Saturday, May 17, 2008

Hollywood Bowl Korean Music Festival 2008

I just came back from the concert - the highlight of my "summer".
(The following pictures are not my pictures - they were taken by B and Jody).

I can't stop reminiscing about it even though it only ended exactly an hour ago. It was unbelievably amazing... incredible... SO worth this whole trip. I can't believe I saw all these artists whose songs I've been playing over and over and singing and dancing to for 3 years. I (thank-goodnessly) decided to just enjoy the concert and not take very many pictures or videos (I think I took 6 pictures and 2 short 30 sec videos) because I know Soompi is gonna be flooded with pics and fancams.
I'm so glad I did because I was so into it + thoroughly enjoyed every minute (of the artists I knew). This year, The Korean Music Festival 2008's theme was New and Old so there were artists for both young and old -- mainly young though, but a lot of the older generation likes the younger stuff too. 20,000 people filled the bowl.


We arrived there around 3... I think? I wasn't paying attention to the time at all today.
The morning was quite slow -- we woke up around 8:30AM, showered, and packed and moved into a new room (w/ 2 double beds instead of 1 king-sized) down the hallway, ate french dipped roast beef sandwiches for lunch (at least I did), walked to Longs Drugs to buy water, bought (expensive but good) sushi from Koji's Shabu Shabu near our hotel, tried to find B a hat, and then walked to the bowl (took 5-10 min). There, we got a ton of freebies like glow sticks, bags, balloons, samples, some sort of granola bars, and thunder sticks. We also played guitar hero.

Soju anyone?

Our seats were actually a LOT closer than we thought! It was so awesome because for the artists we loved, we could run up to the front and enjoy the concert until the security guards made us go back usually after the 1st song. We were at the back, aisle side of the Garden Box seats. I (alone) was filmed for a few seconds but when I saw myself on the big screen, the angle was so unflattering I hope it doesn't make their official DVD.

There were so many highlights I don't know where to begin. A gospel choir sung in the beginning - and then Junsu (surprisingly) came out and sang... the Korean Anthem? That was a huge surprise. SuJu-T were next and mannn they were so good looking in person. Kang In!!
Chae Yeon sang 3 songs and she sang really well live!! Very surprised. Moon Hee Jun (from H.O.T) was excellent!!!!! I've never really heard his stuff but WOW he's an amazing performer -- and he seems to never age! SNSD were cute - had their usual cute, coordinating outfits but they only sang 2 songs - not enough. Then there were 3 artists for older people (Chung Hoon Hee, Choi Baek Ho, and Shin Joonghyun (the founder of Krock who seemed very hip)). THEN there was intermission, and we got back into the groove with Minwoo (M)'s SUPER SUPER awesome performance. That guy is HOT...
This is right after he literally ripped off his beater lol
wow... I'm so sad he only sang 2 songs!! (and didn't sing Girlfriend!!) I need to see his full concert. After him was Fly To The Sky!!!!!!!!!!! Saranghae!!!!!! Oh yea - Ock Joo Hoon? and Brian Joo (from FTTS) were the MCs. Practically everything was in Korean so we didn't really understand most of it but that's ok. 10th in line was this.. duet for the older generation. Seemed like the Korean Jimmy Buffet. Theeeen was SG Wannabe! Even though they've been in the music scene for a long time, I don't really know many of their songs... but they're quite good too! Then was Son Ho Young - he's a cutie and had SUCH a great performance - I was so surprised!!!! So energetic and yea. I had no idea he was so good!! LAST of all, where everyone RUSHED to the front, was DBSK. The artist I was waiting for.
AH I can die happily now. I want to say that Junsu looked at me a few times... but of course we can never tell. We got an encore from them too! THEN at the end, everyone came out and sang 3-4 songs =D

AH I just want to tell you so much more but I need to take a shower 'cause I think I had such a huge workout from jumping, dancing, waving my glowstick, dancing more, jumping more, hitting my thunder sticks together, screaming, and singing. I don't think I've ever sweat this much as disgusting as that sounds lol

I want to get a copy of the official DVD for this concert.

I had the time of my life!!!

More pics to come tomorrow.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow!

How much were the seats you got :O ?! From looking at the pictures, that's pretty darn close to the stage!

Anonymous said...

OH GADDDD!!! I LOVED IT! DBSK=smexy!!! >< I screamed so much, I'm going to lose my voice. The concert went by sooooo fast, I wanted MORE!!!!

Natasha said...

Sarah - We bought the HB tickets on the first day it came out back in January! We paid $150 each and bought 4. Those pictures were taken when the flood of girls rushed to the front for certain artists - we weren't THAT close but we were a lot closer than we thought we were!! =D

Yan Yan - I know! I was on the verge of losing my voice too - some of the artists didn't sing enough mannnn!! I wanna go again!