The reason I was busy on Thursday is because of high school graduation. The reason I was busy on Friday and Saturday is because I went to Kcon NY as a graduation gift to myself since I don’t think my family is planning on doing anything to celebrate. I used gift money I got from my grandfather to pay for it, so it’s not likely I’ll be able to get as good tickets next time. This post is a way to record my thoughts about graduation and Kcon Day 1. The next post records my thoughts about Kcon Day 2. It’s kind of like a diary, so I don’t forget about what happened. There’s also links to what I recorded or took pictures of at the end, so you could just skip to that if you want. It’s not the best quality and I’ll update the links as I continue to upload it on twitter.
On Thursday, I graduated high school. During graduation practice, my classmate nearby would play an air horn on his phone. He did the same thing during graduation. I thought that it’s not an ideal graduation, but it wouldn’t be my graduation without these types of people. There were adults who I didn't know who gave speeches, and the way they worded it made it feel more like they were either venting or seeing us as a group that's a byproduct of the school/institution rather than individuals. I could just be overthinking it although my principal's speech was pretty funny.
Then I attended Project Graduation where the students get sent on school buses to a place only the PPO (Parent Partner Organization) knows, so I didn’t know where we were going until we got there, which took about 40 minutes. But many students expected it to be a bouncy house since the permission slip stated we needed socks. We did go to a bouncy house, and it had a laser tag room. There was a lobby with a DJ and people danced there. At the end, people were singing “We’re All in This Together” in High School Musical. The staff was really great and interacted with us a lot; they seemed to be college students, so they knew how to have fun with us. When I got on the bus to leave, I just listened to my classmates because it's probably going to be the last time I'll see most of them, especially since I’m the only one from the school going to my college. I got home at 4 AM.
Then on Friday and Saturday I attended Kcon NY. I went alone on Friday but went with two of my friends on Saturday. It felt like the best three days of my life.
For Day 1, the line was really long. I think it took about an hour to wait and then register. I got BtoB’s fan engagement, which started 15 minutes later. I was in the back and tried to walk a bit farther or stand on my tip toes to see. It didn’t help that I was short (I’m half an inch under 5 feet). I recorded part of it but gave up. I haven’t listened to BtoB yet so it wasn’t that big of a deal to me.
I got to buy the HYYH pt 2 and HYYH: Young Forever albums by BTS; it’s the first BTS merchandise I own, and I got Jungkook and V’s photo card. I wanted to buy the BTS Now 3 CD, but I think it costed $60; the shirts also costed $40. There were also other people selling overpriced items.
I saw DANakaDAN’s performance on the convention stage, and I want to listen to more of his songs now because I like his rapping. I was actually surprised by how much I got into it. I also plan on watching his documentary, which is about him meeting his blood family since he’s adopted; apparently he has a twin brother who also raps.
Then I got to see JunCurryAhn’s performance on the convention stage where he played numerous songs on the violin and danced to BTS’s Fire. I think he planned to go longer but had to cut it shorter.
Then there was a special appearance by Mamamoo where they were interviewed; JunCurryAhn spoke the question in English for the audience to understand while someone else translated the questions and answers. Then I followed the crowd because people were gathering somewhere, and I didn’t know why. I waited by the fence and Mamamoo’s van pulled up and stopped right in front of me. I sort of got to see them in the van, but the windows were blackened. They walked out towards one of the booths, but I didn’t see them because I’m short. I took a video, but you can’t see much.
I struggled to find where to line up for the concert. The security guards were nice to direct me where to go. While waiting, someone passed small papers with a fan chant to Seventeen’s Pretty U; I thought it was cute. In the concert, I was actually higher up than I thought I would be since I've never been to the Prudential Center before (although I can’t really complain since I was still on the first floor). I predicted Ailee was going to be the MC for Day 1, and I thought Eric Nam and/or Rap Mon were going to be the MCs for Day 2. However, Rap Mon and Ailee were the MCs for Day 1 and everyone screamed. I think the performance order was Seventeen, Crush, Ailee, BtoB, special performance stage by Seventeen, and Dynamic Duo with one song collaboration with Crush.
During Ailee’s performance, the background music stopped playing, but she kept singing until the chorus ended. She also used it as an opportunity to engage fans more by holding out the mic towards the audience. She’s a great professional. She was going to perform the song again and told the audience to pretend that she’s performing it for the first time. While waiting, the audience chanted Ailee’s name and screamed in support for her. I love her a lot; I’m glad she got to perform at Kcon NY since it’s where she grew up, and her friends and family can see her perform live. I only recently found out that she grew up 10 minutes away from where I live, so I felt even more supportive of her.
Yim Si Wan and Park Bo Young were the special MCs. After that, Seventeen had a special performance where they covered Bang! by After School, Sorry Sorry by Super Junior, and Balloon by TVXQ. I only recorded part of Dynamic Duo’s performance since I ran out of storage, and it took time to move the files to my SD card. I haven’t listened to Dynamic Duo before, but now I definitely will. I think for their last song they performed with Crush.
I managed to record Day 1’s performances, so I’ll leave the links to the posts on my twitter. My phone camera’s quality kind of sucks, and I didn’t really figure out how to properly zoom in until later.
Pictures:
BtoB’s Fan Engagement
Videos:
MC Intro with Rap Mon and Ailee:
Part 1
Part 2
Seventeen:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Crush:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Ailee:
Part 1
Audience Chants
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
BtoB:
Seventeen’s Special Performance:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Dynamic Duo:
