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Korean press met us at the airport and it was surreal being mobbed by the press as soon as we got there. There was a crowd and people were waving banners welcoming us, too.
We did a TON of other stuff like visit various shopping places and palaces and other touristy stuff while in Seoul. I won't really talk about that here, but I'll write some stuff up later and post it somewhere if you want to read about it. Or you could also go to Soshified.com where a lot of stuff has already been written by some excellent writers. The only things about that stuff I will talk about here are going to SPAO and Everysing, as well as Music Core and Immortal Song.
SPAO was pretty sweet.
Naturally everyone went for the birthday number hats. I got Sunny and Yuri but they were out of Taeyeon. Luckily some of us went back the day we left and they had some in stock in the back. There was so many awesome clothes related to SNSD and SuJu, and a ton of huge posters and pictures of the girls.
On the 4th floor of the SPAO building is Everysing, a store devoted to SM artists. Needless to say, most of us were in heaven, and most people spent the majority of their time up there. They had so many posters, albums, photo cards, photobooks, folders, all that stuff. I ended up buying a couple framed autograph pictures of Sunny and Taeyeon. That store made a lot of money on that night. 100 sones came in and cleared out a lot of stuff.
One of the other things we did was go to a recording of Immortal Song. A KBS reporter was there to do a story on us(media followed us around a lot of the time). I actually talked with this particular reporter for a while because she had interviewed me multiple times in the days prior at the Korean Tourist Organization and at the concert, and she remembered me and came up and said hi. Her name was Hyoyeon! Quick aside, we met the head of the KTO and there was a ton of press. They interviewed a lot of us and got people to dance and sing. KTO was pretty cool, they had a section for idol stars.
Anyway, back to Immortal Song. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed so I didn't get any pictures of it. They gave us awesome seats right in the center and we participated in voting for the singers. Shin Dongyup mentioned us a few times as he was mc'ing the show, saying that they had foreigners who loved kpop in the audience and we would be voting. Hyorin was drop dead gorgeous and SO SO SO cute. She performed with DJ DOC and got some LOUD cheers from us. Her voice is crazy good. When she was on the podium when the lights go on the ground she pulled her hair in front of her face, it was the cutest thing ever. Jiyoon from 4minute really surprised me when she performed. Really nice vocals, but her dancing was so damn good. She got us all on our feet, which was pretty funny because the Koreans just sat the entire time and clapped. Shin Dongyup made a joke about us REALLY loving kpop that got a lot of laughs from the audience. SuJu's Kyuhyun performed a ballad with g.o.d.'s Son Hoyoung and did an extremely good job. Great singers! G.O. from MBLAQ did a jazzy song with Baby V.O.X's Kan Miyoun. She was so hot and they were pretty entertaining. The last performers were Jay Park and Moon Heejoon from H.O.T. They performed Candy and just KILLED it. Their dancing was sick. Jay Park did some break dancing and they were just amazing. We were on our feet cheering so loud and even a few of the Koreans got up with us. Apparently, KBS said we were the best audience they had ever had for that show. I can believe them. As we left, KBS cameras were filming us all voting for who the winner of the show should be.
Music Core was siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. Once again, cameras weren't allowed, but I managed to sneak a few shots in. Please forgive the bad quality, I didn't want to get caught. Ushers were grabbing people's cameras left and right though so I didn't want to try my luck anymore after this which explains the no pics of Immortal Song and the concert. We were able to cut in front of the line of people, which I'm sure made Korean fangirls very happy.
We went in for rehearsals and also the live show. So we got to see most everyone twice. It's pretty interesting though, some of the stages were pre-recorded, like Miss A and 2PM. While their pre-recorded video was playing for the TV audience though, they still came and performed for the fans. All of the artists that performed were really good. I didn't care much for GP Basic because it's pedo, but CHI CHI was surprisingly good, given their train wreck of a debut. Lyn was SO good. She has such a nice voice. I seriously lost it for Hyuna though. Our section was cheering so loud for her. She is SOOOOOOOO hot in real life. Like holy hell. She looks much skinnier than on camera, too. MBLAQ was really good, but Jesus Christ the fangirls. They were so loud. I was deaf in my right ear because they were all right there. T-ara came out and a few of us T-ara fans in our group were doing the Roly Poly fanchants really loud. I definitely lost my voice for a bit afterwards. They were awesome even though they wore sweatsuits hahaha. Speaking of T-ara, Jiyeon is a total boss. During rehearsals she was hauling ass after their rehearsal to get back to the MC area. I have respect for that girl, she works very hard. 2PM came out and literally brought the house down. Their stage was pre-recorded so they were kind of goofing around on stage and then got into it. They even ran up into the crowd until a crazy fangirl got up and ran after them and an Usher had to grab her. I wasn't too fond of Put Your Hands Up, but after seeing them do it live? Totally legit. Their was so much energy in the studio. Everyone was standing and dancing along with the guys. They are great performers for sure and had a lot of fun with the audience. These pictures were all I could get. They were from rehearsals, except for the shot of the MC's. That was right when the show started.
After the show ended, we were met with a pretty nice surprise. We got to meet 2PM and T-ara!!! I was secretly praying for something like this to happen the entire time, so I was pretty excited. We were led onto the Music Core stage and then the guys of 2PM came out and shook some people's hands and took a picture with us. Yes, Nickhun is a damn good looking guy in real life, I'll admit it. Taecyeon was awesome though. He was goofing around with us in the back when we were taking the pictures. I got to shake his hand as they left.
After 2PM left T-ara came out to say hi. Oh my God they are gorgeous. Eunjung...oh my Eunjung. She was dancing around like a goofball. Boram was this cute little thing you just wanted to pick up and put in your pocket. Jiyeon was a total boss with her dark eye makeup and looks even prettier than you can imagine. Hyomin was a sweetheart. As they were leaving I called out her name and she turned around and smiled at me. My heart melted right there. Qri was very pretty and Hwayoung looked really nice. Soyeon was such a cutie. I only wish T-ara would have stayed longer, but I am really thankful they and 2PM took time out of their schedule to come meet us.
Now for the best day of my life. The SNSD concert. We arrived at the venue at about 10:30am to line up and buy some concert goods. There were already a TON of people in line because the previous day we heard that a lot of stuff sold out very fast, especially Taeyeon items(she is the most popular in Korea it seems).
They had a Vita500 booth set up on the far end of the line where you could play a small memory game and get some free stuff. There was a board with 20 spots and you had to find the match to the SNSD member the cute girl pointed to. I got a Vita500 poster and a Sunny laminated print, surprise surprise, Taeyeon wasn't available, and I got there as soon as we showed up! At least I got a picture of her and her friends.
After a long wait, I got to buy my concert goods at around 1:30pm. Luckily Taeyeon stuff wasn't sold out yet so I got everything I wanted. The brochure is amazing. It's huge and has a bunch of pictures in it. I spent about $100, but I heard of some other sones spending upwards of $400. Even after all that time, the line for goodies was just as long as when we arrived. After I put my stuff on the bus it was time to get in line for our section.
From this point I have no pictures because I was not risking getting booted out for using my camera. There was tons and tons of press there. I got interviewed a few times as did many other Soshified members. The press had us cheer a lot and dance and sing for the cameras. It was pretty fun, but some people were getting very tired because it was HOT and a few people were getting sunburns. Plus we had been standing all day and we were about to stand again for 3 more hours at the concert. I saw some Japanese fans dressed up in the yellow Mr. Taxi outfits and the blue and red Hoot outfits. They got some cheers from the sones waiting in line haha.
At 3pm we started to go into the arena. Our section was Standing B which was right in between the center stage walkway and the right side walkway. We were right up next to the main stage. Before the concert started UFOs(texts to/from the SNSD members) were being shown on the screen. A few Soshified members were able to text that Soshified was there and we all cheered when they were displayed. Yuri, Hyoyeon and Jessica texted that they really missed the fans and were eagerly waiting to see us, we just had to wait a bit longer. There were all the members' Vita500 commercials playing on the screens and every time they came on the crowd cheered. There was also this one annoying commercial for GMarket and it played so much that by the time the concert started we were all chanting along to the commercial. The k-sones thought that was pretty funny. Also before the concert, that KBS reporter followed us in and interviewed me in the standing area. It was so loud I had to practically yell into the mic. I can't even remember how many interviews I did. I did one with 2 other Soshified members that Yuri actually mentioned at the press conference that she had read, which basically made me fall out of my chair. SM had been showing the girls all of the coverage of us and they were going to try and recognize people in the audience. Nice for me since I was on about 5 different news stories haha.
The time finally came and the lights went out and the intro video started playing. Everyone was getting super excited. The first song was Genie and the girls emerged from the diamond cube in the center of the stage. Yoona and Sunny were on our side. You guys have no idea how pretty Yoona is until you've seen her in person(this will be a recurring theme for all members). Cameras are not enough to capture her beauty. Genie was explosive with fireworks and Rapper Hwang(Tiffany) making the crowd go wild. Then they went into "you-aholic" and "Mr. Taxi". When "Mr. Taxi" started everyone was excited, then they heard the lyrics. They were in Korean instead of Japanese! The crowd went NUTS. Then they did "I'm in Love with the Hero" which was so great. Half the girls went up on wires almost all the way up to the ceiling and the rest were down below on the stage holding up wings. Epic song and performance.
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After a short video the girls came back and sang "Let it Rain" in Korean. Great song and the crowd really appreciated the lyric change from Japanese. All the girls sounded so amazing during this song. They really have a lot of talent. After this song they came up front on the main stage and introduced themselves. I couldn't really understand all of it, but I did catch some stuff here and there. Yoona said she missed the fans. Tiffany said hi to us in English. The next set of songs were "Snowy Wish", "뻔 & Fun", "Kissing You", and "Oh!"
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During this particular set of songs, I pretty much died. Tiffany and Hyoyeon came over to where I was standing, which was off to the right a little bit and right at the front, not 15 feet from them. I was showing a heart sign with my hands and Tiffany saw me and did the cutest heart over her head and smiled and waved at me. Tiffany's eye smile is absolutely killer in person. Nobody would be able to resist it. Then Tiffany finished up her part of the song, turned to me and winked. I almost fell over. Hyoyeon saw me too and smiled and waved. Speaking of Hyoyeon. She is straight up hot, no lie. I don't know why cameras are unfair to her sometimes because in person she is simply HOT. She was giving so much fan service all night. Sunny also came over my way and gave me a heart over her head with the brightest smile. I love Sunny so much, this was one of the happiest moments of the concert for me. She is beautiful in real life. Sooyoung also came over to my side and pointed at me and waved. So pretty, those legs are no joke.
During "Kissing You" and "Oh!" the place was just electric. The fan chants were so loud, it was amazing to experience it first hand. After this, Hyoyeon came out for her solo stage in a stunning white one legged leotard and just slayed Rihanna's "Please Don't Stop the Music". Her voice was just great, which is awesome because she is not known for her singing. Her dancing was, as expected, powerful and sexy. Next up was Jessica singing "Almost" by Tamia at the piano in a flowing feathery dress. Her voice...oh my God. Seriously, it's angelic. When she got up from the piano and was slowly walking down the center in that dress, it was just so elegant. Some Jessica fans were said to have been bawling their eyes out, and with good reason.
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Then came probably the biggest surprise of the concert. Sunny's solo stage. She sang Britney Spears' "3" and was incredibly sexy during her performance. Now the surprising thing wasn't cutie Sunny being all hot, it was her outfit. That black vest with the center cut out of it to reveal the black bra underneath and that pink jacket...As soon as the crowd saw it they went WILD. The day after the concert when the picture of Sunny popped up online everyone on the trip was buzzing about it haha. Everyone had it as their phone wallpaper it was so funny.
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Tiffany and Taeyeon followed up with "Lady Marmalade" and as expected, killed it. These two have some of the best voices in any language, period. When Tiffany hit the high note near the end of the song the crowd just erupted. They looked so good together playing around on stage. Definitely one of the best performances of the night.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=QsxCKfoGNvA
After another video(all of which were so well made) and wardrobe change, the girls came back out for "The Great Escape" and "Bad Girl". The audience was totally into "Bad Girl" chanting along with the "oh oh oh oh oh" so loud. Another video was played and then came my personal favorite moment of the concert.
Rocker Taeng. Taeyeon came out in this black feather coat and leather pants and just straight up rocked the house with the intro to "Run Devil Run". It's just amazing how much she can do. Her voice is just...the best. I can't think of any other way to say it. Taeyeon is just the best there is.
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After RDR they performed "Beautiful Stranger" and "Hoot". During "Beautiful Stranger" they pulled a huge glass wall in front of the girls and they start trying to break it with these black batons. It totally worked the performance and was such a cool concept. Then they did "Hoot" but halfway through some of the girls flew up to the ceiling on wires and it was a hard rock version of the song. It was so cool. Afterwards, Yuri came out to do her solo stage "If" by Janet Jackson. That girl is hot. She's getting her curves back after working out so much and it was just an awesome performance by her, very hot. Then Sooyoung came out for her solo, "Sway" by Dean Martin. She did a killer ballroom dance and had excellent vocals. It was a very cool performance. Those legs go on for daaaays.
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Seohyun was up next and she came out with a cute tap dancing number, "Stuff Like That There" originally done by Betty Hutton in 1945. Seohyun never ceases to amaze me. She is goddess like beauty in person. She is super intelligent. And she can do anything. The fact that she picked up tap dancing for this one song is just mind blowing. Yoona finished up the solo stages with a BANG. And from where I was standing I had a pretty darn good view. She performed "4 Minutes" by Maddona and was just awesome. Like I said earlier, after seeing her in person, Yoona is godtier, no doubt about it. The only fancam I could find is half the Seoul concert, then 2nd half is from one of the Japanese concerts. In the concert I went to Yoong kicked the bar over at the end like the boss she is.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GE6TvyerT5I
After Yoona made everyone's nose bleed, the girls made everyone cry. A video was played showing a child who lost it's mother, and as all sones know, it's a very emotional topic for these girls since Tiffany lost her mother at a young age. As the video was playing Sunny, Seohyun, Jessica, Tiffany and Taeyeon sang "Danny Boy" and it was amazing. The 5 best singers in the group performing a classic song filled with emotion was enough to get most people bawling. Had to get a fancam from Japan again, hopefully more get released from 7/24 concert.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=t3XbzpA5FhY
If people weren't crying yet, they DEFINITELY cried during the next performance. The rest of the girls came on stage and they performed "Complete". It's already an emotional song between the girls and the fans, but k-sones planned an event where once the song started, people in certain seats lit up green colored light sticks instead of the pink that everyone else was had. The effect spelled out SNSD and had hearts under it across the entire audience that was in the seats:
소녀시대
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
One of the things that makes me love this group is how much these girls love the fans. There is such a mutual love between fan and artist it's really quite difficult to put into words without actually being able to experience it first hand. Even though there are so many fans, they go out of there way to try and reach as many as they can no matter how hard they have to work or how much they have to sacrifice. The fans go out of there way to show their love for the girls, by buying gifts, sending care packages, buying newspaper ads on birthdays, traveling around the world to see them. They know how much we love them, and we know how much they love us. If you aren't part of the fandom it's not possible to explain it any more than that. It had been a really long time since SNSD was home since they had the arena tour in Japan so the fans missed the girls, and the girls missed the fans. That love was on display for the remainder of the concert. During "Complete" Sunny started crying during her part, and at that point pretty much everyone in the audience also cried. Everyone I talked to after the concert was like, "Yep I was pretty much bawling my eyes out." Incredibly moving performance.
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The girls went off stage and then came back on this huge boat that went around the outer ring of the stage as they sang "My Child". It was a cute performance with Taeyeon acting as the captain haha. Jessica smiled and waved at me at the end of the boat ride. Sigh, so pretty.
A hilarious video of Key and Taemin from Shinee was played where they keep thinking SNSD is doing everything for them when it's really all in their head. At one point Taeyeon and Sunny were feeding Key and the crowd was going like "Oooooooooh" haha it was pretty funny. I think everyone, especially me because those two are my favorite, was pretty jealous at that moment.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=rZ_oLHc9PdM
The girls came back on stage dressed up in cute shiny pants and sailor-ish type outfits and sang "Naengmyun", "HaHaHa Song", and "Gee". "Naengmyun" was so much fun. There was so much energy in the audience and the chants were louder than at any point in the concert. Everyone was singing along, it's such a happy and fun song. The same went for "HaHaHa Song". Then the mother of all fan chanting happened during "Gee". The chants of "Gee gee gee gee" and "no no no no no" were deafening from the standing area. The amount of energy in that arena was just insane. People had been standing for almost 3 hours straight at the concert alone and they were all still fired up. My legs were killing me but I didn't even really feel anything until after the concert.
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The girls talked for a bit, thanked everyone for coming, and were going to close the show with "Forever". Yuri was standing right in front of me for most of the song. She smiled at me and waved a few times. She has such a pretty smile. It was another emotional performance. SNSD always says this song is meant for their fans because the Korean name of the song is "I Want to Dream With You Forever". Taeyeon was out near the middle of the stage and at the climax of the song she had tears streaming down her face when she hit the high notes, and at the end of the song as she was thanking the fans she started to cry again. The girls all left the stage and chants for an encore followed soon after that. One k-sone had a whistle and would blow it twice, the crowd would respond with "EN-CORE" all in unison. It was SO loud. I had never heard an encore chant like that in my entire life, and I've been to a ton of concerts.
After what seemed like 10 minutes the girls came back on stage dressed up in the official concert t-shirt, feathers in their hair, shorts and leather boots. They all went to the stage and stood in a single line. Everyone knew what was about to happen and then we heard those 3 notes that every sone can recognize instantly. They performed "Into the New World" with a lot of passion. I tried to sing along because it's one of the few songs I actually know all of the Korean lyrics to, but I couldn't do it without getting choked up. For me personally this song means a lot, but for all sones and the girls themselves it means a lot because it is SNSD's debut song. I looked around and saw so many fans crying during this song, and those I talked with afterwards also admitted to it. As soon as the first 3 notes of the song play, sones just get chills. This fancam gives a good idea of where I was standing for most of the concert.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=6W25L73zlK4
After that they performed "Himnae" and the girls were running all over the stage. This song has so much energy in it. They went up into the seated sections to get closer to the fans there and were super energetic. They came back to the front of the stage for one last talk before the end of the concert. They asked the fans to continue supporting them and to promise to support their next album. They said goodbye in Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese, and Tiffany and Sooyoung especially thanked us Soshified members for coming all the way to see them, and that they really wanted to see us. Well we didn't get to meet them because some whiny k-netizens threw a hissy fit, but this way of meeting is good enough in my mind. Taeyeon showed some rare aegyo which made me and many others laugh. Then they said they would close the concert with "Fantastic". It was a great song to end on. Very happy and optimistic. That didn't stop the girls from crying though. They saw how happy we all were and it made them even more emotional. Taeyeon was standing in front of me for a minute just standing there looking out into the crowd with tears coming down her cheeks and a smile on her face. She saw me waving at her and threw her head back with the trademark Taeyeon ajumma laugh and smiled at me. It was the perfect way to end the concert. Sooyoung came by and I held up my Soshified towel and she met my eyes and thanked us for coming, in English. You can just tell how much they appreciate us being there.
As we were leaving the venue more reporters grabbed us for interviews, and I did a couple, said the concert was daebak(amazing, she loved that I used Korean haha). In all, it was a truly wonderful experience. It's hard to explain all the emotions you feel when you see SNSD live. Throughout the entire concert the girls show you everything they have. They leave everything out on the stage. You cannot help but love them even more(if that's even possible) after seeing them live. Thank you Soshified for making this experience possible.
-Pictures and fan account are by MoonSoshi9, T-ara and 2PM group photos by typ, fancams are credited to their original owners
Follow me on Twitter! @MoonSoshi9
