I met up with Tina and her friend at the concert site. People packed the sidewalks, selling posters and wallets and other stuff with the Blackpink members' pictures on them, some of them probably unlicensed, some of them fan-art drawings.
I also got (aka "spent a lot on") some official merchandise like pins and a keychain, and a pen I think I lost. Also, depending upon the amount of money you spent, there was a drawing for a chance to win some prizes. Surprisingly, I think between the three of us, we got all three of the items: a Blackpink lightstick USB charger, soap? (I think that was one of them), and an Ipad signed BY ALL 4 MEMBERS! Since I'd gotten there late, I missed the two of them showing off the Ipad to some students of theirs. Luckily he's a much better person than I am. "Hey, look what I won! What's that, you had to spend all your allowance on tickets and can't even afford to buy anything else. Awww, sorry." Taunting children, another reason I can't be a teacher. With time left until the concert started, we hung out at a nearby karaoke center to kill time. Oh, they also taught me to say, "I'm a North Korean spy," which I now don't remember the words. I'd been looking for something to say to the old women who stare at me on the trains. Everyone else's eyes are focused on their phones, but the old women just stare at me. All of them. All the time.
Tina and I made our way to our seats with about an hour left until the concert. Alex's (I knew I wrote his name someplace in this notebook) ticket was for the pit/floor area. That I don't have a Blackpink member locked away in a newly constructed basement means that he didn't manage to grab any of them and drag them outside as we planned aka, as I asked and he just nervously shook his head and walked away from Tina's weird cousin. "Come on, we're going to Hawaii!" as the bag goes over her head and I lead her away from the concert. *That's a joke, please don't send anyone to my house, I wouldn't even know how to build a basement... though I'm sure there's a video someplace... not that I would go through the effort...
Back to the concert. To make sure I didn't miss a moment, I headed to the restroom to drain every single ounce of liquid from my body. From what I gathered from the stadium layout, the people in charge must've closed off all but one restroom each for men and women. Since they frown upon me entering the women's restroom to document the goings-on, I can only give you what I experienced in the men's restroom. Obviously, for an event like this, I am prepared to wait in a line. What I wasn't prepared for was how... intimate standing in line was, not in the line out the door to the restroom but behind each other at each urinal. With all five or six urinals occupied, lines formed behind each person at each urinal, about four or five people deep with the stalls right behind them. Wow, was the restroom that big? you ask. No, it was not. To say they stood close enough that the next guy in line could've held it for me while I played games on my phone wouldn't be an exaggeration. And if you went to sento with me or you're my grandma, you have an idea of just how close they stood to each other. I opted for a stall because I knew I would be in there for a while, negotiating with, threatening my bladder and bowels. "Okay, I'm serious you fuckers, you better get everyone out of there now because we're not coming back. I'm not joking." Then I'd stand up, pull up my jeans, stand there for a couple seconds, then sit back down. "Okay, seriously, last chance, no fucking surprises. None of this 'oops, just a couple more drops' or 'oh, one more tiny turd left behind'." And repeat until I was certain my body wouldn't betray me. In case you were curious, this was also my prep for the three hours Avengers: Endgame movie.
When I eventually got back to my seat, Tina helped me set up the lightstick she got me. Even though I said I didn't want one as I saw it as just one more thing to pack into my stuffed luggage and then find a place in my cramped room, I'm really happy she ignored my request and bought it anyways. If you watch any of my videos, or just look up a live concert on Youtube and see the sea of pink lightsticks moving in unison, well, it's kind of amazing ... and a little scary only in that I tend to think of any group synchronized activity as the beginnings of a cult and at any moment we'll be told to sacrifice the person sitting next to us to the glory of Morrowyllx or some other obscure feaster of souls and the worst part being I won't know what's going on until the moment the knife gets plunged into my chest since I don't speak Korean (I need to learn a new language).
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| Pre-show set up |
Then the show started! The shining lights, the blaring speakers, the flashing screens in the background, the screaming crowd ... it was a lot to take in all at once, especially for my first ever concert. At that time, the stories about people fainting from excitement or anxiety attacks crept into my head. Subtly, I took a lot of deep breaths and focused on the seat back in front of me, thinking about how embarrassing it would be to faint in my cramped seat. Seriously, though, my plane seat had more leg room.
I got my bearing back just as Blackpink got on stage. I want to say they started the concert off with their newest song at the time, "Ddu Du Ddu Du" but I don't have a video to prove it. At the start I was really hesitant about recording the show since Tina said she saw people escorted out from other concerts she attended in the past for recording the concert. Only when I realized EVERYONE'S phones were out and security didn't care did I get the courage to do it too. Luckily I'm taller than most and the person who was supposed to be in the seat in front of me must've been murdered earlier in the day because s/he wasn't there (and death is the only thing that would've stopped me from coming). This way, I could keep my phone low while recording and not block my view or distract me from the show. I tried to get clips of every single song, even the solo acts they performed. It's old news now, but Jennie performed her solo debut song "Solo" and they showed the music video on the big screens. Some guy from Big Bang also performed a couple songs on his own. I think Tina said something along the lines of it being blasphemous that I don't know these songs or who that guy was. Between songs, the group talked on stage and Tina provided me with translations.
Hopefully those videos show up (I'm still not sure if they loaded correctly). This is the best quality I've got so now I'm not even sure why I was so scared they were going to kick me out for recording. When they finished all of their songs (at that point, I think they only have a dozen or so, and maybe half of them were singles) I saw people walking out of the arena. Well, if Marvel Studios taught me anything, just because the credits roll doesn't mean the movie is over and so I planned to sit there until they turned the arena lights back on. On the back of the placard we all got were the lyrics to a verse of one of their songs which the crowd was supposed to sing repeatedly to bring the group back out for an encore performance, like summoning Beetlejuice or something. That particular verse had a couple lines in English, so I got to shout those parts with the crowd.
The encore section was a different performance from the rest of the show. Instead of emitting the energy and excitement that they previously had, it was a lot more comfortable, more like I was watching a group of people perform at a karaoke bar or something, though with hundreds of other people. No fireworks or flashing lights or fancy clothes. Most of the arena lights were on and the four of them either stood or sat together wearing what looked like just regular clothes, not dancing across the stage in flashy concert clothing. The encore section seemed to invite the rest of the crowd to sing along rather than just watch in awe as we had done through the previous performances.
After the show, Tina and I headed to a less crowded train station to hang out. Most of the food places were already closed for the night which surprised me. Not that they were already closed, but that the concert went on that long. At the time of the concert, Blackpink just released their first album, which gave them, I think, just 9 songs in total so I thought the concert was going to be a lot shorter. We ended up grabbing donuts and coffee and hanging out in the station so we both could catch our respective trains home. I managed to walk back to the hostel without anyone mugging me for my concert merchandise stuffed into a huge plastic bag. Not that it isn't safe and I'm actually worried about being mugged, but just thinking of how embarrassing it would be that I don't have any money but an entire bag full of Blackpink merchandise.
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