How do I even begin to write about the most epic day of my life....
I'll start from the beginning!
Saturday, Sept 4, 2010.
Early in the morning my friend picked me up to go to SFO for our flight to Los Angeles. Basically the whole time we were freaking out.
When we arrived, more freaking out. It was funny because when we were slowly descending down to the airport, I saw a sign that said Staples (the store). I pointed it out to my friend and she got all excited for nothing hahaha.
We wanted to go to the International Arrival area to see the place where the SM Artists walked (lol) but we couldn't.
My friend's family's friend picked us up. She was really nice, and my friend being Korean, she was Korean also (I only understand a tiny bit of what they said sometimes). Ahjumma was super friendly :D
Then we went straight to the area around Staples Center! I was squealing inside when we passed by and also the JW Marriot, where some of the artists stayed, although most stayed at the Sheraton...which we never did find..... -.-
After parking, we went to a nearby Starbucks where when we walked in, these two guys and a girl who were wearing pink Soshified shirts walked out. Later on, some girls wearing the SFI Shinee World shirt came in too. :D It was so cool.
We stayed for a little bit to eat a sandwich and then we decided to go to the LA Convention Center a bit early, as we were planning to go to the Koreaboo fanmeet at 2 pm. We left a little after 1 pm. When we got to the parking lot there, there were many girls and guys walking too and some people were standing there, wearing tags that said "SM Town Live '10 in LA STAFF". So we followed some of the people in front of us up the stairs and into the building. There was a little sign that said "SM Town 505" (actually I don't recall the exact room number...it was 500 something lol.) I was a bit confused as I remember the Koreaboo people saying the fanmeet was in 408AB but we followed the people lol. Then we came across a giant, and I mean GIANT, line of people that went all the way to the end of the hall and around the little bend there and back again. I was like "....I THOUGHT WE WERE EARLY." There were many people wearing pink shirts there and then this girl came with name tags and asked for your name. She wrote with a pink sharpie.
It wasn't until later, like 20 minutes later, until I realized something was not right. A girl wearing a Soshified shirt came and said, "Any Soshified staff? Anyone?" Then it hit me. I remember reading that Soshified was NOT planning on coming to the Koreaboo fanmeet. I was like "uhmmm...." Then the girls in front of me turned around and said, "This is for SNSD only. The one for everyone is somewhere else." I was really annoyed lol. We waited all that time in line for NOTHING. So we quickly ran to room 408, where thankfully, the fanmeet had not started yet as we got there before 2:00. But there was a line (probably not as long as Soshified...but then again there were crowds of people lined up in the front.)
The atmosphere was amazing. I wish I could be with kpop lovers 24/7. A girl in front had on a red DBSK Always Keep the Faith shirt and then a guy walked up to her and said, "I loove your shirt." Lol. Then the girls who I guess was friends of that guy started playing Lucifer and two of them started dancing to the tutting part. I was like alskfj;alskfd inside. I also heard someone playing Sorry, Sorry. I had been texting my Twitter friend who was near the front of the line so haha we went over to their. Although the front wasn't really a line...more like a mob.
They finally opened the doors at 2:15 and it was legitely mayhem getting in. Some people started screaming AHHHHHHH when everyone was pushing in lol. When people were in, they immediately charged for the different booths. My friend lined up for the Super Junior one, where a line was already growing while I went for DBSK stuff for Yuriko xP. After I managed to get some stuff, I went back to the SuJu booth where my friend was almost near the front...however there were people cutting in line all over the place and then they announced they sold out of shirts. :( I was very sad. I didn't get any SuJu stuff! But I did get my SHINee Cheer Pack that I ordered off SFI earlier to be picked up at the meetup. :) It was really gorgeous...the LED stick and the glow in the dark shirt hahaha.
So after I predominantly got everything I wanted, we walked around just to browse but didn't do that much. There was a DJ playing music and then he started playing Sorry, Sorry and OMG. SO FREAKING EPIC. Everyone cheered and then people all over the room started dancing to it. I felt right at home with all the kpop lovers. LOL.
My friend and I signed one of the SM TOWN shirts that Koreaboo was selling. The dude said it was going to be given to the artists and you could sneak your name into the shirt if you wanted LOL. So I wrote "SHINee Hwaiting! -Glennda". I hope the shirt got to the SM artists!
There was an aegyo competition, which I didn't join and now regret
We left soon after because there was nothing else to really do...although I kinda wanted to stay. I wish I did because there were dance competitions (which I wouldn't have joined anyways but still) and also dance mobs, where the whole crowd danced to a song. They danced to Abracadabara and Ring Ding Dong! Urgh! I would totally have joined that! x___x
So we ended up walking to Staples Center, where a small crowd was already gathering. We decided to just line up anyways, even though there was almost 2 hours left until the concert. More people started to gather and then we see a sky writer...which eventually wrote "RELIVE SMTOWN AT ALLKPOP.COM" It was so freaking cool! I mean, how many times do you get to see letters in the sky about a kpop concert? I can only imagine the clueless people who don't know of kpop who saw that and wondered what allk-pop was LOL.
I managed to meet up with a friend of a friend of a friend, who I started talking to through facebook LOL. It's complicated. But we let her and her sister join us in line haha. I also met some new people who happened to be behind us. They were SuJu stans. It was pretty funny because they were trying to figure out how to smuggle in the light sticks so one of them stuck it in her shirt.
I'm not sure when this happened but apparently some people heard Lucifer being played in Staples before the concert started and everyone was screaming because obviously SHINee was in rehearsal xD. I just heard that people were like glued to the walls of Staples to hear more.
It was pretty much agony waiting for the Staples staff to let us in at 6:00. When it finally hit 6, people started yelling "5...4....3...2....1....
AHHHHH!!!!" They finally let us in around 7 minutes later and it was crazy. Wel, there were doors all around the building and people lined up everywhere because you had to pass through one by one through the metal detector while handing your bag to the other security guard, who didn't do much except open it lol. I hid my lightsticks into the DBSK shirt I got for Yuriko (hehe) and folded it neatly and placed it on top LOL. So when they opened the bag all they would see is a bright red shirt.
My friend and I ended up being seperated from the nice girls we met in line (and sadly we didn't get their names) and my friend of a friend of a friend with her sister. I immediately ran for it, trying to look for concert goods but they were nowhere to be seen...Then we came across the giant mob of people (and I mean crazy mob.....you could not get through it...) around the YesStyle table because everyone wanted the free package from them. Haha I wasn't completely sure on what was going on but I joined in with the pushing and the shoving for some white slip apparently. This girl who got it was trying to get out of the crowd and ended up shouting "Here! Here! Take it!" and gave one to me LOL. It was just asking for like basic information and how we got to know about YesStyle.com . I ended up borrowing a pen from this random dude cause I didn't have one haha.
After making an entire circle of the first floor of Staples Center, we trudged to our seats in Section 206. :) We were kinda scared to see the creepy old man from the Soshified fanmeet sitting two seats from us....but then later two Cassies came over and it ended up the guy was in the next section lol. There weas also a kinda cute guy on my left side who was a really amazing singer....haha and I only know that because he kept singing along to songs. Pre-concert, some songs were being played over the sound system including this one which we didn't really know and the guy next to me said, "It's H.O.T." Yeah. Then BoA's "Eat You Up" came on and when I told my friend what the song was called, she thought I said "H20" LMAO.
ARE YOU READY TO HEAR ABOUT THE ACTUAL CONCERT? LOL A COOKIE TO YOU IF YOU ACTUALLY READ WHAT I WROTE ABOVE.
Btw not all of these are in order....I tried.
So the lights dimmed and people screamed, as expected. xD. The intro video started playing and it was very adorable. Then the first act was up - J Min!
Haha I did cheer but I didn't know who she was...I recorded it and you can hear my friend and I saying, "WHO'S THAT?" "I HAVE NO IDEA!"
But she was really good :) Her voice and her guitar skills were pretty darn amazing. Then she went on to talk about how most of us in the crowd probably didn't know who she was because she spends most of her time in Japan. Then she went to speak half in English and half in Japanese. She performed another song and then was gone.
Then the CSJH The Grace girls came on - Sunday and Dana! They each performed solos and then one duet together. Their voices are just gorgeous. Seriously. Even though I don't really know CSJH The Grace....I was awed by their vocals.
f(x) came on with La Cha Ta! The stadium went crazy! (I feel bad for the opening acts because no one really knows them.... D: ) OMG I LOVE f(x) SO MUCH. I remember sitting there, screaming slash recording, and thinking about how that was f(x). IN THE FLESH. OMG. I was really disappointed to see that f(x) came as four ........ Amber missing as per the usual now.... I was really sad because I heard some girls talking before the concert about how they saw f(x) including Amber...
After they were done, they stopped and talked for a little bit. Of course Krystal did most of the talking since she is a Californian girl (along with Amber...). She mentioned how amazing it was to be performing in LA's Staples Center. f(x) did introductions also and OMG SULLI IS SO ADORABLE WITH HER ACCENT "Hi, I'm Sulli~" with her tongue rolling around her name. She's so cute. xD And LUNA OMG ADORABLE ALSO. "Hiii~ I'm Luna! *waves*" Victoria, I LOVE HER. She spoke Mandarin! She said something along the lines of how she knew there were lots of Chinese in the crowd (crowd screams) and some other stuff. :) She's too cute. Krystal ended their talk segment with "I'd like to introduce my sister, Jessica..." (crowd screams more)
So yes. Next was Krystal and Jessica with their Tik Tok duet! Eeeee Sica! :D They were both awesome.
After that, Chu started playing. ^____^ The biggest surprise was during Amber's rap part and you know how the song goes "AMBER!" before Amber raps. This time, however, instead of saying "Amber", they go "MINHO!" and CRAZINESS OMG. I WAS FREAKING DYING BECAUSE HE WAS THE FIRST SHINEE MEMBER I LOVED AND THE FIRST SHINEE MEMBER FOR ME TO SEE IN PERSON. Anyways, of course the crowd goes wild. That was just not expected at all. He did the rap pretty awesomely because he is Minho after all and then he left the stage right after that lol. f(x) finishes with Chu and then goes off.Although I was still pretty much dazed...my mind was only thinking "HOLY CRAP THAT WAS CHOI MINHO!"
Zhang Li Yin came on and she spoke a lot of Mandarin haha. I reallly like her! She's so underrated though x___x She has a lot of talent! I believe she sang one or two songs...I know one of them was a Mandarin song though, all apparently from her first album which she's been singing for a long time now. So I hear.
Then it was Kangta! Whoo! After a solo (or two) he said he was going to sing a duet with Ara-ssi, and I distinctly remember that because both my friend and I thought he was going to sing with ARASHI LOL. And then Staples showed the names "KANGTA ARA" and we went OOH. Ara-ssi. Aha....... It was pretty funny. My friend decided to save the battery for the camera but was unprepared for Onew when he came on stage as a Chinese delivery boy LOL. (Crowd goes wild of course).I was like HOMG IT'S ONEWWWWW ONEWWW OMG. So it was quite sad my friend didn't get the best shot of Onew before he rushed off stage. But it was a really adorable duet! My friend got a good shot of when Kangta got on his knees and gave her the flower. It was ADORABLE OKAY.
I believe Kim Min Jong came on next. Yeah. Didn't know who he was either, but he was pretty awesome too. xD
Then it was ...yes.......my beautiful biases.....the shining SHINee baby!!!!!! Onew appeared all of a sudden in the middle of the stage singing Stand By Me and OMG CRAZINESS (but I'm sure you already knew that). I was freaking out. There they were. Onew. Jonghyun. Key. And on the other stage - Minho. Taemin. (would you look at that! my top two~) Stand By Me is such a pretty song...although Onew, Jjong, and Key did most of the singing and Taemin and Minho kinda just stood there looking pretty for the majority of it haha.
Then they got together in the middle stage and Noona Neomu Yeppeo started. FREAK OUT ALSKJDF. I LOVE THAT SONG. (well I legitely love most of their songs xD) Crowd goes wild at Onew's "Noona my MVP~~". alsjdf Taemin and his cute dancing. laksjdfas;ldkjfadf. When the song ended, they had a short talk section. OMG. Well, of course they said their signature "Annyeonghaseyo! Binaneun SHINee imnida!" But they immediately followed that with another 90 degree bow (because our boys are so polite :D ) and "Hello! We are SHINee!" MORE FREAKING OUT FROM ME. I was hoping for individual introductions in English but it didn't happen, sadly lol. But Key spoke English! He said a LOT actually o.o His English is more English than Engrish, and I was very impressed! What he said was adorable too. He talked about how SHINee means to receive light and how tonight they were receiving a lot of light. It was adorable. He ended with "Are you ready for the next song? ARE YOU REAADYYY? GET DOWN!" And Get Down started playing. Minho - amazing rapper. Seriously. He's so freaking fierce, that bb. Then that song was immediately followed by Juliette.AHHH THE DANCING. AND MINHO'S "SHIN HO~" *air kissy thingy* I LOVE TAEMIN'S DANCING SO MUCH. Okay I'll stop fangirling now.
SHINee went off the stage after that and TRAX came on. I OFFICIALLY LOVE THEM. They're amazing! Especially the blonde one (forgot his name haha sorry...) with his guitar skills. But really, TRAX is underrated also. I think they played this song which I don't know of and then they played their newly released song, Oh! My Goddess. I really really love that song....it's gorgeous. ^___^
After they went off stage, it became dark again and then Staples changed it from "TRAX" to "LEE YEON HEE TAEMIN". MORE FREAK OUT AS YOU CAN ASSUME. Taeminnie was on the piano for Lee Yeon Hee and her beautiful voice. (Seriously. All the underrated girls have amazing vocals.)Taemin~ I have a piano too at home~ you can come over anytime you want~Haha no but really he was pretty good too. :)
Next was "ZHOU MI LUNA" eeehhhh omgg Zhou Mi! I love him!!! I was really not expecting a duet between him and Luna. (If I had known he would have a duet with anyone I would have guessed Victoria since she's Chinese also lol). I showed my mom when I got home the fancams of their duet and she thought Luna WAS the Chinese one in f(x) because her pronunciation was really good. Everyone already knows how gorgeous Luna's voice is anyways. It's simply omg. In the end the two held hands and it was so cute!!!!!
Of course right after Zhou Mi would be "HENRY HEECHUL JAY". Henry came on with an AMAZING violin intro for Heechul's Sonata of Temptation. HENRY IS SO GOOOOD I DON'T EVEN. Heechul is epic. Just simply epic. Then he "kissed" Henry and everyone screams. Hahahahaha oh gosh Heechul. Of course you would. Even in America. XDD. Jay came on for a little bit but most of the times it was just Heechul with his epic voice and then he dropped to his knees and it just got more epic then.
I think Seohyun and Kyuhyun had their maknae duet after that. Haha Staples Center had a fail. They wrote "KYUHYUN HEOHYUN". Of course the crowd screams when the two hold hands....all I must say is that it was really awkward lol. Kyuhyun had his serious maknae I-don't-wanna-do-this face on and Seohyun had her calm face as usual. xD But their voices are beautiful together!
Later Eunhyuk, Shindong, Minho, and Key (the main rappers of SuJu and SHINee!) came out from the crowd with A-Yo! AHH EPICNESS. AGAIN, MINHO IS A FIERCE RAPPER AND THE REST ARE AMAZING ALSO. Eunhyuk's whole ghetto outfit was pretty awesome with the bling LOL.
SNSD appeared with Run Devil Run! SONES go wild O.O It was like a blur of pink lights from them lol. But ahhh the epic So Nyeo Shi Dae! They really are in SYNC. Their leg movements in Run Devil Run were amazing. You have to give them credit for their awesomeness :) Then they had a short talk segment also, where they started taking off their black jackets and SONES went crazy again. I was just kinda sitting there awkwardly, thinking "Am I supposed to cheer about SNSD stripping off their jackets? o.o" But they then continued with Kissing You and then went off.
Super Junior appeared after (I think??) and EXTREME CHEERING. It is SuJu after all. ^___^ They came out with the korean Super Girl remix. AHHHHH I LOVE IT. You really can't stop staring at Donghae's arm muscles lol. And OMG YESUNG. AND WOOKIE. Super Junior just screams epicness. They had a short talk section also with their introduction and Henry speaking some English on behalf of SuJu ^____^ Then they got Siwon to say some stuff and he was adorable! XD His English is really awesome too! It was cute when he said "Are you having......enjoying?" Haha SO CUTE. He was really humble to everyone. Oh Siwon. ^___^ They started with No Other and ahhhhh cutenesss! After that was Bonamana and c rowd goes wild, especially during the pelvic thrust part AHAHA. Oh gosh. Lee Teuk was totally teasing the fans during one of his solo when he revealed a part of his shoulder lol. Oh Teukie you. I was kind of sitting there dazed (yes xD) because they were right there. SU. PER. JU. NI. OR. They also had this dance thingy and after that they went off too.
Queen of SM! BoA! SHE IS SO COOL OMG. I forget what she sang first.......but her voice when she's speaking English is really adorable haha. It's kinda higher pitched and just plain cute. She had some technical difficulties where she kinda halted the concert (but she is queen so I'm sure it's fine xDD ). I don't remember much except that it was dark and you just hear BoA crying ".....I can't hear my voice in my ear monitor~~~~ *repeats*" But then I think some staff fixed it and she started with Dangerous like a pro. After it ended, she stopped and talked for a little bit, sitting down on a stool. She talked in English about how it was her return to Korea after 5 years and her 10 year anniversary since debut! (loud cheers). BoA is just too cute. She then sang one of her favorite ballads from her album (I think). Then there was "I Did It For Love" (or was that the ballad?....o.o) where Key came out and sang with her! The two had a very long moment where they stared into each other's eyes and I was like oooh. Intense. Hyungwhore Minho must be jealous lol.
Super Junior came out again with the Sorry, Sorry remix and JUST FREAKING EPICNESS since it is their most popular song. A lot of sick dancing and I think this was when Siwon like opened his shirt and showed off his chocolate abs....oh gosh. I was pretty much dead.
SNSD brought out Tell Me Your Wish remix with their new outfits from their Japanese Genie PV. Eeeeee~ The leg motions are really cool haha.Once again, so freaking in sync, just like SHINee. I actually caught some times when SuJu was not in sync during Super Girl xD but then again most of them have not danced that as the rest of the official SJ-M members. :3
SHINee came back later with Ring Ding Dong and ahhhhhhhhhhhh. So cool. I love the dance. Taeminni was so presh. Yeah and during the "rocko rocko rocko rocko~" (or whatever they actually sing haha) with Minho in front. Yeah. I was pretty much screaming my lungs out whenever SHINee was out. The most anticipated song of them was Lucifer, however. I distinctly remember when the stage went dark sometimes and you couldn't tell who was next, some people started chanting at one point "LUCIFER~ LUCIFER~ LUCIFER!"
Later there was a Jonghyun and Yesung duet (YESUNG MY BIAS AND JJONG...WELL I FREAKING LOVE JJONG OKAY). So beautiful. omg. Yesung was really kinda sorta close to me. :3
There was also a Onew and Ryeowook duet! Haha Staples had another fail with "ONEW RYOWOOK". DUBU LEADER AND WOOKIE ARE AN AMAZING COMBINATION. They sang "The Name I loved" from SHINee's Year Of Us Mini-album which I found kinda funny because it's a SHINee song. But Ryeowook did fantastic. EEE.
f(x) came back with NU ABO. Dude. Luna's high notes are 10000000000x more amazing live. WHY IS HER VOICE SO FREAKING GORGEOUS.
Soshi came back with Oh! :D and SuJu came back with A Man in Love. ^___^
There was a dance battle with Taemin starting off all being epic! He's crazy good at dancing....it's pretty amazing. Eunhyuk joined soon after, followed by Hyoyeon, Luna, Sooyoung, Yoona, Yuri, and Minho. It was pretty amazing...and very intense.
Then f(x) came back some time later with Mr. Boogie. I still haven't seen that performed with Amber yet. :( Once again - Luna. Simply amazing.
SHINee was back with Up & Down and I was very disappointed when Lucifer didn't start playing afterwards lol.
I know a certain friend of mine has probably been scanning this for her bias xP so I'll finally get to it. It was already 3 and a half hours into the concert and then finally the stage darkens again around 10:34 pm. Some random Engrish is spoken (which I don't remember) and then you hear. "WE ARE DONG. BANG. SHIN. KI." The crowd went simply insane. The Cassies next to us finally stand up lol. Changmin and Yunho descend from the sky OMG IT WAS SO EPIC. They didn't actually perform for a very long time. They sang a part of Mirotic (hot dayum Changmin's high notes were SO SO AMAZING. I DON'T EVEN . OMG. ) Then the two had their own little solos and then were back together for this song.....which I forgot the name of. But it was epic. It is DBSK lol. They stopped to have a talk and I thought they would say a lot of stuff but basically it consisted of "HELLO! WE ARE DONG BANG SHIN KI! ..... THANK YOU!" My friend and I were LOL-ing because we were expecting a long talk hahaha.Super Junior had "Don't Don" with Heechul on drums, TRAX and Changmin....Changmin and his very very ripped shirt which he completely ripped off later...well at least the top part. It was uhm. Revealing Changmin. O.O Very gorgeous.....lol. Changmin's voice is so beautiful eeeekk.
The stage goes black once again and then you hear the introduction to Lucifer (the one in the MV and not official studio mp3). CROWD GOES WILD OMG. As wild as Sorry, Sorry and DBSK. The Cassies stood up too and so did the guy next to me (who kept singing along haha). Lucifer is a song that almost everyone enjoys (minus select Sones :P ). AHHH THE TUTTING PART LIVE IS AMAZING. SHINEE - SO MUCH IN SYNC WHEN DANCING IT'S CRAZY. Maknae is so fierce and everyone is just so fierce. AHHHH. I just wish my camera didn't die before that and that they sang Lucifer earlier....but it was to make it more epic I suppose. xP. Jonghyun/Onew's voices are so beautiful. I've missed the full version of Lucifer~ It was nice to see them perform it again. I was dying during the end when Taemin is strutting around like the princess he is xD. If only that song could have gone on forever and ever.
I believe SuJu came on with "U" at sometime. AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE.CAUSE I CAN'T STOP THINKING BOUT YOU GIRL~~~
The last to perform was BoA with her epic Hurricane Venus performance. She's just too fierce.
Then everyone came on stage with their pink official SM TOWN '10 shirts and I felt like crying because it was ending. The best night of my life was ending. SM family is adorable. Jonghyun had his camera out and was taking selcas of everyone. There was fanservice all over the place and BoA was on the back stage still in her Hurricane Venus outfit. Confetti poured out from the ceiling and everyone linked hands and bowed. Slowly they all exited the stage, not without me being jealous when some of them high-fived the lucky fans at the floor seats. Some of the groups said final goodbyes, like SHINee who said something along the lines of "Thank you! We are SHINee!" And then they were gone. SM Town was over.
I was pretty much crazy dazed afterwards. It was so much epicness packed into one night. If only it could have lasted longer.
So everyone slowly left the venue and I did manage to meet up shortly with one of my LJ friends :)
Just simply. Amazing.
Thank you SM Town for the best night of my life. It truly was.
~~~
I'm still uploading pics onto my tumblr (elektric-angel.tumblr.com) and videos to youtube. :)
