MU:CON Seoul 2013

Sorry for all of you that waited so long for this post. Alright here is my blog about attending the MU:CON Seoul 2013 Showcase!

I had entered into a drawing to get free tickets to the show (only offered to foreigners) and got in, so I went over to Gangnam pretty early so that I would have plenty of time to get lost and also figure out how I was able to pick up the tickets that I had won, because all I got from the MU:CON people was a text message and an email; nothing about where to pick up the tickets or how to go about doing that.   I really did not know where the Gangnam Beyond Museum was, but was very pleasantly surprised to find out that it is in the same area as CUBE and JYP Entertainment (for those of you in Seoul). 

So I got there and stood in line behind the five people who got there before me.  At this point I was still under the assumption that the showcase started at 5, but after standing in line for about 30 minutes and there was no one else there and the staff members were still setting up tables and lounging around I later tapped into someone’s unprotected Wi-Fi (I have come to love the people that don’t lock their Wi-Fi, also Cafes …) and was able to see that the showcase actually started at 7, so I had another 45 minutes to wait. I was pretty hungry because I had not really eaten al day in order to make sure that I had enough money to get back on the subway to the dorms (I am getting better at my finances now…). But I did not want to leave form my spot in line because as we were waiting, more and more people were starting to line up behind me. 

When the ticket counter finally opened up, we all got our tickets (they had a slight problem with mine because I never got the bar code via SMS…problems of not having a smart phone…), given free bottles of coconut water,

 and were let into the venue. It was a small open area that had the stage and sound booth set up. Since I was standing room only, we were brought in and told to stand behind to rope they had set up a foot or two away from the stage. There were not that many people, maybe about 50-75 at the absolute maximum. Since I was one of the ones who had gotten in the front of the line, I had a pretty good spot right at the front of the group, touching the rope. Unfortunately they created an area for press in the front, so there was some moving around for us in the crowd and I was replaced in the very front. All was good though because I still ended up being pretty close. I was behind two really short Koreans and was standing right next to the main camera (which was really good!).

The showcase started off with two International acts: Ming Bridges (from Singapore)

 and Olga Stelmakh (from Russia).

 Both of them were pretty good, a little too pop-y (Ming) and slightly too folky (Olga) but I would listen to them if they were on the radio, but may not actively go out and get their CDs. But the funny thing was, they both kept staring at me. By now I feel like I should tell you that I was the only westerner there, so whenever the international acts were on they would talk to me because I was the only one that was able to understand them and react to what they were saying (They both had accented English).  So I tried to be very active in listening and tried to sing along the best I could while they were performing because the Korean audience members were not reacting all that much. 

After the two international acts were over, the next artist was Lim Kim. Now let me get this out there. I have seen her perform about five times now, four times during the Simply Kpop filming and now for this, but Miss Kim has the emotional range of a wet tissue.  It may be the concept that her company gave her, but I just don’t see the emotion in her performances and in real life. She has a great set of pipes, I am not arguing that (I think she is one of my favorite solo female singers—means a lot because I usually don’t listen to many female artists), but she is like a freaking doll when she is present on stage. I hate to admit it, but I love to watch her background dancers and see what expressions they have during the dance. I really like the main guy dancer because he is really laid back. From my position in the crowd, I could see the staging area for the next acts and watched him goof around with the other dancers before they went on stage; he also did this during the breaks in filming for Simply Kpop.  Just a random side note that maybe showing how many of these things I go to, but I notices that Lim Kim was missing two of her dancers (one of the guys and one of the girls). She only had two sets and the guy and not the three couples that she had for Simply Kpop…

Miss Kim the beautiful doll. I really want to have her stylist buy me clothes, I am in love with all of her stage outfits!

Any who, back to the event. After Lim Kim left, the next stage was Tasty. Tasty is a two man dance/pop group here in South Korea under Woollim Entertainment (Now a branch of SM Ent.) and are well known for their dancing skills. Well, let’s just say that the Twings (Tasty fanclub) showed up in full force and was cheering and waving for the whole stage. And rightfully so that they would cheer, the boys were great. The thing that really stuck with me though was how tall there guys were and the fact that they sweated a whole lot (they really go all out in those dances—hard choreography too!). I mean I knew that they were tall for Koreans (well truthfully they are Chinese-Korean, but you know what I am saying), but actually seeing them on stage, I was able to see that they are actually 6+ feet tall! After their stage and the screaming stopped, I started to rub my ears to try to stop the ringing and got the attention of the press filming ajusshi (“older man” in Korean—still respectful) and he joked with me about fan girls and asked me how I was liking the showcase so far, all in broken English and Korean by the way. He was a nice guy…

Anyway, after Tasty came Rainbow, a girl group from South Korea. They were good, but I truthfully had never heard any of their songs before. Their stage was good, just a little too cutesy for me.  Most of the guy fans were ecstatic and one of them, (a younger guy, maybe high school) who was first in line to get tickets, was really into them. He had even made signs and was screaming his heart and feelings out. 

After Rainbow came the act that I was really looking forward to seeing—a collaboration piece between Phantom (Korean hip-hop/R&B group), The Geeks (Korean hip-hop/light rap group), and S4 (a band that I follow and like from Indonesia).  But first a little background on why I wanted to see this stage:

Way back in fall of 2012, I was reading an article on one of my kpop news sites and came across an article about Hyuna being featured in a song for a new group out of Indonesia. Well I looked at the video and loved it! It was very similar kpop, with the bright lights, eye catching costumes, dancing beats, and slightly cheesy storyline. The only difference was that they were singing in Indonesian, which with the rolling sounds and sensual way that it rolls of the speakers tongue (much like romance languages in my opinion) I was hooked. So what do I do being a well-connected SNS personality? I of course hooped onto twitter and found their accounts and let them know that I really liked their song and that they had found a new fan. Well that led to their youngest tweeting me back and asking where I was from, one of their singers dm-ing me to thank me for their support, their manager kept retweeting my posts about how much I loved their video, and their leader following me for about 8 months (idk why he stopped following me—I guess I am a boring tweeter…idk).  So when I got the chance to see their stage live I really wanted to go see it, thus why I applied for the tickets. 

S4 was the first of the group to go out on stage. They sang their ballade song, Mungkin, first. Really beautiful ballad on my headphones, but in real life gave me the chills (even now Jeje’s voice is playing over in my head and I am getting feels). After Mungkin, they got into position and started to perform their debut song She is My Girl. It was really funny, because as they were performing, I was singing along with them and I was getting so many looks from the Koreans that were around me. They were all probably thinking where the heck I had come from, because they had heard me talking to the camera men and I was definitely American, but here I was singing along to the Indonesian song like it was my native language ( I might have heard the song one to many times).  

But, to see the four of them live on stage and there in person was just amazing and such and awe inspiring moment. Here were these guys that I have only seen through my computer screen in real life in front of me. The feeling was different from the times that I saw the k-idols because unlike them, I had actually gotten to interact with S4; I talked to them via twitter, they had retweeted my posts to show their followers—I knew them on a “closer” level than the k-idols I had only ever seen through videos on YouTube. You guys understand what I am talking about? And I think they recognized me (other than the fact that I was the only white girl there in the crowd and they had retweeted my tweet about being in line only a few hours before they had gotten on the stage) because during She is my Girl, Firly, the leader, made eye contact with me and winked (that or it was in my general direction because I was standing next to the camera…).  

 

The Four guys in position for their Ballade song

LtR: Arthur (vocalist), Firly (leader and main dancer), and Jeje (main singer)

LtR: Jeje and Alif (youngest member, singer, and dancer)

After S4 did their songs, The Geeks came out and did their stage. The Geeks are a hip-hop/R&B duo here in Korea and have a relatively big following amongst my age group. They were alright; I had never heard any of their songs before, so it was hard for me to really get into the song though. But the next group, Phantom was really cool.

Phantom is an older group (age-wise) for the Korean music scene; and is a really good hip-hop/rap/R&B group. I had actually heard a snippet of their most recent song. But I definitely liked their stage a little bit more than the Geeks’ stage.  Phantom has three members and all of them really liked that I was there; because they wanted me to sing along with the crowd (they made eye contact and motioned for me to sing along).

After their solo stage, Firly, the main singer in Phantom and the two guys from the Geeks came out to do a collaboration of the song Moves Like Jagger by Maroon Five.  I had a really fun time during this stage and I think the guys did too! They were dancing all around the stage and looked pretty glad that I was singing along with the whole song and not just the chorus like the rest of the audience.  

~*~*~Rant Start~*~*~*~*~* 

Ok I know that I keep mentioning that I may have been one of the few people who knew English and really gave reactions during the stages. I am not trying to say that the Koreans in the audience were not responsive, but a lot of them just stood there and enjoyed the music. I have found that most Koreans are like that even in the clubs. They go there to enjoy the music but don’t really participate in actively allowing the music to move them. There was no dancing or anything in the audience during the showcase. I even started to do shoulder pops and mini torso waves during some of the songs because I just had the sudden urge to dance, but had to stop myself when I was given some weird looks by my neighbors.

~*~**~*~*~*Rant over*~*~*~*~*~

But the joint stage was really fun and all I wanted to do was to dance along with the guys on stage, but was limited to small body waves and shoulder pops because the crowd was really dense around were I was. 

Noise Mob

After the joint stages and another hip-hop group named Noise Mob (pretty good, may not go out and get CD, but still good)

, I was introduced to the Soul Dive. Seoul Dive is a three man hh/rb/rap group. They were really good too! They really interacted with the audience, probably one of the groups that did it the best out of all the artists. They also really liked that I was there because one of the singers kept looking right at me and would point his mic in my general direction to get me to sing along with the song. At the end of their stage, they all jumped off the stage and started to give the people high-fives, but when they got to me they interlocked fingers and held on for a few seconds, where as they only hit hands with the others in the crowd.

Really cute guy in Soul Dive

The guy in the glasses kept interacting with me when he was singing. He was the one who would stare at me until I started to sing with the corwd.

Soul Dive. This guy initiated the holding hand fives that the group gave me

The last group that performed was Dok2 and Beenzino. 

 I really enjoyed their stage, even though it was very similar to their stage at the AOMG Launch party that I went to the night before. But man, the Koreans here really like their hip hop.  I know that I stated before that they are not really big into dancing at shows and doing anything other than enjoying the songs and maybe moving their hands. Well Dok2 and Beenzino had the whole crowd singing along and moving their hands up and down (I got bumped in the head a few times…tall people problems). It was so strange to see the Korean girl next to me all dresses up in a very cute pink flowy skirt with a cream sweater sing along to every word about how the “Bitch best check my profile” and saying every cuss word and sexual hint that was scattered in the verses. But like I said the stage was really good and fun because people were actually (finally) actively cheering and participating in the experience. 

Beenzino

Dok2 (Pronounced Dok-ee; 2= EE in Korean)

But after the show, we all headed out into the now (thankfully) chilly Seoul night and went back to our homes here in the city.  I kind of wish that I had gone out after S4’s stage so I could  have had a chance to meet them outside of the showcase, because I know that some of my friends who went to the free show the day before got to see the international acts and talk to them.  But unfortunately once their stages were over, most of the artist went off to do whatever they do here in the city.  But still it was a great show and I got a list of new artists that I need to start listening to more. Plus I was able to stock up on all the extra coconut waters that they were giving out!