[09.06.10] Night In LA was Hot

BoA, Super Junior, SNSD, and other SM Entertainment artists had a heated concert in Los Angeles. At the SM Town Live ’10 World Tour on September 4th at the LA Staples Center, many gyopo (2nd gen) Korean-Americans, as well as fans of various ethnicity filled the seats to cheer for their favourite artists. The hallyu artist boom is spreading not only in Japan but in America as well.

On August 21st, the SM Town World Tour started in Seoul, and they recently just had the stop in LA. On September 11th, they will be traveling to Shanghai, China and on Tokyo, Japan in January of the next year. Kim Youngmin, the representative of SM Entertainment, said, “We are so happy to hold a concert at a venue that is symbolic in America. If we could get the opportunity, we would like to take on an American tour.”

[…omit information repeated from previous translated articles…]

On this day, J-min, who is active in Japan, started out the concert and SM’s next-generation girl group, f(x), performed “La Cha Ta” and “Chu”. SNSD’s Jessica and f(x)’s Krystal, Kangta and Ara, and Super Junior’s Kyuhyun and Seohyun all performed duets next. When Shinee performed “Juliette” with their dynamic dance, and SNSD and Super Junior performed their hit songs, the excitement in the arena was at its peak.

Also, the “Star of Asia” BoA performed her song, “Energetic”, with unique and gorgeous dance moves. DBSK’s Yunho and Changmin entered the stage flying in the air with wires, singing a song, “Maximum” that was prepared for this concert.

Elizabeth, a fan that came with all the Super Junior members’ names on her blue shirt, said, “Super Junior seems like they are friendly, unlike American singers. Kyuhyun is especially cute.” Cane said, “That was a fantastic performance. I think Korean singers have a lot of different talents besides just singing and dancing.”

The American stop of this tour was predicted to be a success very early on. Under a week since the tickets went on sale, all 15,000 tickets were sold out. SM reported that more than 70% of the tickets were sold to non-Koreans.

The atmosphere in the area around the Staples Center was heated even before the concert began. The audience members started lining up, gathering in groups of twos and threes, singing and dancing to their favourite artists’ songs. They even prepared banners with the names of the artists. One fan, Vyridiana, who is 22 years old, put up a picket sign that said, “buying ticket” for four hours before the concert. She said, “I’m a fan of Super Junior’s Shiwon. I got to know Korean artists through Youtube last year and I was waiting for this concert, so I would really like to buy a ticket and be able to watch.”

Peter (23 years old) had a pink T-shirt with the design of SNSD’s international fansite, “Soshified.com”, written on it. He smiled and said, “I came to know of SNSD through a video my friend sent me. Many American pop songs have dark moods and express anger, but I like SNSD’s songs because they are so fun.”

For the first time in Korea, SM had a chartered plane for the artists to perform in the States. Including the SM artists and staff, a total of 250 people boarded the Boeing 747-400 to America. SM spent a billion won (around $849,000 USD) for this flight and 2.16 billion won (around $1,800,000 USD) was made just from ticket sales.

This concert was filmed in 3D, which is also a first for any Korean artist. SM has been creating 3D videos with director of “Avatar”, James Cameron, since May. PACE HD, which is the 3D filming team that shot the movie Avatar, was in charge of the filming of this concert. This will be used for the marketing of the 3D TV from Samsung Electronics.

I’m incredibly sorry for the spelling of some names. The names were written in Korean, so I don’t know how they are originally spelled in English T_T

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Source: Hankuk Kyungjae
Translation: [email protected]