Concert in the Park... Korea > US

I loved Pittsburgh's concert in the park series. (Especially with Mike and Stephanie Sortwell!) Not because I knew any of the bands that played, but because of the relaxed picnic atmosphere.

Old pic of South Park Concert, Thank you Google Image search.

I have to say though that in terms of performance, grandiosity, and overall money spent on a free concert though... Korea definitely wins.

OMG, this is the free concert at our apartment complex Tuesday night.

So the story is this, Monday Andy mentions that there's supposed to be a concert at Hanbit on Tuesday and that Super Junior is supposed to be there.

THIS is Super Junior... they're kind of a big deal. #1 in Thailand, 12 year old Korean girls everywhere swoon over them. 

Note this quote for later:

Super Junior are known for doing performances that are heavily centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly synchronized dances. - Wikipedia

At this point I was thinking, there's no way that Super Junior is coming to our apartment complex, but we had to go to make sure.

Tuesday night, a group of people come over, including Andy (see below for his daily contribution), we ordered in some chicken and beer, watched a little So You Think You Can Dance via Slingbox, and at 7:30 started walking towards all the noise. It took us 5 minutes to get down to the apartment soccer field. This is what we saw:

Definitely not Super Junior, but someone reassured me that they would be on later and that this was the Madonna of Korea. YeonSil said she didn't know about that..... but she was pretty awesome!

Everywhere we go, there's always this guy:

Haha, he was having a lot of fun till security interrupted!

Then there was Maya (I don't know if I'm spelling her name right, that's who YeonSil said it was though)

Still no Super Junior....

Then, the Korean Wayne Newton:

He's 66 years old, and really does kick a$$. I enjoyed his performance most out of the night. (I hope that's not too much of a spoiler for the rest of this post)

There were several other performers in between. Including a cute Kpop girl band that I missed b/c I went to the bathroom. Dangit!

Finally, Super Junior!!! Kindof...

Notice the big difference between the video above and this one (besides my crappy shaky filming skillz)? Oh yeah, there's a lot less members. I was disappointed by this, but not too surprised, after all, we're at our apartment complex's free concert, sponsored by KHNP (company Shannon's working for over here). What I was really disappointed about was the 3 songs they did after we watched all those other performers and the lack of dancing!! Let's reference the Wikipedia quote again:

Super Junior are known for doing performances that are heavily centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly synchronized dances. - Wikipedia

What??? Not fair!! No dancing? This blows! I'm sure there were some 13 year old girls out there who were just ecstatic about seeing Super Junior up close, but I've been to concerts, I know when a performance sucks.

So my message to Super Junior is this. I understand only 3 of you (out of 12 or something), and I understand only 3 songs, I'm sure KHNP didn't pay enough for more then that. But if you're known for your dancing performances, take some pride in your work and dance!

I would have been less disappointed if it had been a Super Junior cover band or something (or if they weren't even there).

Super Junior- One more thing to think about... the old Korean performers blew you out of the water....

I should probably end there (that was a good closing line right?), but I've got more to say.

Weird thought: It looks really easy to be a back up dancer in Korea.... maybe it's because they were back-up dancing for everyone, not just one performer?

Also, Andy's contribution of the day...