Music Bank Paris 120208

A few notes before you start reading:
- This was the first time I ever attended a concert, and it's also the first time I ever write a fan account.
- The battery of my camera died about halfway through the concert, so sadly not that many photos.
- I'll try to cover as much as I can, but I'll probably end up forgetting a lot.
- For those of you who didn't know yet; I am a Sone, some bias may be included.
- I’ll probably go into much more detail about the female artists’ performances.
- It’s long.

At around 3PM I arrived in Paris, I was supposed to meet up with a fellow Sone from Belgium and his friend (who actually wasn’t into Kpop at all). But because they were still on their way I decided to have a look around the stadium where the concert would be taking place. As soon as I got near the entrance for the standing ticket holders (I had a standing ticket as well), I saw a line that was already gigantic. I ended up asking the people at the front of the line how long they had been there, and they said since 10PM. Because it was freezing outside they were allowed to sleep inside the venue until 9AM. I met up with the guys from Belgium and we decided to warm up a little and have some drinks before standing in line. At around 4:30PM we got into line, because there was a huge gap at around 1/3 of the line and no security around, we slipped underneath the ribbon and ended up at quite a nice position. The collection point for our Soshified T-shirt turned out to be pretty near to where we were standing, so I called them over and we got our pink shirts and pink balloons with a LED light in them.

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It wasn’t long before out feet started hurting because of the cold, since the ground was extremely cold. At 6PM the doors were supposed to be opened, but it wasn’t until 7PM that we started moving. We were glad to be finally inside at around 7:30PM after standing in the freezing cold for a while.

The audience mainly consisted of females between ages 15 and 20. There were surprisingly a lot less Asians than I had expected honestly. The three of us stood out a little, as there weren’t that many white guys. The awesome thing about this though was that I had a near perfect view onto the stage as I was quite a bit taller than anyone there (and I’m only 6’1).

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Finally at 8PM it was time for the concert to start, all the artists were on stage. However, SNSD’s Sooyoung was missing, I had no idea but she turned out to be one of the MCs for the concert. Together they all sang along to the song “Champs-Élysées”. Most of the performances consisted of a medley, and about 2 songs. There were a few special stages with cross-group collaborations, but I don’t remember the exact order of these so I’ll save those for last.

The first artist to perform was U-kiss, overall their performance was pretty good, and I was surprised I actually knew quite a lot of their songs. Next up to perform was Sistar, one of the first things I noticed was how some people call Hyorin “butterface” but she was actually very pretty in person. Out of Sistar I only knew 2 members before; Hyorin and Bora, but the member that caught my eyes the most was neither of those two. Soyou was the one that really stood out to me.
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They performed Ma Boy and So Cool, overall their performances were ejoyable. The only thing that I didn’t appreciate that much was the length of their shorts, or rather the lack thereof. When they went up to the front of the stage, I ended up only looking at their backs because I was pretty near to the main stage. I’m sure everyone knows the part where they bent over during their So Cool performance. And having slightly longer shorts would have been a bit more classy, in my opinion.

The next group was 4 minute, which kind of was “Hyuna and the girls for me”. No offense to any of the other members, I’m sure they are all great in some way. But the gap between Hyuna’s popularity and that of the other members is quite significant. It was quite obvious from the cheers, that Hyuna was a lot more popular. They performed Mirror Mirror, which I'm not a big fan of. And Heart to Heart, this is a song from them I did like and during their performance Hyuna hugged one of the other girls which caused some loud cheers.

It was time for the last group before the break to perform. And I was surprised this group ended up performing this early. This was the group I was expecting to get the loudest cheers. While standing in line I noticed there were a lot of Shawols around me, but I ended up being wrong. 4 Members of Shinee were on stage, ready to perform their hit songs including Ring Ding Dong and Lucifer, apparently Onew wasn't there. The song I enjoyed the most from Shinee definitely was Lucifer, the fans didn’t disappoint when they sang along to the lyrics.

Then we had a 20 minute break, I decided to start deleting some photos because I had already taken over 400 and most where shit anyway. Standing in line for a while and bending my back to take photos really took its’ toll on my lower back as it started to hurt pretty badly. The 2 guys from Belgium decided to move a bit back and get some drinks, which in hindsight probably was a better idea as I had a pretty bad view every time the artists went to the front of the stage. But I decided to stay where I was because I was pretty close and didn’t want to end up at some crappy spot.

After the break 4 girls appeared on stage and a Kara song started playing, weirdly without even looking who they were. Or even thinking, because Kara wasn’t even attending, I thought to myself I should take some nice pictures of Nicole for TuElite (yeah, weird, I know). Anyway, they turned out to be some kind of dance cover group. Then while they were dancing to Roly Poly, T-ara appeared and they danced together. This caused loud cheers from the audience, and it was the first time during the concert I started to really cheer along loudly. The next song they performed made me incredibly happy and super excited. They started to sing Why Are You Being Like This and I remember singing and cheering along pretty hard. I was so amazed they performed this song and not only their recent released, it felt amazing. I really couldn’t keep my eyes off of Hyomin, she's the one I like the most usually anyway, but she is just so incredibly gorgeous, it’s insane, that girl is probably the best looking girl I have ever seen, she’s pretty close to being perfect and her outfit was kind of hot as well. Especially when she did a special stage which I'll cover later on.

Soyeon was just incredibly cute and her face was as well. While constantly staring at Hyomin throughout most of the performance, I noticed Hwayoung standing behind her. And that girl looks really good and is pretty cute in reality. She was smiling throughout their performance and appeared to be genuinely happy, she also gave a fair amount of fan service. This made me smile and she definitely doesn’t deserve to be called a troll. Qri was just kind of not there at all though, she really didn’t appear to have any presence. As some of you could have already guessed, Eunjung wasn’t part of the performances due to her knee injury, however she did fly to Paris along with the other girls. And the moment she appeared on stage I literally got chills down my spine. I was so delighted to see this girl come on stage and talk to all the fans and try some French (which for me was pretty silly all the time as I’m more likely to understand them when they talk Korean than French). The screams and cheers this girl got were absolutely no joke and it was just very touching to see her appear even if she wasn’t able to perform with the rest of her members.

The last song they performed was of course Lovey Dovey. It was time to chant along loudly and the overall performance is really fun to see.

The next performance was by 2pm, and though I wasn’t that bothered by the fangirls until now, this definitely changed when they appeared. The cheers were incredibly loud, and it was pretty much just shrieking. I was surprised by the popularity of this group as I thought when it comes to boy groups, Shinee would be more popular, but boy was I wrong. I’m not really that into 2pm so I was kind of just standing there, thinking; meh, I just hope these girls stop shrieking soon. They definitely know how to make a good performance though. Overall their performance was pretty impressive, they did some head flips and stuff, and most importantly, their fans sounded like they enjoyed it a lot. Then Taecyeon decided to have a little fan event. He was going to take a picture of the audience, and the audience all had to flash their cameras (I had already run out of battery life for my camera shortly after the break). I’m sure this isn’t anything incredibly special but it was pretty cool nonetheless.

Thanks to Spekulatius ^

Next up was another boy group, Beast. I think among all the boy groups this was the one who’s performance I liked the most. Beautiful and Fiction are both great songs, and although I wasn't really into their dancing and stuff, I still really liked their performances.

Now, finally, the moment I had been waiting for. The moment I had been longing for, for so long. Finally seeing my 9 girls in reality. I was so excited and my heart started beating faster as the moment for the light to go on got closer. Then it happened, Genie started playing and 9 angels appeared on stage. I was incredibly surprised to hear the sounds of Genie play as they walked down the stairs onto the stage. And they looked so incredibly beautiful, I can’t describe it. Then they switched into Hoot and started dancing, of course I was singing along with all my heart. They then progressed into Gee and my brain already had stopped working properly at this point, I’m being completely serious here, my brain literally didn’t function like it is supposed to. I was cheering and spazzing with my pink balloon and shouting GEE GEE GEE GEE as loud as I could, it probably was quite embarrassing, but that didn’t bother me. I was there to enjoy their performance and to cheer on the girls that have given me so much in the short time since I got to know them.

The next song they performed was Mr Taxi, and I was quite happy once I heard it was the Korean version. Of course the Japanese version is good as well, but lately I got used to the Korean version, so the lyrics were a bit more familiar. No surprise here, I shouted along as loud as I could, and doing the fan chant SO NYUH SHI DAE like in the original fan chant. Although I usually have no problem with them being a 9 member group, seeing them in front of me, I had absolutely no idea where to look. Perhaps it was because I was in awe, seeing them up close, taken aback by their beauty and having a brainfart. But I really couldn’t focus at all and I honestly don’t remember that much which is quite sad. Throughout the concert until now the audio had been amazing. The volume was just right, the quality was good as well, and there had not been any microphone failures. But guess what, Taeyeon, who arguably is the main singer in the group, had a failing microphone. Which was a little frustrating. After Mr Taxi had finished all of the girls, except Taeyeon went up to the front of the stage. Taeyeon quickly went to visit the audio staff to get her microphone issue fixed, but she got sent back on stage without any help. She then sort of ran in her cute dorky way to the girls who were already at the front of the stage, this to big amusement of the audience as we all laughed. They then introduced themselves 1 by 1, some of them said something in French as well. Tiffany then spoke a few words and said it was a special night, not just for us, for them as well, and that is was almost Sooyoung's. We then sang Happy Birthday together to her.

While the girls were standing at the front of the stage, someone threw a small plush toy onto the stage. Sunny picked it up and put it on the side of the stage because they were going to perform there, which was incredibly cute.

Their last song was going to be The Boys, and the moment I heard it was the Korean version and not the English version I was so happy, as I personally think the Korean version is a lot better than the English version. Finally it was time for some man chants as it had been mainly female screams throughout most of the concert. The promotion cycle for The Boys, is actually the first one I actively followed and watched every single performance of, as well as being my first K-pop album. So even though this arguably is one of the lesser songs they have released, it will always be special to me. The song started to play and it wasn’t long until it was time for the trade-mark fan chant GG! shortly followed by JIGEMEUN SONYUHSHIDAE, APPURODO SONYUHSHIDAE, JONGHWONY SONYUHSHIDAE. The GG! part was pretty noticeable, sadly there weren’t that many Sones, most were scattered throughout the venue, apart from a small group that was sitting up on the seated section a little behind me. So the JIGEMEUN SONYUHSHIDAE, APPURODO SONYUHSHIDAE, JONGWONHY SONYUHSHIDAE part wasn’t really that noticeable, and when I shouted this as loud as I could, I got a few stares but I was totally fine with that. The BRING THE BOYS OUT part was a little more well known and more people shouted along to it. Then they dropped to the floor and I shouted SO-NYUH-SHI-DAE, once again as loud as I could, by now my voice was already suffering but that wasn't going to stop me. During their performance it sounded like more members had trouble with their microphones, and Taeyeon’s just didn’t work at all during her My Heart part which was rather disappointing. Not having properly working microphones was really unfortunate and really left a bad taste because other than that everything was perfect. After they were done they did some fan servicing, and I finally got to see that one thing I was dying to see. Seeing Fany doing her famous Eyesmile, even though it wasn’t directly at me, I felt like flying and it felt amazing, I can’t describe how awesome that feeling was with mere words. It probably was one of the best moments during the whole event. All the other girls did some waving as well as an occasional heart, and Sunny was really cute, somehow this girl can go from hot to cute and back to hot in a snap call, which is pretty impressive. At this point I pretty much wish I was in that small Sone section in the seated section. They got a lot of fan service, and Taeyeon was waving at them like a little kid, it was so cute to see. I could definitely see why this girl is so immensely popular. 5 Of the girls went behind the stage, and the other 4, Sunny, Sooyoung, Yoona and Seohyun stayed on the stage. I mistakenly assumed they went to the audio staff which kind of got me a little angry, however, later on a fan cam I saw they just went to drink so my frustration was rather misplaced.
Full Fancam

Time had flown by and the event was coming to an end. All the artists and the MCs were on stage to say goodbye. The song they played as the goodbye song was DJ DOC’s Run To You. Of course I sang along as well while waving at SNSD and T-ara and making a small heart with my hands (lol).

During the concert there were also 3 special stages, U-Kiss’ Soohyun and SISTAR’s Hyorin performed Love Always Finds a Reason. To my surprise, Hyorin’s usual very distinct voice wasn’t noticeable at all. I’m usually not such a big fan of her voice so this was a pleasant surprise. They both sang really well and it was a nice change from all the more “poppy” songs that were performed.

Another one was a dance break with 4minutes’ Sohyun, Sistar’s Bora, T-ara’s Hyomin and SNSD’s Hyoyeon. Each of the girls first appeared one by one, dancing to different songs. And then all 4 of them got on stage and danced together, I don’t know whether this was intentional or not but they weren’t really in sync. I was absolutely stunned by Hyomin and Hyoyeon’s performance. As I stated earlier Hyomin is incredibly gorgeous and the dance she performed was smoking hot. When the “dancing queen” Hyoyeon appeared the cheers got really loud and she showed a very impressive dance performance, proving she is one of the best female dancers. Also, against popular opinion, she was really beautiful in person. Her face looked really different from what I was used to looking at pictures. I normally don’t see how she isn’t pretty anyway, but in reality she is truly beautiful. When you hear people say that Hyoyeon is the most popular member in Europe, this isn’t a complete lie. Though she arguably isn’t really more popular than any other specific member, she did get really, really loud cheers. A lot louder than what you are probably used to.

The last special stage was by U-Kiss’ Kevin, 2PM’s Junsu, BEAST’s Hyunseung and Shinee’s Taemin and they sang the song More than Words together. I can’t really recall that much about this performance to be frankly honest. There’s wasn’t anything particularly bad, not anything really amazing.

Altogether this was a very satisfying night, and I’m glad I was able to attend. I actually drove back the same night because I had lectures on the 9th. Next time I really want to stay longer, I was really sad I wasn’t able to meet up with anyone, other than the 2 guys from Belgium. There is something very special about being part of a fandom that I can’t really describe. I had a blast together with the 2 guys from Belgium, even though this was the first time we ever met. The guy that wasn’t into Kpop at all had a pretty good time as well, he just was a little weirded out by the fan girls’ shrieks. This is definitely something that I want to do a lot more in the future, going to a Kpop concert and meeting fellow fans from around the world is something that is just incredibly fun and very endearing. I look forward to the next concert, and hope that one day I’ll be able to see an SNSD solo concert live, as that would probably for me personally, be the most amazing experience ever. I hope in the future, if other people are attending as well we could meet up or something. Because it is a lot more fun to share your experience with people who are like minded, and also it helps a lot when standing in a boring line for several hours.

Lastly I would like to thank a few people who have been a help to me in various ways since I became a Kpop fan.
Moonsoshi9 (Moonwrath)
Kaiwa
Oniontaker

And a big thank you to Spekulatius for providing me with some additional feedback and pictures.

I hope you enjoyed my fan account, I hope it wasn’t too long (probably was). I would greatly appreciate any feedback, as this is, as I stated earlier, my first time doing anything like this.

Below is my compilation of pictures that I took during the concert, the quality isn’t great though.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?p6lbuf3t46fxenf
Or watch my album here: http://minus.com/mYqImKCHz#1

Edit: some fancams were not working properly
Edit2: Onew had an injured ankle, and was therefor not able to perform in Paris (thanks to Spekulatius for pointing that out)
Edit3: Added a picture of 2pm's fan event by Spekulatius

Music Bank Paris 120208

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