SM Tour and Rookies Concert

Memorise these tiny, adolescent faces.

Because in a few years' time, if EXO are anything to go by, and the fact they already have a lot of hardcore fans before they've even debuted, they'll be all you hear about for a long time.

We went to the COEX mall again, because SM were holding a few concerts for their "Rookies". If you're not particularly down with your kpop info, most of the big record labels still live in the 90s golden era of manufactured pop stars. And, despite all the jokes we made (and still make) about it, I think in the case of a lot of these artists, they're a lot better off for it.

They hold auditions to pluck willing and highly-talented (and beautiful) tributes barely out of nappies (okay, slight exaggeration, but they're usually primary school age when they get taken in) from the public sphere and basically put them into Pop Music Hogwarts. Or maybe Fame Academy. Whatever. They live in dormitories, usually with their future group members-to-be, and get trained daily by the best vocal coaches, choreographers, public speakers, models, personal trainers, drama teachers, musicians, etc, to be the perfect pop star.

And to be honest, it pays off. I'll get more into that later, but basically they school these kids until they're "ready" and then pop out a group of ready-made celebrities every few years or so. One of the things that's impressive is how prepared they are for hoards of screaming fans. I suppose it's because they gradually expose them to this most terrifying part of fame throughout their training. We'd seen some of the older Rookies during the SM Town concert as backing dancers and occasionally given a brief set to sing or dance. Presumably, this series of shows was also to get them used to a concert environment as well as gauge popularity, what works, what doesn't, and to generate hype.

SO. Being rather into kpop (in case you couldn't tell), we fought our way to some tickets and headed over to the COEX. We popped into the merchandise shop just to see if there was anything interesting or new, but mostly I was amused by the fact they'll brand ANYTHING. Here's a multipack of snack nuts (called Super Nuts, presumably linked to Super Foods) and someone presumably went "omg, you know what else starts with Super? Super Junior. Slap some faces on it. Boom. Done."

BoA 봐

photo stolen from Nick, sorry

Just another short post to mark the fact we saw BoA live! We go to an awful lot of concerts here because we're very aware that once we leave Korea, we probably won't have another chance to see Korean artists, and especially not for the same price. 

I saw Big Bang and Super Junior in London, and the atmosphere wasn't the same either. I don't think the shows were as long, and not as spectacular either, because I suppose venue rules and last trains are different, they can't ship over some of the set pieces, and they can't chat to the audience very easily.

We shared this bingsu with 예슬 the night before. LOOK AT IT.

Also, I tried to make some sort of fake kimbap without it falling to pieces.

This is the building it was in. A proper concert hall by Gyeongbokgung

We arrived at the venue pretty early, so after working out what doors we'd need to go in through, and scoping out the merchandise (as ever: disappointing) we went for a walk in the sun. (Remember when that was a thing you could do? Ah, winter.) There was a huge poster set up in the lobby for taking a picture with, but there was also a huge queue, so we decided it wasn't worth it.

The building itself was beautiful though, so it was great just to wander around there and take photos from afar.

It was summer, and I spotted a Gong Cha, so I was determined to have some bubble tea to tide me over until the show started.

Super Junior Super Show 6: Encore

K-pop concert time again! This time, it's Super Junior on more time, but with Cherie and Nicolette.

And, of course, treat yo self part 3, because Cherie had to miss out on TVXQ last time.

We went to Butterfingers in Gangnam again, because it's ridiculous, and what is treating yourself if not putting your arteries in grave danger via sugar and cholesterol?

2 things about Butterfingers:

1. The menus are bigger than your head. That's a lot of choice, and I'm a very indecisive person, so this place might on second thought be an awful place for me to go.
2. The lighting, however, was great for selfies.

We're all antisocial together, it's fine

While Nick and I did the unspeakable and got a breakfast EACH, Nico and Chezza (lol) decided to be a bit wiser and share one. Like the menus, the portions are bigger than my head. How is all of that supposed to fit in my stomach?

TVXQ Encore Show (aka TREAT YO SELF)

We were super excited for this weekend for a long time because meeting up with friends that are tricky and rare to see is always a special occasion, and via "planning" on Kakao it rapidly spiralled into a Treat Yo Self weekend (that's a reference to Parks and Rec) starting with burgers and cider at our fav: Grabab 

 Import drinks? Treat yo self. AVOCADO? TREAT YO SELF.

Anyway, the next day was the actual concert and naturally we passed the time with selfies, because the road to the Olympic Park is a long and boring one.

#sorrynotsorry #pangit

SM Town COEX Artium

I've heard the name COEX (COnvention centres and EXhibition halls) a lot in tourist things about Seoul as well as from people who generally seem to sing its praises, so I've always been intrigued by it but never enough to make my way to its rather out-of-the-way location (in relation to our home)

But the SM Town exhibit is still there and something we both really wanted to see, having given SM Entertainment a fair amount of our time and money in the past year alone, haha.

It wasn't too hard to find, considering the gigantic signs everywhere and the crowds of teenage girls coming and going from the direction of the entrance, laden with bags saying 'SMTOWN' on them. It's very pretty and elaborate for something that I've been told is just a temporary fixture.

Inside, the exhibition covers several floors, each with a different function. The walls are covered in photos of SM's various successes as well as display cases full of costumes and memorabilia from different artists. The first floor you come to is the pop-up shop, where you can buy all kinds of SM merch for almost all of their artists.

7th Seoul Girls Collection Super Live

Subtitle: "How NOT to act at live events"

If there's two things I really enjoy watching, it's fashion and K-pop. So when Nick told me about the Seoul Girls Collection joint K-pop concert and fashion show, I was pretty excited!

The main draws for us were Girls Day and After School (because we like Orange Caramel, if I'm being honest) but there were plenty of big names performing, including BAP, 2PM, Teen Top, and Boyfriend.

I think that's where our first warning should have been.

When we arrived the venue was mostly empty, and we got talking to some lovely ladies from Israel who had been travelling around South Korea for the best part of a month, and had picked up some tickets on a whim. Apparently there was a foreigner's section somewhere but we'd gotten for the domestic section.

As the venue started to fill up a bit, the lights dimmed, and the most alarming music started to play. I'm not really sure what happened because it wasn't introduced very clearly (and if it was, it was in Korean) but a group of girls in bizarre clothing rushed out onto the stage and started to sing and dance. It took us a while to realise that the ParaPara style dancing, unusual getups and distressing synths went together with the fact they were singing in Japanese and inexplicably we were witnessing a J-pop concert.

They were very cute, if not scary, and after a couple of songs they were replaced by another J-pop band of girls in hockey masks and furry rave boots. I'm not sure what was happening and from the looks on a few peoples' faces, they weren't either. But it was enjoyable, and when they introduced themselves at the end we got to watch the most adorable show of one girl forgetting all her Korean, panicking, and resorting to crib notes WRITTEN ON HER WRIST. It was SO cute. It turns out several of them had a skin-based cheat sheet because the panic spread and they all ended up just reading from their wrists. I know that feel, bros.

Then, after a short break, we had an introduction from two very glamorously-dressed members of some of the Korean bands, and then finally some fashion! I'm sad that I didn't realise it would be okay to bring a larger camera, because my phone camera - wonderful as it is - definitely couldn't handle the brightness of the stage lights, so I ended up with very few shots that are actually usable.

As it was Autumn/Winter collections, there were a lot of nice-looking winter coats, and sports clothes, and fairly muted palettes.

It was fairly standard fashion show fare, the lovely models would come out and show us some clothes, we'd quietly make fun of the male models (they just all look so angry and upset!), then they'd all come back out with the designer for some applause.

I will say, for recent graduates or students who haven't even graduated yet, I really appreciated how great all of these collections looked. I preferred them a lot more to some of the brand-name parades that came out wearing just screen-printed sweatshirts and beanies.

Every few runs, there'd be a break for some music, and that's actually (sadly) what sucked all of the joy out of this event for me. It turns out that obsessive music fans are internationally rude and inconsiderate, not just ones at home.

This is very rapidly going to turn into a rant, because I really wanted to enjoy this show but thinking about it, I can't remember anything. Well, other than the terrible people that stood around me. That's really sad.

Part 1: Cameras.
As soon as the act came on, my great view (which actually became less great as time went on) would be totally obscured by thousands of phones and cameras rising into the air. Not just for a couple of snaps, either. People would spam the shutter button or just film the entire set, so I ended up more than once just having to watch it through a screen even though I was RIGHT THERE.

A level-up on this horror was the fact that a large number of people actually brought DSLRs to the show. Considering the last couple of things I've been to have been governed by SM Entertainment, where there's a strict no photos policy, I was pretty shocked to see them.

But I was even angrier for two reasons.
a) When I saw they didn't know how to use these hugely expensive and weighty cameras. The one in the photo above was something like a Canon 50d or 5d, and had an enormous telescopic lens on it. All in all it's AT LEAST £1000, but very likely much more. And she was abusing it. I could see the settings on that thing and they were wildly inappropriate for the location. Sorry not sorry for photo snobbing. I'm by no means a great photographer, but when your subject is moving very quickly on a very brightly lit stage, even I know that you don't have your ISO on upwards of 800 (but usually somewhere in the 1000s) and you really need your shutter going faster than 1/25. Really. Or if you're going to stick with that, don't look angry when all of your photos are blurry. And why are you reviewing and deleting while the show's going on?! Do it later! You're missing out on so many good shots! Running out of space? Get a memory card more suited to your camera or clear it out before you go to a show. *internal screaming*

On the flip side were the many others totally spamming that shutter button. Holding it down on continuous in the hopes that ONE photo will be okay. You...you do realise your camera has a finite number of shutter clicks...right? You do realise that you're slowly killing your hugely expensive piece of equipment that I would kill to have, because you haven't made the slightest effort to learn how to use it, right? *more screaming*

Anyway.

b) I'm tall. I know I'm a pain to stand behind at gigs and events. I don't like it any more than you do because I spend the whole time wracked with guilt and my back aches and generally I'd prefer it if I could get seating or shrink a few inches. But that's life. I'm sorry that my height is inconveniencing you and your blurry photos but your way around this problem should NOT be this:

Yeah, she's resting that lens on my head. Yes, she brought a footstool to a gig, yes she also brought a huge backpack and was shoving people around left right and centre.

At more than one point one of her beloved boybands ran from one end of the stage to the other, and she followed at a high speed...through my head. I'm not going to lie, I actually turned around and shouted at her for that, because she'd already hit Nick and another poor guy in the head with it AND she's risking that beautiful lens, like come ON.

Her response? She bowed. And just carried on doing it. Gaaaaarghhhh!

Part 2: Crowd Etiquette.
So, here's the problem. You've got a 100% standing gig, packed with teenagers lusting after their favourite pop stars, in a venue that's pretty much just a free-for-all.

As soon as any band finished, there'd be a shift in the audience as people would decide to give up their spaces close to the stage either due to exhaustion, crushing, or just because they only came to see a specific act. Whenever this happened, there'd be a painful surge as everyone would then try to fill it, like some sort of weird human bottle of sand. The problem being that you've got about 1000 people trying to get into the space of maybe 50 people.

It was painful.

More than once I was elbowed and shoved, and more than once I went into a borderline panic attack because I was genuinely struggling to breathe from the crush. I don't want to think about what was happening to some of the poor girls there who were half my size. Part of the problem was people like the aformentioned douche, setting up photo studios in a packed crowd. A variation on this were the girls that were fed up of standing, so they'd decide to just sit. On the floor. Regardless of trampling.

One girl had to be removed through the crowd because she was collapsing. I don't know if she was swooning or just the heat and crush up at the front got to her, but the security guard ushering her through looked pretty fed up. When she got to the place where we were standing she genuinely fell to the floor and couldn't get up, and I was pretty much the only person who bothered to try and help her get out of that hell hole. Everyone else just seemed annoyed and some even kept trying to push past her.

Finally, the lack of sense you need to possess to try and push to the front when there's literally no space to fill is unbelievable but rife in the audiences of many events. Sigh.

Anyway, that's enough complaining, I'll finish up with the handful of photos I managed to get considering I allow myself only a few clicks for each artist.

For some reason, video had a lower exposure, so I tended to film the fashion walks.

I didn't mean to just rant for a whole post but I guess that's all I could remember. Girls Day were adorable but also clearly very popular because I definitely couldn't see for selfie sticks and mobile phones, compared to some of the other acts. Then again, their performance was far more slick and appealing than the others, too. It's funny, you really can see the difference in quality between groups at shows like this. That's not to say that the others are bad, but some are definitely stronger than others.

Super Junior: Super Show 6

This is actually the only photo I managed to take.

I love seeing Super Junior live. They're always so entertaining and so weird that they're well worth the money you pay. It was fun seeing it in Seoul, too, because it meant I got to see all the really intricate sets and things that I reckon they wouldn't be able to afford to ship to the UK if they actually managed to come over.

The gig was at the old Seoul Olympic stadiums, and the weather was wonderful. The venue was actually really great as long as you're not too bad with heights, because the steps were VERY steep, but it meant that actually everyone could see really well.

The only reason I didn't get a photo is because the usual SM rules were in place. No photos. And after seeing security people actively get people to delete any photos they'd taken (although they kindly didn't wipe your gallery and allowed you to keep selfies, contrary to what I've heard before) even during the show - targeting people they'd spotted with a laser pen and hunting them down pretty diligently - I didn't want to risk it.

But, because there were some incredible things to share, I'll use some found images. As usual, if it's yours and you want me to take it down, just ask~

Also, if you're thinking of seeing the tour in another country and don't want it spoiled for you, I'd recommend skipping this post, because it really is so much better to be surprised by these things. I laughed SO much.

As usual, it was the most ridiculous, energetic, funny, engaging and extravagant performance, with a storyline for the first act, seemingly-constant fireworks and laser shows, tons of costume changes and the...erm...usual drag act. Haha. Here's the official trailer, which doesn't really do it justice:

Okay, so I'm struggling to find any photos now, and enough writing should have passed for the people who don't want to be spoilt to have closed their tabs, so I'll just cut to the best two bits (in my opinion). Firstly, Siwon, in a furry horse costume, dancing to a rather unusual song. From the fact that everyone else started cheering and singing along, I'll assume it was a big hit in Korea, but for us it was just a bit like...what?!

After the show, Nick looked up the song and found the original they'd covered, which it turns out is just as strange and explains the horse costume a little bit more. (Other than the fact that the title 야생마 means something to do with wild horses.)

So, uh, yeah. There's that. In addition to this, there was a large segment where Shindong dressed as Olaf from Frozen. As with the rest of the world, South Korea has been totally swamped with Frozen hype, so it made a lot of sense for them to reference it in their show...but I wasn't expecting this.

He introduced the 'competition', which started off with the rest of the group in a darkened room and talking about how they would interpret Elsa, a la Stars in Their Eyes. "Tonight, Shindong, I'm going to be...Elsa Jackson."

What?

Yeah.

nabbed from @SIWONstorm on Twitter

I also found this GIF floating around on Tumblr, displaying quite nicely the reason why I was so outraged by seeing Leeteuk in that sparkly minidress.

JUST LOOK AT THOSE LEGS. IT'S NOT FAIR.

Anyway. That's pretty much all I have to say, hahaha. Go and see SuJu live if you can. Just go. If nobody will go with you, go alone. But make sure you go.