F.T Island Showcase @ Melon-AX Hall (8/24)

The lobby was pretty much covered in these pictures omg.  We took forever just getting into the venue because we kept getting distracted XDD;;.  But I don’t have any pictures at all of the concert, so this is just a lot of rambling :(.  EDIT: THERE ARE A TON OF FANTASTIC PICTURES ON PAGES 573-574 OF THE SOOMPI THREAD.  I’ll save them all and zip them in a bit.

THEY ARE DEFINITELY A GROUP WORTH FANGIRLING OVER ♥.  I really, really like these guys and I knew they would be good, but they even surpassed my own expectations.  Very talented group.  And they play their own instruments; this is pwnage.  Really, this was probably the closest to a rock concert that I’ve ever been to :DDD.  The Melon-AX hall is a pretty small venue … I was in the second portion of the standing section and probably about 10-15 feet away from them.  There was also a sitting section farther back, up on the balcony.  If you don’t mind being on your feet for 2+ hours and the disorder of it all, GO FOR THE STANDING SECTION.  Loads more fun … you’re a lot closer to the artists and it’s fun to jump around with your glowstick, you know XD.  Concert was a little over 2 hours long.  I wasn’t keeping track of how many songs they sang (or what order… or which ones… :/), but I’d say somewhere around 15, plus two encore songs.  They sang quite a few from their 2nd album, I think, which I had only listened to once before going, so … yeah :/.  I’m not being very helpful lol.

So I can’t do a song-by-song fan account, but I’ll just mention what really stood out to me :).

THEY ARE SO GOOD-LOOKING.  They stood in this order from left to right (for almost the whole night, except when Hong Ki would run around to molest his members lmao): Jaejin, Wonbin, HongKi, and Jonghoon.  Minhwan was with his drumset in the back, but elevated so we could see him :DD.  We were on the side closest to HongKi and Jonghoon, but I got a pretty good look at them all.  ajsdlkfjs Jonghoon’s hair is very close to being a bowl cut, but he is SO HANDSOME in real life.  Omg ♥.  I think he’s the best looking in the group actually.  He clearly knows he drives the girls crazy, because he would keep staring out at the audience.  And then he would smile to himself and look down.  GUHHHHHH.  And he played most, if not all, of the guitar solos for their songs.  HongKi is also incredibly good-looking.  Basically, he should never have long hair again!!!!  The short hair is so flattering on him.  HIS VOICE IS AMAZING LIVE.  That boy has quite the set of pipes and he didn’t even falter at all!  I don’t think he went off-note even once and he was still singing his heart out at the end (the last song they performed was ‘Love Sick’ and that was omggalsjdkfljskljskdlfs ♥♥♥!!!).  Also has a crazy amount of energy.  He was loud and talkative all night.  Kept running around to the members and singing into their faces or somehow distracting them XD.  Jonghoon and Wonbin definitely suffered from this the most lol! Wonbin is my #1 jailbait favorite F.T Island member, so this is probably pretty biased rofl, but omggggg ♥__________♥.  He’s so cute and handsome.  He’s the cutest one onstage, imo.  He looked like he was having a conversation with the fangirls in the front between songs, hahahaha.  He can’t hold charisma faces for too long; he just ends up breaking into a smile :D.  And he kept waving lol!  Kind of reminded me of Changmin there … you know those cute, small, shy waves where your arms aren’t extended and your hands are right in front of your chest and you’re waving with both hands?  alsjdkfldsjklfd ♥.  He has a soft and ridiculously cute speaking voice, but his singing voice can be really powerful … I was quite impressed, actually.  I didn’t realize he had that many singing parts in their songs!  He was wonderful ♥.  His hair is really light brown now and still quite long, but I was too enamored to really care XDDDDD.

Jaejin was all the way on the left side of the stage, so for most of the concert, I couldn’t see him too well, but he’s is cuuuuuuute and his hair is pretty wicked.  He seems rather shy too ^^.  UM AND HE SANG!  NOT ONLY DID HE SING, HE SANG GREEN DAY’S ‘WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS’ OMG.  I love that song!  He’s got quite a nice singing voice actually ^^.   He sang the first stanza and then backed away from the microphone with his head in his hands XD.  HongKi and Wonbin dragged him up to the microphone again and forced him to continue singing.  I think Wonbin and HongKi sang a bit of the song too~.  Hongki’s Engrish was funny and cute ^^.    Minhwan, I had the hardest time of all seeing him since he was in the back, but he’s reaaaaaally cute, you guys.  Hyper kid … never really kept still; he was always spinning his drumsticks or chugging down water and shaking his head or whatever.  He’s clumsy too lmao.  At the end of the concert when he finally came down off his platform to take a bow with his members, he dropped his water bottle and sloshed water down his front XDDD.  His members were like, “So what were you doing up there?”  ROFLMAO.   Oh and fans were clamoring for Minhwan to come down from his platform all night, to the point where Minhwan held his arms up in an “X” and HongKi went “shhhhh!” except it really sounded like “SHIIIIIIIT!”  LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

There were pyrotechnics, which was, to be honest, quite scary :/.  Like I said, it was a small venue and the sparks came too close.  For one of the songs, Jonghoon backed away in a hurry and then froze until HongKi ran up to him and patted him down.  And for some reason, the air conditioning in the place seemed to be malfunctioning.  It kept going on and off, so at certain times, the venue was incredibly hot, almost unbearably so.  Wonbin looked like he was gonna have a heatstroke.  But um, this makes me a terrible fan I know, it was pretty cute to watch.  He kept sticking his lower lip out and blowing his hair up.  OH MY GOD HE IS SO CUTE ♥♥♥♥♥.  Also, in between the set changes, a video would be shown. They were asked what they thought was the ‘color’ of different things, such as ‘team’, ‘love’, ‘friendship’, etc.  I wish I could tell you more about those videos cause they seemed pretty cute (Minhwan and Wonbin were so smiley in those clips lol), but … no Korean skills whatsoever :(.

They went through three outfit changes.  They were all wearing black and argyle at first, then white shirts and scarves, and then Litmus t-shirts.  HongKi came out with these crazy green glasses and a beanie :).  He’s really pretty weird; love him for it!  He and Jonghoon had their sleeves cut off so you could see their arms.  Dude, Jonghoon is ripped.  His arms are really gorgeous and muscular alskjdfkdlsjfkl.  Wonbin had a long-sleeved gray shirt under his yellow Litmus shirt (his stylist must hate him; why make him wear that when he looked like he was gonna die from how hot it was XD), so no arms :(.  I’m a believer in WONBINARMISM, so that was kind of disappointing.  He should wear sleeveless shirts all the time so I can perv over admire his arms of win ♥.

There were quite a few of their Japanese fans there!!  All of whom looked like they were in their 30s…  We were standing next to a group of them and trying to have a conversation lol since my Japanese isn’t as totally non-existent as my Korean is.  Wonbin seems to have the most Japanese ahjumma fans ^____^;;.  (lol isn’t Yunho the DBSK member with the most ahjumma fans too?  XDDD.  WHY DO I ALWAYS LIKE THE ONES THAT ARE POPULAR WITH AHJUMMAS.  WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT ME :/.)  Among the Korean fans, I’d say the boys are about equally popular, but HongKi and Minhwan seemed to get the loudest screams.  Or maybe they have louder fans, I dunno XD.

Okay, here’s my attempt to write about the songs they performed.  I want to say they performed these songs (Love Sick, Thunder, Until You Come Back, A Person Close To Tears, F.T Island, Primadonna, A Man’s First Love Follows Him To The Grave) from their first repackaged album and these songs (사랑후애, 여자는 몰라, Love Is, 멋쟁이 vs 예쁜이 (FT vs PRI), 미워하고 원망하고, Troublemaker (this might be my favorite song off the second album omg ♥), 사랑이라 부르는 이름) from their second album, plus a few songs that I didn’t recognize at all, but I can’t be too sure :(.  I wish they had performed ‘Meeting’ from their first album!  That’s my favorite song by them, still.  But anyway, standout performances: ‘F.T Island’ was the 2nd song they sang and it was suuuuuuuuch a crowd pleaser.  The girl in front of me nearly poked my eye out with her F.T Island pentastick lol.  But I think the biggest crowd pleaser was probably ‘Primadonna’ or ‘Love Sick’ (the very last song they sang, as part of their encore).  ‘Love Sick’ is one of my favorite songs by them and homg, it is INCREDIBLE in a live performance.  I think it was my favorite performance all night, although it’s pretty tough to choose.  HongKi’s voice is nuts, Wonbin’s rapping is sexy, and Jonghoon’s extended guitar solo kills.  “A Person Close To Tears’ and ‘Until You Come Back’ were performed back-to-back … so lots of angst in a short time.  Both of those songs were nothing short of amazing *___________*.   Especially ‘A Person Close To Tears’ … Hongki’s voice T________T.   The newest song they’ve been promoting, 사랑후애, was performed with the music video performing in the background and lol did the fans enjoy it.  I really did, especially since I’ve only previously seen the MV on a tiny youtube screen.  WONBIN PUSHED HIS HIS HAIR BACK DURING HIS RAP AND THAT SENT THE FANGIRLS INTO A FIT.  WHY DOES HE DO THIS ♥.  And I’m too lazy to check which songs these were for, but Wonbin and HongKi had a lot of duets!  Their voices are really pretty together ♥.

The ‘Troublemaker’ performance was a bit more interactive and therefore totally awesome.  Hongki divided the concert hall into three parts; the left side of the standing section would cheer for Jaejin and Wonbin, the right side of the standing section would cheer for HongKi and Jonghoon, and the entire sitting section would cheer for Minhwan :).  Jaejin/Wonbin, HongKi/Jonghoon, and Minhwan would each take turns singing the chorus of ‘Troublemaker” and the fans would have to shout the following “F-T! I-S-L-A-N-D!” as loud as possible and the volume would register on the screen.  (I wish this had been a bit more believable because the volume was in round numbers and went up in increments of 20 each time, lmfao!)  Wonbin and Jaejin went first.  We were standing in the Hongki/Jonghoon cheering section and they tried to get us to be quiet during the Wonbin/Jaejin performance, but … lmao I am so biased!  We were standing with all those ahjumma Wonbin fans too, so of course we cheered for the Wonbin/Jaejin performance.  They got a score of 50.  Then the HongKi/Jonghoon performance (which was the best one lol), which got a 70.  At this point, Wonbin and Jaejin and their section were demanding they get another try XDDD.  HongKi flat out told their section to leave lololololol!  Jaejin was shaking his head and Wonbin was all, “What the heck?”  Finally, Minhwan ♥!  SO CUTE OMFG.  The other groups had a vocalist to sing the ‘Troublemaker’ chorus, but he was just sitting up there with his drumset and getting the crowd going all by himself.  Seems like he wasn’t too familiar with the lyrics lol.  He was singing it correctly at first, but later just started singing ‘LA LA LA LA LA LAAA~~” and drumming even harder to make up for it :DDD.  His score was a 90, which caused a huge ruckus with his other members.  Eventually, they decided to sing it all together … score ended up being a 110 ♥.

Crowd interactions … I couldn’t see Jaejin too well and Minhwan was stranded on his platform in the back lol, but for the ones I could see: HongKi knows how to work the audience extremely well.  In a bunch of the songs, he kept pointing at fangirls and singing directly to them.  The screaming always kicked up a notch after that.  Jonghoon kept leaning toward the audience and strumming his guitar really close to the edge, WHICH WAS JUST MAD SEXY OMG.  He is sexy ♥.  There was also a segment where HongKi passed the microphone around to different fans in the audience and asked them to give a message to one of the members.  As usual, I have no idea what those messages were exactly, but I WISH I KNEW WHAT THAT FAN SAID TO WONBIN.  Cause he blushed and then giggled and then said something cutely back.  And Hong Ki was shaking his head XDDD.  GUH ♥.  WHY SO CUTE.

After the concert ended, there was a race and then a fight to get posters :(.  Fangirls can be pretty vicious; I saw a lot of torn posters.  If you go to these concerts, don’t do it.  Wait until everything has settled down and then go up to the organizers and ask them politely, “Do you have any extra posters?” and 95% of the time, they’ll get you one even when they’ve told everyone else that they’ve run out of posters >:D!  This very, very nice girl ran after her coworker to get me one :).  They were also selling these F.T Island cards and stickers.  Outside, they were giving away Litmus magazines, which has great ads of the boys.  When I get home, I’ll scan my copy.  This is a muuuuuuch better photoshoot than their last Litmus one, where they all had weird hair and looked like chicks :(.

I’m sorry this is such a lame fan account, but really, the concert was fantastic!  This is a very talented and awesome group of boys ♥.  I know they get a lot of crap because in some of their performances on music shows, their guitars aren’t plugged in, but believe me: these boys are more than capable of playing well ♥ *fangirls*.  Be sure to check out their latest album, ‘Colorful Sensibility’, which is even better than their marvelous debut album, imo.   F.T Island hwaiting ♥♥♥♥♥.