My First Kpop Concert

Admin
Jan 15, 2017
5 min read

BTS "The Red Bullet" Episode II

The Roundhouse, Sydney, Australia

10th July 2015

It was first Kpop concert I had ever been to and I was lucky enough for it to be one of my favourite groups ever, BTS. 'The Red Bullet' Tour announced that it was coming down under in late March or early April 2015. I had heard the news from either Facebook or SBS PopAsia and I almost fainted (not really but you get me). The tickets for the Sydney show were released on the 17th of April at 9 in the morning. Being new to Kpop concerts and just being new to concerts in general we made a huge mistake. Thinking that the Kpop/ARMY fan base wasn't that big in Australia we thought it would easy to get our hands on good tickets, we were wrong. We totally misjudged the Aussie Kpop/ARMY fan base and we tried to buy our tickets at around 4 in the afternoon. The VIP tickets had sold out in probably the first 2-3 hours, I was really bummed out because I really wanted to do Hi-Touch and even saved up the money for it. So after realising that VIP was gone we settled for the next best tickets but we were still super excited that we even had tickets at all.

[Pro-Tip: If VIP tickets are what you want then sit on whatever site the tickets come out on and refresh till they are released and you score VIP.]

[Pro-Tip: If you want to up your chances of getting VIP get people to help you buy them, people you're going with or even just your family and be waiting on the site on different devices.]

After buy the tickets I got even more excited and I started looking for set list of what they were going to play just so I could make my own playlist and listen to it on repeat. I started looking for fanchants so I could memorize them and shout them out at the show. My sister and I even made fan signs, mine said Min YoonGi in Hangeul in sparkly pink and purple with cute little hearts around it, my sister's was similar but hers said Kim NamJoon. We also bought Light Sticks, and it was a good thing we bought them online because they were not selling light sticks at the venue.

[Pro-Tip: I recommend buying your light stick online because it will be more expensive at the concert, or they won't be selling merch or they are and the light stick won't come with a battery.]

[Pro-Tip: If you do buy a light stick at the show, bring your own batteries in case and normally the batteries needed are AAA.]

From the Coast we had an hour flight down to Sydney the day before the concert to get settled in and look around as it was our first time in Sydney. The day of the Concert we caught a ride with one our friends we meet online who was also going. We got there fairly early but even at 8:30 in the morning the line was bigger than expected, another valuable lesson for the future.

[Pro-Tip: Waiting in line can be made easier by bringing a mini speaker or making friends with someone that has one.]

[Pro-Tip: Packing light is also important only bring what you really need, if you are doing your makeup in the line make sure you still only pack the make up you really need.]

Waiting there for about 12 hours wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, the line was actually very interesting. People played music, did Kpop dances, there were even giveaway and freebies. At one point every started going crazy because you could see a little of the boy rehearsal through of the back doors. the line started to shift and change at about 3 to 5 as it also started to rain. the doors opened at 6:30 and VIP had priority entry. Getting through the doors was tough as everyone was pushing out of excitement, our group ending up splitting up but we were all somewhere near the back. This was bad because my sister is really short and her being so far back she couldn't see literally anything. The only time she could see was when she looked through her phone raised in the air, the problem with this though is that the security was telling everyone to put phones away. For us it was a good lesson to learn now we know that we have to buy the tickets immediately and only settle for VIP. Start time was around 7:30 but if I remember correctly there was a bit of a delay.

Setlist:

N.O We Are Bulletproof pt 2. We On Hip Hop Lover Let Me Know Rain Blanket Kick Just One Day Look Here Propose No More Dream Tomorrow Miss Right I Like It If I Ruled The World (Rap Monster, Suga, J-Hope only) Cypher 3: Killer (Rap Monster, Suga, J-Hope only) War of Hormone Danger I Need U Boy In Luv

Encores: Road DOPE Fun Boyz Attack On Bangtan

The highlight of the concert for me had to have been 'We On', 'Hip Hop Lover' 'If I Ruled The World' and 'Cypher 3: Killer' purely because I love BTS Rap more than anything. For 'Hip Hop Lover' all the fans including myself went nuts, we jumped up and down chant "HIP HOP" along with the boys. As a direct contrast to those songs my other faves of the night were 'Blanket Kick', 'Just One Day', 'Miss Right' and 'I Like It'. Because as I said I loved their Rap but a;so their nice slowish grove song really get me too. Then ending with the 'DOPE', 'Fun Boyz' and 'Attack On Bangtan' really ending the night in a absolute high.

In between 'Tomorrow' and 'Miss Right' a video of the boys predebut which really got me tearing up. Just seeing them then and how far they had come was just amazing and it being my first Kpop concert I was just genuinely happy that it was BTS. After there was a karaoke sing along to 'Miss Right' with the fans. The the boys played rock, paper scissors with the penalty being aegyo, more specifically the gyiwomi song. The loser was Jungkook who did his best to be cute (personally I hate the whole cutie thing but other fans loved it). J-hope talked a lot which was really nice, seeing him try so hard was cure. Rapmon's English was on point as always, the rest of the boys tried hard to communicate with us. They all looked to be having a lot of fun on stage with each other and the fans. From what I could see they worked very hard on the choreo(as always, duh). Rapmon talked about studying in NZ and wanting to visit Aus and the members chimed in saying that they really liked Aus and the environment and people. Their voices were especially on point, V's huskiness is sexier in real life. The charisma was just dripping of the rappers on their stage, Suga could literally kill someone with his gaze while rapping. The dances even though the difficulty was flawless, not to mention the perfect sync on their dances.

Then the Encore to end the concert were to lit to be real. While they performed the songs having blasts of white paper and airbursts of gold and silver confetti. Then to end it all with a final explosion of streamer everywhere as the boys closed with “Attack on Bangtan”. One by one BTS left the stage, until it was just Jimin dancing all by himself and V had to came back on to drag him off. Like Jimin I think we all want time to stop so we could stay with BTS a little bit longer.

Thank you BTS, please come back one day.

Until next time, let it consume you!

Valkyrie out!