I know I have a million other posts to do (all the way back to the YG Family concert two months ago, haha), but today was just too good to be true.
Let’s begin with meeting Hwang Ssabu-nim (YG trainer) on the subway 4 hours before the show…
I met up with a few lovely Filipino VIPs in Gangnam, and then we made our way towards Jamsil on line 2. Lo and behold, one or two stops later, one of my friends noticed that Ssabu-nim came into our subway car and was standing right behind me. He was in his usual gear with a backwards YG Family concert hat and sweet Dr. Dre Beats headphones. I was surprised at how smaller he was in person. But he was still as fit as ever of course.
I caught his attention and told him how much I love him (I basically love every single person working in YG, even the stylists, managers, and Everone in between, though I forgot to tell him how cute his son is since he posts his pictures often on Twitter.
I then proceed to ask for a picture or an autograph. Though, he humbly declined, saying that he wasn’t a celebrity so there was no need. But I kept pleading with him in Korean to no avail. In the end, we all received firm handshakes and then he put his Beats back on.
Since we were headed in the same direction, we saw him the whole way to the venue. We even mistakenly took the line 5 train in the wrong direction, and by the time we went back to the transfer station, he was still waiting for the right train towards Macheon.
Shortly after our first encounter with him, I borrowed my friend’s iPhone (Did you know you could rent iPhones from the airport in Korea?) to DM Ssabu-nim since he follows me. I basically told him how I just met him on the train, good luck with the concert, and that he’s still a celebrity in my eyes, lol. Funny enough, when I saw him again sitting at the transfer station, he was on his phone. So I checked my Twitter again and he replied with a thank you, haha.
So after that encounter, I knew I was in for a great day. I was also lucky in that I was able to be one of the last people allowed to buy goods before the concert.
Now after that long tangent, let’s go on to the setlist and my notes…
(By the way, shout out to my new Korean seat mate who was so awesome with her great English and fun company. I had so much luck today in that her numbered seat was next to an unnumbered seat by the section 13 railing, which also happened to be beside one of the “?” sections on the seating chart. So I took her seat while she rook the unumbered one. More on this later…)
.1. “Don’t Go Home” M/V - I was so happy to finally watch it. I mentioned to my Korean friend before the show that I was annoyed that YG still hadn’t released it. It was so adorable, just like they’re stage performances. I gotta download it when I get home.
.2. “Hands Up” – BB came out with this song first. I was initially confused as to why they included this already-released song on their mini album, until I realized with help from my friend that they only released the Japanese version and not the Korean one.
BB then proceeded with a few of their older songs (thank goodness there was no “Dirty Cash” or “Oh My Friend” in sight).
.3. “Shake It” Remix
.4. “La La La” Remix
.5. “VIP” Remix
.6. “BIGBANG”
I really enjoyed them performing their old songs that they debuted with first, even if some of them forgot the lyrics in the beginning, lol.
Next were the solo/unit projects:
Seungri
.7. “VVIP” – I absolutely loved finally seeing this song performed live. Seungri is such a charmer.
.8. “What Can I Do” – I loved singing along to the “down…down…down” part. I really liked how he engaged the 2nd and 3rd floor seats to stand up throughout the whole concert. He really loves having fun with VIPs. At the end of the song, Seungri sort of fell back/dropped down into the hole he was exitting into at the tip of the stage. I guess he missed his mark a little.
Taeyang
.9. “Where U At” – A horizontal part in front of main stage lifted Taeyang up halfway into the sir while he danced. He wore all red.
.10. “I’ll Be There” – Too bad Taeyang didn’t take off his shirt by the end of his solo perfs.
Daesung
.11. “Baby Don’t Cry” (unreleased) – Beforehand, they mentioned that we might see this on the next BB album and I sure hope we do! It was an extremely beautiful song with a rock ballad feel to it that meshed perfectly with Daesung’s voice. It absolutely killed me when he sang the chorus: “Baby don’t cry, give me a smile…”
GD&TOP
.12. “Knock Out” – They came out on either side of the stage on they’re MV segways and rode them all over the place. GD sported a green suit while TOP’s was yellow.
.13. “Oh Yeah” – As expected but still surprising, Bommie-unni came out for her featuring and I literally screamed my head off at that point. She was an absolutely gorgeous goddess as always in her short dress. There was a lot more TOPBom flirting going on which I really enjoyed. Besides the staring bit, TOP escorted Bom all the way towards the tip of the stage by the end of the song, holding hands for quite a while. Unfortunately, there was no usual ending pose, as Bom disappeared below the stage and the next song began.
.14. “High High” – I just love jumping up and down for this song. It’s so much much to party to. GD and TOP switched lines for the second verse after their rock, paper, scissors battle. The rest of BB joined at the end. There was some cute TOPDae slapping action before the GHETTOELECTRO part. Also, there was some sexy Daesung hip-thrusting before the last refrain.^^
.15. “Secret Garden” parody – GD as G Ra Im – TOP as Joo Won – Seungri as Oska – Taeyang as the Stunt Academy guy – Daesung as the assistant and Joo Won’s mother
This has to be their absolute best parody to date! It was so f-ing hilarious even though I couldn’t understand everything. They did all the iconic scenes: sit-ups, latte kiss, oska socks, farewell letter, Joo Won imagining Ra Im, etc. It was so EPIC. TOP was also kissing up a storm in this one. Probably the most surprising was when he did a full on kiss with Seungri for 10 seconds or so. To say the least, I and everyone else were absolutely floored and going crazy. TOP also did a short latte kiss with GD. I think TOP now has to kiss Taeyang in a parody to make the set complete, haha.
I also loved the parts when TOP took off GD’s Seungri/Oska socks and then GD proceeded to kiss the socks, oh G-Ri… ^^ GD was such a convincing girl. He was so pretty. It was hilarious when he kept on grabbing his fake boobs. I especially enjoyed the part when TOP imagines GD’s character in different outfits. At the end, TOP piggybacks GD after he tells him to just wake up since GD is too heavy to carry. GD then plays in front of the camera by doing his signature frazzled hair dance from the “FIRE” MV.
.16. “Don’t Go Home” – The only prop was a big quilted heart in the middle of the main stage, and they did their usual bit with the same dancer.
.17. “A Fool’s Only Tears” – A beautiful performance by Tae-Dae-Ri. I’m pretty sure they were trying to out-diva each other at the end, heehee.
.18. “Tell Me Goodbye”
.19. “Koe wo Kikasete” - The main event as far as I’m concerned, haha, but for selfish reasons of course. I’m pretty sure the middle school beside me was surprised that I was singing along to the Japanese lyrics.
As I mentioned before, I was situated near the railing by one of the mystery “?” sections. To everyone’s surprise, BB started heading over to the stage left moving platfor to greet the 2nd and 3rs floor guests. Of course me and my new Korean friend started freaking out and placed ourselves along the railing.
By the time they made it to our side, I think it was around the 3rd refrain. GD started heading towards us first and I just about went crazy and reached my hand out while singing along to the song.
I will never forget the image of GD looking on our side, spotting me, and taking my hand. He held onto my hand for a while as I sang and shook our hands along to the song. It must have been at least 5 seconds of him staring and smiling at me and then moving on to briefly touch the hands of other fans. He looked like an absolute angel with his newly dyed blonde hair, white military suit, his whole face glistening with sweat.
I saw TOP (in a white bathrobe, mind you, lol) in the corner of my eye wiping his sweat with a nearby fan’s hanky. Before they left our section, Daesung came to shake our hands. He seems like such a sweety. I really love everything about Daesung. He’s such a kind and genuine person.
I hope that moment was captured on the cameras, haha.
.20. “Wonderful”
.21. “Haru Haru” (acoustic)
.22. “Lies” remix – I feel that this and the previous song pretty much go hand-in-hand together. The melodys complement each other well. They initially sound similar, but each song holds their own weight.
.23. “Last Farewell” – This is another song I really enjoy dancing to.
4th Mini Album
I had only just bought the digital album the night before off of iTunes. Though I felt I still needed getting used to it, I pretty much fell in love with it all as soon as I saw the songs performed live (which is often the case).
There were some technical difficulties, but us VIPs reassured them with a chant of “Gwenchana!” – “It’s OK!” (please excuse the spelling as I’m unsure of the Korean characters at the moment).
.24. “Thank You and You” a Thongs started back up again with this video intro. The boys looked awesome on their respective shades in Las Vegas. There was also a little blurb about their favorite songs off the album and such.
.25. Cafe – This is a really cozy song to groove to. I found it funny when GD was on a small platform with a standing mic in the middle of the main stage and the members where circle him like a swarm of sharks, haha. I also liked the fact that the cafe in the scene was simply named “a cafe.”
.26. “What is Right” – I’m really beginning to love this song more.
.27. “Somebody to Love” – I think this was the first song I liked after my first listening of the album. I like the graphics of the lyrics on screen. They sort of came alive with the song. The best part was the bridge with “When I say ‘somebody’, you say ‘t-to love’…” repeated over and over.
.28. “Tonight” – I love Shaun Evaristo’s choreography once again! It’s a lot of fun to do during the chorus. Each of the boys also had their own mic stands and they did some fancy stuff with those. Finally, my favorite part was when GD lives out his rocker fantasies by playing a short riff on an acoustic guitar and then destroying the thing to shreds afterwards at the climax.
By the way, I think at this point in the concert, G-Ri-TOP were wearing leafed/accordion knee length skirts over skinny jeans, teehee. It was reminiscent of the outfit GD wore on one of his “A Boy” perfs on SBS. He wore a shiny gold one whereas the other two wore black ones.
.29. “Heaven” – The obligatory “let’s pretend the concert it really over” song.
After, VIPs did a chorus of “Saranghae!” over and over again for 5 minutes or so until they came back out.
Surprisingly, the tip of the stage closest to the seats had a crown design surround a “B” that lifted to form a real 3D crown. BB emerged from within it on individual rising platforms to begin the encore.
.30. “Always”
.31. “Sunset Glow” – The boys headed over to the seats again. G-Ri were hanging in the air on vertical poles. Taeyang and TOP-Dae were on the moving platforms. TOP-Dae were really adorable with each other. TOP headed over to our “?” section again bur he just grabbed the phone of a girl across from us to take a selca. He’s always up to his old tricks with every concert…
.32. “Tonight” M/V Ver. 1 – Yay for multiple versions! The boys look fantastic in the video. They really have the swagger to fit in with the American style.
.33. Secret Garden NGs – GD being embarassed in acting out the imaginary Ra Im scenes, Dae pressing the moisture spray in the wrong direction, TOP-Ri kiss NG, TOP licking his lips at the end.
ANOTHER FAN ACCOUNT:
So. I went to the Big Bang Big Show Friday night.
I know I might get bricked by some VIPs for this but my review will have some negatives.
That being said, there will also be a whole lot more positives.
I went with my boyfriend who is not a huge Big Bang fan, but he loves me, so he will go anyways. His first concert ever in his life was YG Family Concert, and this show is number two.
Actually my day basically went wrong in every way humanly possible before the concert, so I actually wasn’t that excited until we basically were in the hall. To list my problems: we lost our plane tickets for our summer vacation home because the travel agent essentially lied about the price and we cannot afford them, my two kittens still haven’t met, and I had to go home before the concert to feed them, my usb drive broke, I had to go to the other side of town to get the Big Bang cd, and I realized I left my Big Bang lightstick at home roughly five minutes after it was too late to turn around and go get it.
But, enough on that. We got to the stadium and thats when everything started to get better. My boyfriend (who used to take lifeguard training classics at the olympic swimming ppol next to the main olympic stadium) found us some secret bathrooms that had no line as opposed to the 50 person line in the concert provided toilet stalls.
Got in line, where everyone was pretty friendly if not moderately terrified of how tall we are. They all were nervous about standing behind us.
We waited as the sun set and they slowly began to let people in to the standing sections. We were in section 5, which is , if you are looking at the stage, to your left a ways, but still standing and relatively close. We managed to get right into the corner where two walkways would meet, so we thought we would be able to get lots of close-ups with Big Bang walking by.
It got pretty hairy as the rest of our section poured into the standing area. I would say about 60-65% of the fans were really young (high school or younger) and the other 35-40% were about my age. Anyways, a group of middle school or so aged girls ended up standing right behind us (foolish move) and proceeded to complain loudly about how they can’t see in Korean as if I couldn’t understand. Then they said to my boyfriend that they couldn’t see, and I firmly informed my still green concert going boyfriend that we would not move for anyone, regardless of how short or whiny they were. If one person gets in front of us, we may just throw up a neon sign that says, step right up. The girls were pretty unhappy with me, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Just before the concert began, some very severe pushing started within our section. It was pretty horrible, and I just thought plain unnecessary. Everyone was just temporarily out of their mind and shoving everything within sight to get as close as possible. It was really frustrating and before the show even started, I saw a girl get carried away by security because she had passed out. That’s how intense it was. In the course of the evening I personally saw about 6 passed out girls carried away, as well as one illegal camera use escorted out.
Anyhow, the security was super tight around me so I didn’t manage to get basically any pictures or videos, which is a total bummer. But, I was really close to the stage, so that was lucky, or at least I thought it was.
There are other posts that tell the exact line-up, I’ll just say my best memories:
1. The show opened with a revealing of the GD&TOP 집에가지마 video which was just spectacular and retro and so perfect for them. after the m/v, my boyfriend kicked something on the ground. He asked me what it was because it was a cylindrical box of some sort, and I looked down and discovered a box for big bang merch. I didn’t actually get to the merch table, so even though I knew the kind of stuff they were selling, I didn’t see any of the packaging to know waht would be in the box. But, regardless, I thought, that’s MINE now. I carefully picked it up and put it under my arm as the next song began. The pushing started back up again as people attempted to get every millimeter of closeness possible. In the next lull, I opened up the box and discovered, to my extreme joy, it contained the new edition of the light stick which I had been whining to my boyfriend that I wanted to buy since I left my old one at my house. So basically not only did I get standing seats to the concert, I also snagged a free brand new light stick.
2. Secret Garden parody was the best thing ever. They mimicked the scenes so well, and with such nice comedic timing and I really enjoyed it. There was lots of kissing, and lots of GD grabbing his fake Gil Ra-Im boobs, and Taeyang wearing a hilarious wig, and Daesung being the perfect mother of Joo-won (TOP) and the perfecrt recreations of all my favorite scenes: situps, cafe kiss, oska socks, I’m Gil Ra-Ims fan, farewell letter (omg, TOP CRYING), Seungri’s hair for Oska was perfect. Seriously perfect.
3. Taeyang’s solo performance of Where U At and I’ll be There. I wasn’t sure what he would perform or even if he would perform, so this was nice. Where U At is my boyfriend’s favorite song by Taeyang/Big Bang so he got really excited. Downside? As most people mention in other fan accounts, no shirtless-ness from Dae the ENTIRE concert. Major let-down.
4. 뻑이가요 performance by GD&TOP complete with segways, ridiculous suits, and a big ass tank on stage which GD climbed up on. Also, Oh Yeah featured Bommie live, which was great, and then High High all the boys came out on stage, which was also really exciting.
5. Seungri is typically my least favorite in the group. There is always something about his boasting and general loudness that I find a bit annoying. However, I’d like to officially retract all the negative things I’ve ever said about him. He was the only member of Big Bang to really show any love to our section at all. The walkways I was sandwiched between? Virtually unused. GD rolled by on the segway at the opening of 뻑이가요, Daesung walked by once. But in the middle of the show, Seungri heard our section begging them to come to our side, and he listened. He seemed to really show our section love, coming over to ourside (basically right in front of me) and pointing and singing and dancing right in front of us. It was nice that he recognized that we were getting basically no love and he helped us out. Also, his solo performances were really good. I don’t even own his mini-album, but after the concert, I’m tempted to buy it if only to express my gratitude for his concern during the show.
6. During the Encore, Taeyang stopped basically right in front of (there were maybe four people in front of me, but I’m gonna go ahead and assume he saw me and said, this is just for that sexy foreign girl right there, and he danced and sang and did this unbelievably sexy vibrating dance I am almost died right there I was so excited.
7. During the encore performance, TOP had the sexiest hip thrust I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I swooned so hard. It was right in time with 1, 2, 3, BIG BANG (jumpring down from the platform at three hard core hip thrust at BANG). I was like, yo top, come bang it over here in my direction.
8. The pyrotechnics were great! They went light on the fire and heavy on dope fireworks. The fire is awful because it severely impedes your vision and is fucking hot. The fireworks are just bad ass. There were some green ones that exploded and created really trippy smoke rings when they popped in the air. I was really intrigued by those.’=
9. Daesung’s Solo performance was the most memorable of the night. Actually, his performance throughout the concert was essentially flawless. He killed every note, and his new song Baby don’t cry was beautiful. It’s so nice to hear him sing a ballad. He was amazing. I love him.
The negatives:
1. Way too much pushing and hostility from the fans. It was uncomfortable and dangerous. A bunch of people fell in our section, and people were passing out right and left. This is common at concerts like this, but still, it’s depressing to see how fans get when their emotions take control.
2. No love on our side, including almost no attention to our neighboring walkways and a big light blocking a portion of the stage.
3. Security too close for any good pics
4. NO TONIGHT MUSIC VIDEO. This was the most disappointing thing as they announced on THURSDAY that they would premiere it and then Big Bang had to say that it didn’t get finished. They showed an unfinished version, but i actually really wished they hadn’t shown it at all. The clips were good, but they werent timed properly to the music, and it was super choppy and just disappointing
5. Serious technical difficulties before performing their newest songs. Fans shouted 괜찮아 but it took forever for them to fix the issue. Disappointing.
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that.
I have to go take care of my just been neutered kitten who is lethargic and semi-depressed right now. Plus, I’m starving.
THESE GIRLS WERE THERE....THEY COULD REALLY WATCH OUR SUNSHINE LIVE!!!!!THIS MUST BE ONE OF HER GREATEST DAYS IN HER LIFE!!!! DAAAMN WHAT WOULD WE GIVE TO MEET OUR YOUNGBAE ONLY ONCE!!!^_________^ AAAHHHH!!!! WE WANT TO WATCH THE SHOOOOW!!!! AND THE MV OF TONIGHT!!!!!
TAEYANG always VIP*.*
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