Those of you who have been following the site for a while might remember that 2AM’s Christmas concert in 2010 was one of the first concerts I went to here (despite the fact the review was posted in April, because I went three times.) When I found out that they would be doing another Christmas show this year, I promptly bought tickets for the show on Christmas day.
The interesting thing about this concert was… 2AM haven’t done anything in the past year. Nothing really. No new singles, no major changes… There were things done here and there, but nothing that would really add to the show. So I was really interested to see what would happen.
The first thing that I noticed (ever so slowly, so that by the time I picked up on it I’d already developed a bit of a nervous twitch) was that the only song they were playing in the arena was “White Christmas”. Over and over again. It was different covers of the song, but some how, that made it worse.
Once we started the show, we soon found out that there was reason to this madness. The concert started with a little animation conversation between the members of 2AM, and they were talking about having a white Christmas and how special it was. It prompted us to sing together, and at first poked fun at the fact that Koreans don’t know any of the lyrics after “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” because, as the cartoon expected, the crowd broke into murmurs for the second line. (Lets ignore the foreigner singing every word, okay? ^_~) So the animation then sung the song again, with all the lyrics, so everyone could sing along. The curtain then went down, and 2AM came out and sang “White Christmas” along with us. They then sang a melody of Christmas songs (I think. Everything blended into Christmas to me.) They then broke right into “What Do I Do”, which was super cute and broke out the impressive high notes right away.
The one thing I love about going to 2AM concerts is that it’s one of the few shows I’ve been to where every person on the stage feels so overwhelmingly talented that I get goosebumps. I think all the idols I go to see are talented, or I wouldn’t spend money to see them, but the four voices in 2AM are so stunning, I don’t even know what to do with myself.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way…
Next, they went right into “Confession of a Friend” which is one of my favourite 2AM songs, even if it fills me with sad confused feelings of longing. Then, to continue the feelings of “WHYYY am I so forever alone?!” they performed “No More” and “Lost”.
Note: Usually, the first half of 2AM shows will make you wish you were dating ANYTHING AT ALL rather than be alone. But it doesn’t last long, the second half of the show made me forget those feelings.
Next song up was the song that got me into 2AM, “Why Wouldn’t You Answer My Calls”. I find it doesn’t make you want to be dating someone, it just makes you feel dreadfully lonely. It was the first song where the whole audience knew the fan chants to the show, so we chanted their names along, and then giggled because it’s such A SLOW SONG that fan chanting just seems wrong. BUT WE DID IT ANYWAYS.
Finally, the boys took a break and spoke for a little. The fun thing about the 2AM concerts is that, since they have such a strong Japanese following this year, a lot of the audience felt a bit like me, where we were completely lost and confused and just nodded and listened happily. Luckily, I was able to pick up the idea of most of it, and had my friend playing handy dandy translator for other parts. The talk event went on for a bit, and they had people writing in that had been to the show the year before, and reflected on it. Each of the shows the year before had a couple come up and be all sweet, so some of the letters were from people who had been on stage before and wanted to say they were still together.
This year’s couple on stage were the cutest thing I’d ever seen ever. The two of them had been students in Japan. He was Korean, she was Chinese, and their common language was Japanese. They had bonded over her love for JoKwon, and started dating the Christmas before. They were at the concert on Christmas day, and so got to come up on stage and talk for a bit. The guy was the sweetest guy ever, and the girl seemed to have NO IDEA what was going on. 2AM then sang “Propose (청혼)” and the boyfriend, obviously secure with his relationship, shoved his girlfriend towards JoKwon. He sang to the girl for a bit, and then after a moment she finally seemed so overwhelmed she bounced around and hugged her boyfriend. It was super cute. The boyfriend then did a really sweet speech to her in Japanese, and I was REALLY hoping he would propose, but… alas. The crowd chanted to tell them to kiss, but the girl was shy. So, in the sweetest move of the night, he covered her eyes and then kissed her. I was jealous. ^_~
Once the adorable couple were gone, 2AM got back to singing, with “Sorry I Can’t Smile for You”. I really like this song because the fan chant is the entire chorus, and it’s slow enough that I can sing along.
The singing didn’t last for long though, because we got into an AMAZING video. I had a bit of trouble understanding it, but the premise was that 2AM were forever alone at Christmas time, so they decided to go get girlfriends through social networking services. However, since the guys decide to troll one another, they all went and sabotaged their plans by pretending to be girls and replying to their bandmates. Individually, they all decided to meet up with their “girl”, but for some reason, they all met at the same cafe, at the same place. Major flaw in that idea. While the guys are all sitting in the cafe, alone, they realize they’ve been stood up, and go off together to practise their solo pieces.
Aka, it’s time to start the solo pieces.
Changmin went first, singing a song called “Oh Oh” by Guy Sebastian. I’m not familiar with this song, but Changmin really worked it. He had a bunch of girls in heels and red skirts, and he was really getting his dance on. His voice really suited the song, and the dance was quite hot. However, in the back of my head, I was constantly comparing the song to last year’s performance, where Changmin performed “New York State Of Mind” and “Sex Bomb”, which I thought was classy and perfect and flawless. So the song didn’t completely measure up, but that’s mostly because of song choice. However, he did have the rest of 2AM show up in the background as a mariachi band, which was fantastic.
Second up was Seulong. Just as he did last year, he covered a song from the US, a Ne-Yo song called “Closer”. He did a very similar song last year, and I approved very much because the song ended in him ripping his shirt off. Sadly, there was no shirt ripping off, however the song and style of music really suits Seulong well, so I have no complains at all.
Next up was Jinwoon. Out of all the guys in 2AM, he was the only one to release a solo piece in 2011, so he performed “La La La”, which was his first digital single this year. It’s a really catchy song, and is the coupling song on his first official single. So make sure you check out his stuff. You can find his solo work website at www.jeongjinwoon.com.
Last but certainly not least was JoKwon. As always, JoKwon does a “vs. _____” performance where he performs a song by an American female popstar. Last year, he did “Vs. Lady Gaga” and sang Telephone. This year, it was JoKwon vs. Britney Spears, where he danced to “Till The World Ends”. While he did sing, he didn’t sing the entire song live like he seemed to during the show last year, so it was a little confusing. The performance was amazing, as usual though, so all is well and perfect and nothing hurts.
There was a bit of a performance by the band, and then the guys all came out in track suits, and some of the guys walked through the second floor and audience to get to the stage (but not past me, *sob*) while singing “Champion”, then then all ran off stage.
After the solo songs, the guys got a well deserved break when the guest performer came out. The night before, Lim Jeong Hee performed, according to my friend. But this night, the boyfriends of the girls who were all squealing their heads off had a special treat: IU performed. This was one of my favourite moments of the night, not because of the performance, but because of the audience reaction. The guy sitting across the row from me absolutely LOST HIS MIND when IU walked out, and it was so adorable I couldn’t stop watching him. The entire audience lost their mind, to be honest. It’s funny because I bet all the guys thought that the concert would be hell, and they’d have to deal with girlfriends who would dump them in a second for any of the 2AM members. Turns out, the girls had to deal with irrationally crazy fanboys for boyfriends instead.
After IU performed, 2AM came back out and did a short set of acoustic pieces and covers. The first one was an older song of K.Will’s, “Left Heart”. Next up was “My Valentine” by Nichkhun and Taecyeon from 2PM, followed by another 2PM song, “Only You.” Both songs required some pretty good rapping by the guys, which was pretty cool. They next did a song by JYP himself, and I can’t remember the name, but it was pretty. After talking for a little, they then got into doing their own solo work for a bit. First up was Jinwoon’s first released single, “You Walking Toward Me”, which is so completlely different to “La La La”, it’s well worth a listen.
Next, they did the… I don’t even know what to call it, the Island Remix of “I Ate Well” which was Changmin’s first single with his project duet “Homme”.
Afterwards was the forever adorable digital single of JoKwon’s, “The Day I Confessed”, which was from the show “We Got Married.” (I don’t have an offical video for the song to link to, sorry!) They then sang “Nagging” which was a single with IU and Seulong. I really like this song because it’s another song where the fan chant is just to sing the entire chorus.
Then, the stage was cleared, and another video played, this time talking about their history of doing parodies of girl groups, despite being a ballad performance group. They made a big joke out of how they were announcing the group they would be covering, building up to the cue of K-ara’s “Step” playing. My friend and I had been wondering what song they would be doing, but completely didn’t think of them doing Step. I’ve seen Step parodied a few times live, so it had a lot of competition. They ended up doing two songs this time, because they had to do “Be My Baby” by The Wonder Girls, simply out of love for their labelmates. Thankfully, 2AM released a rehearsal video of them practising the dance, so you can see just how ridiculous they were.
After the girl group parodies, the guys covered a Christmas song, since it was Christmas day. They did the Korean version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, and then went into a completely different type of song and performed “You Inside My Dim Memory” which is originally by Hyung JinYoung, but according to YouTube, has been covered by everyone else under the sun. This was when the concert got into it’s fun phase, where the audience are encouraged to get up and jump about with the guys. It went right into “With Or Without You”, which is a really fun piece at concerts because it’s uptempo and really fun to bounce around to.
The next song 2AM performed was “I Did Wrong“, which is one of my favourite pieces to see performed live, because the dance is really cool. It has the four members acting as puppets, and their back up dancers acting as their puppet masters, and it looks really cool. When live, it’s also a really good concert song and doesn’t sound like their normal ballad pieces, so it’s really fun.
After “I Did Wrong”, 2AM talked for a bit, and started telling us that the end was near. We pouted and moaned and yelled, because a lot of the songs hadn’t been sung yet, so we knew we would be asking for an encore after. The mood went down a little, and the guys performed “Can’t Let You Go, Even If I Die” as their “final” song, and walked off stage.
Of course, the crowd started chanting encore. One thing I’m starting to notice with Koreans is that they cannot chant encore at all. Every concert I go to, they go REALLY FAST, exhaust themselves, and then stop. So instead of being a steady chant of encores, it comes in waves of being really loud and fast, and then silent. And then I’ll be there, chanting it constantly and slowly.
It didn’t matter though, because we knew they’d be back. And they were. They came out and sung “Like Crazy”, which is another favourite of mine, so I was quite pleased. Next in the encore was “This Song“, which is a really sweet song that always seems to choke someone up if it’s a final show. I think all the guys were okay this performance though. The last song of the night was “Graduation“, a song I didn’t know too well because it’s older. It’s a really pretty song though. That was the final song, no more encores. And at almost two and a half hours, I wasn’t complaining too much.
As always, 2AM put on an amazing concert. I’d like to have 2AM concerts at Christmas become a tradition. It’s something I’ve been able to do for two years now, and hopefully they’ll be able to do it again in 2012. Which means they’d need to promote something this year, so here’s keeping my fingers crossed. My biggest regret over the concert is that they didn’t perform “L.O.V.E” which is one of my favourite songs of theirs, even though it’s only from a soundtrack from 2009. They did perform it last year, and it has a good Christmassy feel to it, so it would have been nice. But, we had a lot of great songs, so it’s okay.
Hopefully, we’ll have a 2AM comeback in the next year, so when they do come back, I hope everyone helps support them after their long break! I can’t wait for their next single. 🙂