The fourth annual festival organized by the Korea Foundation for International Culture Exchange, a private organization to promote cultural exchanges and cooperation among Asian countries, featuring 14 stars from nine Asian countries.
The Seoul World Cup Stadium in Sangnam-dong, where the action was to take place.
We saw hordes of people alighting from the subway train and we knew that they were
heading for the same place as us.
Some protesters. Protesting for a cause..Support local kimchi perhaps?
Celebrities stickers and pictures being sold at makeshift stalls. FLocks of the teen girls. ajummas. Girls of various shapes and sizes were swarming around these booths.
Let me introduce the various camps.
The most vocal fan club. They certainly made their presence felt with their strikingly red outfits and sheer numbers. They made up 70% or maybe 80% of the audience.
Its intimidating to see a sea of red. They literally had battalions of hardcore fans who are ready to die for their idol any time. Or maybe more. My estimate was 20,000 DFXQ fans, alone. Many looked like they have been camping there to wait for their star since last night. With no solid food apart from feeding themselves with fantasies of their idols.
The Super Junior camp. Docked in blue. 2nd in terms of strength. Fast fact: This group has 13 guys, yea like some male version of Jap's Morning Musume. I know it sounds overwhelming, the large thirteen member boy band was formed with the intention of capturing many fans with different tastes. Super Junior is a group with a variety of styles, for each member displays a different charisma.
Actually theres another yellow camp. FT island, but I deleted the photo accidentally. FT Island is a five member band. Their songs are more into rap and punk rock.
Oh..and not to forget there was a F4 fan club but the turnout was dismal, as you can see from the picture. No passion and no budget. No people. Maybe some la, Chinese looking ajummas.
Collecting our tickets at the VIP booth. The queue was short compared to the neverending ones for the locals. They treat the foreigners like kings for this event since this event was to promote Korean culture and tourism. They gave us a goody bag with some maps, pamphlets and a Korean drama Ost. Nice.
Just me against the music.
Police brought in to beef up the security and prevent the possible mass stampede of thousands and thousands of ardent fans. For some reason, the image of 300 Spartan police screaming KoreaaAAA, spearing and hauling bodies into the air came to my mind.
Actually seated in front of them was a group of protesters who were detained. Their group leader came over to us and demanded that we delete their photos. Li wei had to delete his photo..since the guy spoke in a condescending manner. Nevertheless I was spared. I took the photo sneakingly and I slid my camera into my bag..so the value of this photo is probably worth more than DFXQ right now.
As you can see, we were seating quite close to the stage. Ok maybe not that close, but close enough. Later on, we moved closer. to the R2 section at the expense of the original R2 tickets holders. Hehe.
People starting to stream in. Nice banners they have. The estimate by Ariyo was 30,000 people -attended this Asia Song Festival.
The show begins!
Our MC and his female host, Eujin from S.E.S. Omg, shes lovely. And her english was good, without that annoying American accent that Korean girls always try to fake. I like her so much that I gave her space of 4 photos.
Lee Hyor-ri!! She was good but could've been better. She wore quite a lot of make-up and covered a lot of flesh, much to my..disappointment. Haha. Her dance was pretty hot though.
There were some singers that I didnt bother to take any pictures of. I'll just mention their names, Thai's Golf and Mike (some trans looking duo), some CMI Viet/Laos singer,
FT Island! A relatively new band in Korea but their tunes were catchy and got the crowd going. Their fanbase was small but stood out in terms of their creativity and energy. They were bobbling up and down with their yellow light sticks.
Super Junior. Those who love them will love them. I shant elaborate too much.
And we have our Taiwan representative..F4. Fag 4.
They were so gay that they only talked cocked on stage. And only vanness did some bastardized Chinese, America, Korean dance, which if you ask me, turned out like shyt. No offence to Vanness Fans.
"Should we tell them that we're...?"
Gigi. Rep from HK.
"Where is my ekin?" She looks haggard after Ekin screwed her bad. Ekin's a bad jerk. Tsk.
SG Wannabe. A very popular group in Korea. Sg does not stand for singapore, it stands for Simon and Garfunkel. Check this song out 내사람 - SG wanna Be. I love their voices. Probably one of the best groups that performed last night in terms of vocals.
A-mei performed 4 songs too and was the only artiste that did the Chinese proud. Commendable effort considering that it was her first virgin performance in Korea and with so little clothes somemore.
Some review of the other performers. There was this Philippines chick who had a sweet, sexy voice and pretty good at stroking. Guitar of course. Ariyo was mesmerised by her stage presence and he insisted that she was the most beautiful girl of that evening.
Vicky Zhao was terrible, trying to do an imitation of Faye's Wong style. Sadly, a lazy voice with poor groove and red mascara doesn't make one a Faye Wong. Faye wong is inimitable and she's a class of her own. Vicky Zhao was so bad that I felt ashamed as a Chinese and I wanted to bury whatever vestige of my Chinese looking head into the ground like an ostrich.
Finally the act of the day was about to begin, much to the growing impatience of the DVXQ fans. The DVXQ go crazy everytime the MC/a singer mentions or the video shows images of them. Its totally insane. And its amazing to see how 'brainwashed' the fans are, haha. The power of boy bands.
They appeared with the most fanfare with the bloodcurling screams of their fans and pyrotechnic displays. They just spammed the buttons like the manager in "200 pounds of beauty", macham like free liddat.
Music knows no boundaries. Look at the ajumma flapping her hands fanatically at the sight of her idol.
Rising sun. And their famous hits.
They were pretty slick with their dance moves and Xiah and Hero had unique voices which complemented their pretty faces. No wonder the fans were so hysterical at the sight of them.
The thai girls sitting behind me were screaming at such a high pitch that I felt a little deaf after the event. We even saw a girl weeping. She was too overwhelmed with emotions. Some had to rest because they were about to faint. I am not kidding.
The crowd were shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs. Meek looking girls were clamouring to get the most of their idols by standing on chairs and taking camera shots. Suddenly, you start to wonder if this was a concert for DVXQ or Asian stars. Anyway, it was a wonderul night of music in Seoul and definitely a memorable one.
I'll add the videos and more pics later.
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