the day that i paid to watch a korean pop group live.
the day that i saw what the world of kpop concert looked like.
i've actually been sticking very closely to my 'a concert per year' regime since 2012, and it's been kept strictly to ever since.
not that i planned for this to happen, but somehow all my favourite bands came to town and lo and behold, fangirl jamie rushes to the venue :-)
2010: backstreet boys @ suntec city convention centre
i was a young and innocent 14-year old then who loved their single 'straight through my heart' so much i decided to get tickets though i can't remember much lol.
2011: none of the bands i like came to sg :(
2012: simple plan @ fort canning
my all-time favourite band, how could i resist?!?!?! simple plan is amazeballs live and so are each and every one of their songs.
2013: boys like girls @ ion orchard
it was a free concert and i'm glad i found out about it. otherwise i wouldn't have won the autographed crazy world album!!!!
2014: we the kings @ sentosa's the coliseum
shitty acoustics i remember, but still, for 'art of war' and old-school classics like check yes juliet/secret valentine, everything was worth it.
2015: jayesslee @ kallang theatre
was an impromptu decision bc xiaohui had extra tickets to watch them. really love their chemistry on and off screen as always!
2016: exo @ indoor stadium
THIS WAS WHAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR. IN THE FIRST 10 DAYS OF 2016 I GOT REWARDED TO BEING ABLE TO WATCH EXO LIVE :')
so let me blog about my experience throughout the concert: before, during and after.
pre-exo'luxion:
so the very first time i found out that exo was coming to singapore was the night before my last finals in sem 1, which was the first day of december 2015.
didn't feel really long ago huh?
i found out they were coming, bought tickets, and they came all within the span of one semester break. which is pretty short, only 5 weeks!
so i was scrolling through my twitter feed (i hardly do this) the night before my hg1002 paper and then i suddenly stumbled upon this:
i started feeling damn excited and obviously with my next few tweets you can see i went crazy.
so when finals ended, and after i had a fair share of rest (meeting up with friends and travelling to seoul), i decided resolutely that i WOULD NOT BE ATTENDING the concert.
why?
1) it was simply too expensive
tickets for moshpit/cat 1 seated cost a whopping $288 (+$4 booking fee) which i can't imagine how much i had to work just to be able to attend the concert. my previous concerts that i attended, simple plan, only $102!!! we the kings, only $92!!! and they were all moshpit tickets so i was really close to the stage. and boys like girls was free, c'mon, you can't expect me to pay close to $300 to watch another band live right?! and it's a kpop band at that.
2) i didn't have a friend to go with
wanrou is legit broke so that's it, i have 0 friends who are interested in kpop, what more exo. i am not going for a kpop concert FOR THE FIRST TIME, BY MYSELF. it's just plain weird. isn't it always better and more comforting to have a friend around in case anything happens?
those were the 2 compelling reasons that i debated relatively long about in my mind before i came to a conclusion that the concert was a no-go.
but guess what? i spent my first weeks of 2016 pondering about the same old issue again. i simply couldn't get over the fact that the kpop group i liked was coming to freaking singapore when they are worldwide sensations and that i wasn't going to attend the show.
as you can see for yourself for that entire week i have been so torn apart that every single day i wake up with the golden question 'to go or not to go' in my head.
it was stressful, and also scary at the same time to see how obsessed i was.
this in itself was strongly appealing in the sense that it was a definite yes to attend exo'luxion.
i even prepared my shirt to wear beforehand: a top from ZARA that said 'love is the answer'. it's a song reference since they have a song called 'my answer' and the lyrics go 'my answer is you' so yup wearing that shirt to complement it all yo.
(lol i am crazy srsly)
BUT even up till 2 days before the concert, i still didn't have a ticket because i wanted to wait. to wait for someone on twitter/carousell to sell their good ticket at a low price. (i specified the location and category i wanted in that tweet)
i missed off quite a few good deals because my decision to go was so last-minute.
i even kept going on to the sportshubtix website to check out the available seats and wondered if i should just get a ticket from the official site since it's 100% reliable, at the expense of a good view.
but i only have myself to blame for being so wishy-washy about it right? if i acted earlier no doubt i would've got good seats.
on the morning of 8 jan (friday), just ONE day before the concert, jingwen texted me and asked if i was going for exo'luxion. i explained my predicament to her and told her i wanted to but i was still ticketless.
so we chatted for quite a bit and she told me she already bought her ticket for 9 jan's concert, so naturally she persuaded me to go for 9 jan's one too.
i didn't want to go for the first show because kaisoo's birthday project was held on the second day, and usually second shows are better in the sense that performers usually want to better themselves after the first.
but i still caved in to her persuasion, since we were both going alone and it's our first time.
decided to hunt around for good tickets for 9 jan, the first show.
thankfully i managed to find a ticket of the same section as where jingwen was. and it was a single ticket at row 16 at best. (that's like the 4th row!!!!) $280 some more!! cheaper than sportshub and the view so good!
it was ridiculously good seats that i couldn't even believe myself.
that same evening i collected my ticket from the girl and yup, off i was, with an express ticket to exo'luxion JUST the next day :-)
it's d-day!
so we met up at stadium mrt at 12pm on the day itself.
yes the concert starts only at 6pm, but i did my research and went early because there's a lot of fansupport freebies and banners to be collected.
also, i didn't have a lightstick (a very basic requirement when attending a kpop concert) and i was worried, so i needed to head down earlier to get one for myself.
we actually skipped lunch just to collect the fan goods.
we were basically walking around the entire indoor stadium/stadium mrt/kallang wave mall area just to look for fanbases that gave out our biases' goods. (actually it was my own idea la sorry jingwen for dragging you around hahaha)
so every half an hour we went "omg it's 1.30pm alr need to go to xxx place to collect the nice kai photocards!"
round and round we went, and the worst part is fanbases don't disclose the location in advance because 1) ensure fairness and 2) security might come to chase them away bc it's not rly allowed.
so we kept refreshing twitter pages just to see them upload the location and if we happened to be nearby, then good for us. if not, say goodbye to the fansupport goods because they were limited in number.
my experience with the fanbases weren't too pleasant - only the freebies made me happy.
according to my thorough research done the night before, there were sadly quite few kyungsoo fan supports being held.
with the limited choices available, i had to go visit almost every one of them, and one of the girls i met weren't very nice at all.
in fact, she was a bitch.
to summarize (and also to keep her damn privacy protected), she treated me in a really condescending manner and it felt like she didn't want to give out her fansupport goods at all. she was super reluctant and kept questioning me about who i liked, and how i could prove it (actually this is very normal), but she did it in a super interrogative style. she even had the cheek to ask me if i knew what her twitter username was. the worst part? she turned me down initially and told me to come again the next day if i wanted the items. when i unabashedly said that i wouldn't be turning up the next day, she and her friends laughed and GESTURED FOR ME TO JUST 'GO AWAY'. but in the end, she shoved me her stupid free things and i just walked away without even saying anything.
literally on rage mode at that point in time because wtf, what kind of fansupport service is this?! you jolly well VOLUNTEERED yourself to make these photocards so shouldn't you be eagerly wanting to give them all out so you can earn some publicity as a reputable fanbase? well seems like not. you served the fans in such a hostile and disgusting manner i can't believe people still blindly thank you for it. why was i not surprised to have seen no one crowding around you like there usually is at a fansupport when you were distributing your items? this sounds so childish but it's okay, if you want to be childish let's have a battle of wits then. just so you know your attitude is rly a piece of trash and i think u need to fix it asap. don't come step one big just 'cos you distribute these things to fans and are expected to be treated like a biggie. fat hope. so ashamed to share the same bias as you yuck fml.
okay apart from that one particular horrible experience, the other fansupport sites were quite nice. special thanks to the girl who distributed the baeksoo items (@/thunderchansoo), hunho photocards (@/sebooty94), exo photocard (@/the12galaxiessg) and exo stickers (@/kgoodsonline_sg). i also particularly liked @/byunbaek's super pretty baekhyun photocards :-) big thank you to the FRIENDLIER kyungsoo fansupport bases @/dokyungsoo_sg and @/tingsjt for the pretty fan and photocards respectively! deeply appreciated :-) super happy to have received a kyungsoo banner from the kyungsoo weibo team too! :)
i got a lot of other fansupport things too and yup really really super duper love the promise banner from @/exounionsg :) THANK U TO ALL FANSUPPORTS FOR YOUR HARD WORK. I APPRECIATE YOU A LOT!
after we got real tired from going around collecting the goods, we decided to have a late lunch and refuel ourselves before the start of the concert!! so we grabbed a quick bite at kallang wave mall and emptied our bottles (and bladders too haha) before the 2.5hour show began!
-
it was my very first time at the indoor stadium and i must say i was pretty wowed by the interior! looked exactly like a high-class cinema right out from seoul (they have really gorgeous cinemas omg). though jingwen and i were at the same section, we seated at different rows so ultimately we were still sitting alone for the concert. i didn't mind la because anyway ppl will be busy shouting and screaming for their oppas so no need to give two hoots about whether you will throw face or not lol.
i was quite impressed with my seat 'cos i expected it to be much further but nope the view was pretty close-up! only exception is that it's a side view so it's a little difficult for the boys to face us :/
so this is my view. pretty good because it's really quite near the stage!! obviously cannot compare to the moshpit la lol that one is legit upclose man.
so anyway i prepared my lightstick and banners to wave during the concert and yesssss it began!!!
(excessive fangirling ahead, you have been warned)
exo kicked off with 'overdose'!!!! good start because it wasn't too mild or too party-ish a song that could get the crowd going. i was so excited to see them do the head banging and also kai's cheek-popping ah!
security was still really tight and since it was the first song (+ title track), a lot of people were videoing and taking photos (me included) and wow the guards kept going around placing their hands over the cameras to ruin the footage (-_-) and kept shouting at us to stop videoing. which i don't see the rationale of doing so because 1) we are the seating category so i don't see how our cameras/flash photography can hurt them because they are quite far away and 2) you just ruined the atmosphere when the concert just started. because of this i couldn't really enjoy/remember much about overdose. >:(
a series of similar-sounding genre of songs followed: 'history' and 'el dorado'. super excited to listen to el dorado live and it was always my dream (come true) to watch them dance with the lightsabers!!!! i could almost never find a full el dorado fancam online, and i vowed to video this. BUT as usual stupid security kept roaming the aisles and yup i only managed to get a 2min recording or so. look at them with the ending pose of el dorado omg ;;;;;;;
and then you have kyungsoo's solo part during el dorado (if i'm not wrong?) AH THE SPOTLIGHT'S ON HIM.
prior to the concert i didn't really like listening to 'don't go' because the melody was TOO sad to bear. but after i heard them sing it live, i fell even deeper for the song and after the concert i kept listening to it haha.
kai and sehun's dance solo of 'baby don't cry' was really beautiful, they danced really well and it was so raw and emotional. a pity i didn't manage to catch the full thing on video though. and so this is what it meant to watch a wet kai & sehun live omg TT___TT
the vcrs that they showed intermittently were really cool. some with super a+ cg effects, and some were really cute like the peter pan vcr omg my heart rly exploded seeing sehun waking up kyungsoo!!!! they were like little elves working inside a coffee machine and had to wake each member up successively to make coffee. SUPER ADORBZ AH.
'peter pan' was another song that i really anticipated because it's the very first song that got me into exo. the lyrics are beautiful, their voices were great and so were the costumes - CUTE LIKE WHAT????? also, during the pause before the rap, sehun decided to disturb kyungsoo and forced chen to kiss him hahahaha omg this cheeky lil maknae. so much love for the boys everytime they sing this because my heart is literally melting and yes kyungsoo will always be my peter pan :') i sang along to the whole song because i can memorize the lyrics despite the slightly inaccurate pronunciation of the romanization HAHAHA.
also during 'lucky', they had to change out of their elf costumes behind a white screen while singing lol. so we got to see them change ON STAGE with their faces still in our full view eeeeeek. and they sang in chinese so all the more familiar ;) I WAVED MY KYUNGSOO BANNER LIKE CRAZY DURING '365' WHILE THEY WERE WALKING AROUND. AND I THINK HE LOOKED IN MY DIRECTION OMFG FAINTS??????????? bc very few ppl were holding banners and i was holding and WAVING IT AROUND EXCITEDLY SO YES I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE HE SAW ME/MY BANNER AHHHH.
during the christmas songs segment, can tell lay was tearing up a lot from singing the chinese version of 'miracles in december' omg :'( it was really heart-wrenching to watch but it was so beautiful at the same time. chen hits all his notes with 100% accuracy man.
the ments in between were really cute, but it would've been a lot more enjoyable if the audience could fall silent for just 5 minutes to listen to what they had to say... and also i think halfway while baekhyun was talking, the translator got caught up and didn't know to translate what he said. which was a little embarrassing for her i guess?? and sadly kyungsoo was standing closer to the other side so i didn't really get to see much of his face and his reactions aww.
the middle segment of the show evolved into some serious clubbing hahahaha. chanyeol was raving and tryna get the audience to jump along as well, while singing along to fast and catchy songs like 'machine', 'let out the beast', 'drop that' and 'run'. i felt 'run' was quite random for the clubbing segment but no omg turns out exo had the power to turn it into something so apt for the mood ahhhh. chen, lay and sehun came to our section really often and they kept waving to us omg i'm so happy ;;
the boys also kept talking about how hot singapore was hahahaha and how they'd want to do all sorts of things in singapore and try all the food, but most importantly, it was the audience contributing to most of the heat haha suho's english is really funny and i think he really put in a lot of effort for the ment sections!!! kudos to you leader-ssi. :-)
during one of the ments we sang kaisoo a birthday song and suho pushed kai towards kyungsoo and they hugged each other. hahahaha all the hardcore kaisoo shippers prolly died to the other ends of this earth. heart melting once again for my favourite otp of the group bc.... they're just so hard to resist. THEY ARE SO REAL FOR GOODNESS SAKE
'call me baby' was really good but they didn't perform it at the centre stage so i didn't take any videos/photos. one of my lesser favourite title tracks but still catchy as heck that i kept shouting out the fanchants while singing the whole song to myself. i must have looked very alike to a crazy woman.
'dubstep' was another performance to look forward to!!! watched a lot of dubstep videos on youtube but it feels so different to see them dance live. and kyungsoo's 'i need a one girlllllll' (ya that engrish) slayed my existence.
and finally, 'growl'. their title track of xoxo that made them a super big hit. finally towards the end of the concert the security became more lax, so i seized the opportunity to video the entire performance. and again being a diehard fan of the song i knew every line even though it was the chinese version. ENTHUSIASM LEVEL OF FANCHANT FROM ME WAS 10000% HAHAHAHA. chen was singing his utmost best and he was really sweating a lot, but he still looked like he was enjoying himself and smiled to baekhyun too sigh what a sweetie! AND AND AND very disappointed that the second verse was done facing the other sections so i could only record kyungsoo's back view lol. during the dance break chanyeol kept shouting "go exo, go exo, go exo" and yup the crowd followed along! :) during chanyeol's rap part, the dance is quite a challenging one 'cos they are using only 1 palm to support their entire body weight, and as usual, kyungsoo is the last one to get up hahahaha so cute this penguin. i think chen/suho/xiumin also did a great job harmonizing????? kudos to this spectacular performance :) 我 으르렁 으르렁 으르렁 你～
and to save the best for last, 'love me right' WOW!!!!! i think this is by far my favourite title track, and 'growl' is actually second place. love how upbeat this song is and there's so many cute parts and dance moves in it. though kyungsoo has quite little lines, it's nice to see that the rap lines are evenly distributed and that sehun's engrish is the ultimate win i love it. as my water bottle says SHAWTY IMMA PARTY TILL THE SUN DOWN!!!!! yup that's his rap line in this song hehe rly love the dynamics to it. this song would really complement a festive parade on the streets because of all the trumpet-sounding instruments. but too bad sg is too small for a parade like this lol. and i managed to capture the shot below while they were all facing my section!!!!! LIKE FINALLY. :)
though it was presumably the last song and they thanked us and left the stage, the concert wouldn't be complete if they didn't finish it off with their latest christmas album!!! with 'sing for you' to serenade the crowd and 'unfair' to end the concert on a good note, it was really good to see the boys have fun too.
and the photo below is probably the most hd photo i took that night, but sadly i am not a baekhyun stan so......... oh well!!
chen hyping up the stage woohoo ;) and then below you have sexy sehun looking fine as ever (i swear this boy is going to wreck my bias list)
but of course, what is an exo concert without a REAL ending song?? they left the stage momentarily again, and shortly after a vcr played. it was black-and-white footage showing how much exo has struggled and come this far even after all the hardships that have come their way. it's the typical "thank you fans for your undying support" video, but it was touching enough to make me tear because the scenes of kyungsoo rehearsing his lines and lay dancing his very best but looking so fatigued that hit me the hardest.
and the heartbreaking video followed with a rendition of 'angel'. i was sad for 2 reasons, 1) they didn't sing promise!!!!! (which was what the fanbase had actually prepared for because it's their own composition & means a lot to them) and 2) angel is an equally heart-wrenching song.... by this time i was waving my banner and lightstick in a more subdued and slow-motion. sigh. thanks exo for all the hard work, sweat and tears you've put in to every single performance you have showcased (despite a shitty management company cough cough cough).
so yup, 3 hours of showtime ended just like that.
look at my excited bb waving to ussssss ahhhhhh dying.
okay on a very very side note, i went to look through my photos and look what i found?????
as a delusional fangirl who chooses to believe the impossible, ISN'T SEHUN LOOKING INTO MY CAMERA!!!!!!
ok i know my photos are super low quality LOL but i tried to salvage it with some professional vscocam editing ha ha ha and OK HE IS LOOKING HERE?????
in this photo, sehun is the one behind baekhyun, who is the left-most person waving at the crowd. SEE HE'S GIVING THAT SIDE STARE IN MY DIRECTION RIGHT OK PLZ HAHAHAHHA i need to maintain
eh okay that one nvm THEN NOW THIS PHOTO.
he waving at us so happily sia omg i think this one he was really looking hahahahaha.
please forgive me i do not have any unwholesome intentions......
after the concert jingwen and i met up and we rushed down to the waiting area where they were boarding their vans back to their hotels.
i managed to catch on video the boys boarding the vehicle one by one!!! quite far la but issokay i saw themmmmm!!!!!!
and as the van drove past us very slowly, i waved my kyungsoo banner AGAIN in hopes that they'd look out of the tinted windows AHAHAHAHA oppa notice me!
again please forgive me i know i sound like a creepy fangirl but AGAIN i do not have unwholesome intentions lmao
okay so this feeling is real.
times like these i really love urbandictionary hahha!
but yeah, these withdrawal symptoms are real man. till date i still can't believe i managed to watch them L I V E, like you mean i really saw their faces and heard them sing???????????
but there's some things i wanted to point out.
(raw and brutally honest bashing ahead, you have been warned)
1) sg makes really bad crowd
like seriously, my concert was bad in the sense that the crowd was so not responsive at all?? nobody was shouting the damn fanchants/singing along at all EXCEPT for the girl behind me. shit la i should have sat beside her. she was super hyper and going all like "BAEKHYUNAHHHHHHHHHH OPPA!!!!!!!" her voice really damn power omg i think she rly lost her voice after the concert. but apart from her, nobody else was screaming at all?? they were just waving their lightsticks and banners with little movement and omg i was the only one there shouting...... moshpit ppl also not rly jumping lol idk why. idk if you paid to come to watch a movie or a concert but ok can whatever floats your boat
2) the fandom doesn't consist of very nice people
idk if it's just exo fans or what but ya. i mean i tried to be nice to others but lol guess what it wasn't reciprocated ok fine man be that way lol and also the abovementioned encounter with the horrible fansupport base was such a major turn-off. i think fans as individuals need to stop thinking that their bias is going to marry them and just be more open-minded???? make friends, not enemies. make love, not war??? bitchy fans are honestly the reason why i am so hesitant about being openly realizing myself as a fan of exo. you get bashed for some strange reason - for not being able to keep up with the group, for liking the same bias, for being alone. lol wtf is wrong with you????????? i choose to believe that because half the fandom are xiaomeimeis so they have irrationally immature thinking. but then again some of the older ones are bitchy too so ha ha ha i guess it's the entire fandom having an issue then. stop putting yourself upon a pedestal and thinking that by doing so, your oppas are going to notice you. i mean fangirling is okay, and selfish fangirling is alright too, but there's a limit to it??? learn to draw a line between selfish fantasies and the reality of making friends with mutual fans u weird ppl with screwed up mindsets lol fix it up and return to reality pls
3) thank god i didn't go for day 2's concert
i heard that day 2 was awful because security was way tighter and they even confiscated fanbanners because it was 'not allowed'????? i mean what acme is really another screwed up one lol which kpop concert got no banner you tell me lol i rly speechless. but at least kaisoo still noticed the birthday project so yup thankfully it wasn't gone to waste! also, foreign fans at the moshpit were quite scary on day 2, and the pushing was quite serious. ALSO EXO DIDN'T SING ANGEL ON DAY 2 i think due to time constraints. day 2's crowd was more havoc, i mean it's good la but that also means they even kept screaming EVEN DURING THE BALLADS ugh what even. so yup very thankful i went for day 1's show!
4) SUHO WAS LOOKING AT MY DIRECTION LIKE INTO MY FANCAM DURING THE FINALE, 'UNFAIR'
kk pardon me for the third time........ moving on
5) my photos all damn low quality btw damn sad
sorry man my iphone6 still not good enough for concert lighting la. sian max lol can't they just allow photography?????? also, i bth how all my fancams all half-half one kns I WANT MY FULL EL DORADO AND PETER PAN FANCAM argh. as much as i don't rly care about copyright issues 'cos i don't think anyone will find this post and WHAT MORE take my photos out w/o credit, please don't be an asshole lol don't take my non-watermarked photos for granted plz ;; i spent a lot of time selecting, editing and filtering (to save the quality of) the photos so ya. in case you are wondering this is like the best of the worst photos i took lol i have like 100 pics????
6) i vow to go for exo, MOSHPIT NEXT TIME.
hopefully by then i won't be too old to squeeze around with the crowd? i really wanna experience moshpit bc i've seen so many fancams and exo is really so so so upclose!!!!! but the next time i go i need a real concert buddy who will scream with me :) and hopefully the crowd will be a lot better this time too. I WILL PAY FOR MOSHPIT. YES I WILL.
so yes that is all about my first-ever kpop concert experience. i'm glad i went to catch exo this time round if not i don't know when is the next time i'll ever get to see them! for now, i guess this marked a really good start of 2016 and hopefully the year ahead will be good for us and for exo too!
exo saranghaja!!!
update: was proofreading this entry for any typos and there were none?! the power of exo lmao
