which I loved. That was such a fun song to end the concert with.
Other than that, there were some random moments too that happened throughout the concert: T.O.P and GD came out on blinged-out segways while Taeyang rode a bike on stage, Seungri’s Engrish (“My English… So bad! I want to kill it!”), somebody gave GD a stuffed dragon thing that you can wear on your head and he did wear it. Later he threw it into the crowd, quite near where I was standing, and everybody was fighting over it. GD and T.O.P also threw the towels with which they wiped their sweaty faces with near my part of the crowd, but I couldn’t catch it. T.O.P and Taeyang ripped Daesung’s tank top off him (splitting it into two in the process) and T.O.P threw both pieces near my part of the crowd too. Girls were having like a tug of war fight over it, but I was too busy staring at T.O.P to fight over Daesung’s sweaty ripped-up tank top haha. Then five-year-old!T.O.P came out and started dancing awkwardly in that weird kiddish way of his hahahaha. (If you watch the video Seungri took with a Samsung Galaxy phone uploaded on the official Big Bang youtube, you can see the dance I'm talking about. T.O.P basically dances with a towel covering his head lmaoooo. Seungri and T.O.P were RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. ME. when that happened.)
The encore eventually ended. They said their goodbyes, and the concert was over.
Like I said, everything happened so fast. It was only 11PM when we headed out the stadium, so the concert only lasted maybe 2-2.5 hours. I wish Big Bang had sung some more songs, but their enthusiasm, their flawless live performances, the amount of energy they put into all their live singing made up for it.
My friends and I headed to Newark Penn Station, where there were gigantic lines of V.I.Ps waiting to buy tickets. The trains don’t run that late so by the time we had to change trains at Trenton, we had to stay overnight at Trenton. Let me tell you something, those metal benches at the Trenton train station do NOT warm up no matter how long you sit there (and we sat there for FIVE HOURS). I took a couple of one-hour naps. We were all tired and disgusting but we could not feel sad about having to stay overnight at a trains station because of our post-concert high. We took the first train back to campus at 7AM and I got back to the dorm at around 9AM, which means I was out for 24 hours. We came home just when everybody else was starting their day. One of my friends joked that it was our “Big Bang walk of shame,” lmao.
But everything was worth it. The ticket price, all that waiting (I swear I’m a much more patient person now, I did so much waiting yesterday and today), all the pushing and shoving in the mosh pit, all the pain (my feet has NEVER hurt this much before oh my god), the really intense sore throat I have right now from all that screaming - it was all worth it. This was the best night of my life. I’m never going to forget it as long as I live. I can cross off seeing Big Bang and being a part of the ocean of crown lightsticks off my bucket list. I am so incredibly happy and I feel so grateful to have been able to see one of my favorite k-pop groups up close. Big Bang is more than a favorite artist for me; music makes humans happy, and so Big Bang makes me happy. To be honest, I thought I would never be able to see them live because k-pop acts rarely come to the East coast in the U.S. Even as I type right now, it feels as if I never left my dorm, as if I never went to see Big Bang, as if I’ve just been at college the entire time and I just had an extremely elaborate dream about watching Big Bang live. The past twenty four hours have been a blur. But when I walked back to campus this morning from the train stop, as I saw the first edge of campus, everything was just so beautiful. I’m not even kidding, everything just seemed more beautiful. I joked with my friends that I’m a changed person. There are two phases in my life: pre-Big bang and post-Big Bang lmao, and it’s like I can’t even compute that I’m back at college and that I have to do mundane stuff like study for exams again. I keep saying, it’s surreal, it’s surreal, and I sound like a broken record but that’s because IT REALLY WAS SO SURREAL. There is no better word for it. I felt the same way after SMTOWN NYC, but since Big Bang is my (second) favorite k-pop group, it’s slightly different, even more surreal than SMTOWN had been. This really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The only things I regret are rather trivial: I wish I had arrived at the Prudential Center earlier, so that I could have gotten a chance to be at the barricade, the closest to the stage possible. I also really wish Big Bang had performed "Tell Me Goodbye," because that is my favorite Japanese Big Bang song. But these are such small things, really.
I just want to say THANK YOU to Big Bang for making my life a little more enjoyable, for making music that I love, for coming to the East Coast and for making multiple stops all over the world and not just in Asia. Thank you for loving your fans so much.
The setlist:
1. Still Alive
2. Tonight
3. Hands Up
Introductions
4. Fantastic Baby
5. How Gee
6. Stupid Liar
Seungri, Taeyang, Daesung talk
7. GD and TOP - 뻑기가요
8. GD and TOP - High High
9. Seungri - Strong Baby
10. Seungri - 어쩌라고
11. 가라 가라 고
12. Number 1
13. Cafe
Talk
Impromptu performance
Beatboxers: TOP and Seungri
14. Crayon
15. One of a Kind
16. Bad Boy
17. Blue
18. Love Song
19. Monster
20. Feeling
21. Taeyang - 나만 바라봐
22. Taeyang - Wedding Dress
23. Daesung - Wings
24. Haru Haru
25. Lies
26. Last Farewell
Encore:
27. Heaven
28. Bad Boy
29. Fantastic Baby
30. Feeling
A fancam of "Haru Haru," fave performance of the night! (Not mine, credit goes to blissfulmemories01 @ youtube)
Click to viewAlso cross-posted on my tumblr.