Seoul Soul Festival

I went to the Seoul Soul Festival at the Korean War Memorial on October 9 with my friend Tony. I met him very randomly but we have become really great friends because we like shopping, kpop, and geeky things. I was really upset that I missed Taeyang's Solar solo concert a few weekends before at Kyung Hee University, which is about 10 minutes from my apartment. Tony had gotten tickets for the concert, but luckily he wanted to see Taeyang again, so we went to the Seoul Soul Festival together!

The concert spanned three nights and we went to the second. The first night was a lot of Korean hip-hop groups, including DJ Doc, whose song 나이런사람이야 is a HUGE hit right now (I hear it multiple times a night when we go out, and at least half the teachers in my school have it as their ringtone). The night we went was Se7en, Taeyang, and Musiq Soulchild. I would have liked to go to the third night as well to see Jay Park, Sean Kingston, and Musiq Soulchild again, but I just was going to die if I didn't see Taeyang.

Getting there was an adventure in itself. We got off the subway station and found that the directions we had failed to mention which exit to walk straight from. After asking various cabs and three different convenience store worksers (by asking I mean Tony showed them the Hangeul for "Korean War Memorial" on his phone and I said "odi-e-yo?") we found our way. We walked past a US Army Base and then found ourselves in a museum area. A nice guard could tell that we were lost and helped us find the concert, which was like on the other side of the building.

First off, while waiting in line to get our wristbands, we heard Taeyang's entire soundcheck! And also saw him as we walked in. I was soooo excited. Then we got in line to go to the stage and chatted with some nice people from Hong Kong who came to Korea JUST to see Taeyang. I also bought the poster at the beginning of this post as a souvenir! It's pretty big and was only about $1.85 USD (2,000 KRW) and now I can see Taeyang's beautiful face on my wall every day! We managed to get a standing place pretty close to the stage.

After watching half an hour of looped Jagermeister advertisements and Se7en music videos, Se7en came onstage and performed. His dance songs were great but he sang a lot of ballads that really dragged on. He was an amazing dancer and I really look forward to seeing him again at the YG Family Concert in December.

Then, it was Taeyang's set! He started with "I'll Be There" and his dancers were writhing around on the floor and he popped out of the stage from underground. Very cool. His set was about 45 minutes long and it was basically just 45 minutes of Taeyang's Michael Jackson impersonation. He even sang "I Want You Back" and messed up one of the verses and kept saying "yo" and "hey". Ooooh Dong Young Bae oppa, you are so cute. He didn't sing Wedding Dress, which I was hoping to hear, but he did sing Superstar, which is one of my favorite songs. He ended his encore with Take It Slow and threw his sweatshirt, shirt, and undershirt into the audience. After his set there was a break and I saw the girl who caught his t-shirt. She was white so I asked if I could touch it, and then Tony snapped a picture of me with it. It's covered in makeup and it was dripping wet with Taeyang's odorless sweat. It was awesome.

We stayed for Musiq Soulchild a bit but neither of us really wanted to see him and I had made plans to go out for my friend Andrew's birthday so we got a quick Korean meat snack and then peaced out.

I took a TON of videos and uploaded them on Vimeo but I'll just post the best ones here. So far I've only uploaded Se7en videos. Here are my favorites:

Digital Bounce (unfortunately, no guest appearance from TOP who raps in the song)

Se7en- Digital Bounce (Seoul Soul Festival) from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

The sound is bad because we were very close to the speakers.

Se7en at Seoul Soul Festival from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

Each Kpop band has their own kind of glowstick. Se7en's are shaped like a 7.

Se7en at Seoul Soul Festival [2] from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

Better Together is my favorite song so I took too many videos. No one was expecting the fire so we all screamed. Also, where we were, it was really hot.

Se7en- Better Together [2] from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

Se7en- Better Together [3] from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

Se7en- Better Together (Seoul Soul Festival) from Melissa Carn on Vimeo.

I'll upload the pictures and the Taeyang videos later! Korean singers really know how to throw a good show, and Korean fans get really into it, so it was a lot of fun.

Also, in case you aren't familiar with Kpop, here are the most recent videos by Se7en and Taeyang: