Asia Song Festival 2009

Today was the Asia Song Festival in Seoul. The last concert I went to was the MAP THE SEOUL TOUR, or my invasion of MBC Music Core, so I was ready to get stuck into some serious fandom again. Pictures from all fourteen artists below!

Performance Order

1. Rose Shyang – Outstanding
2. 2NE1 – Fire, I Don’t Care
3. Ho NGOC Ha – My Apology
4. K-Otic – Blacklist [Remix], Blacklist, Freestyle
5. Ekin Cheng – 2 songs
6. Mihimaru GT – 2 songs including Kibun Jojou
7. Chris Lee – 2 songs
8. V6 – Thunderbirds, Darling, Guilty
9. Ryslana – 3 songs
10. GACKT – GHOST, Redemption
11. GIRLS’ GENERATION – Tell Me Your Wish, Gee
12. Agnes Monica – A.G.N.E.Z, No Logic [Remix], Temperature, Heal The World
13. SUPER JUNIOR – It’s You, Thirst
14. BIG BANG – GARA GARA GO!!, Lies
15. [ENCORE] SUPER JUNIOR – SORRY SORRY
16. [DUET] SUPER JUNIOR & GIRLS’ GENERATION – Seoul Promotional Song

For each artist, I’ll do my 5 best pics and then you can view the entire set at my Flickr. I’ll admit that the pictures looked better when previewed on the LCD of my Sony H50 camera, but considering that I was near the top, on the left side, I think I did a pretty good job. Next year, I’m going to trade in my mini DSLR for a professional style camera with an enormous zoom lens, so that when I get the chance, I can take phenomenal pictures.

[KOR] BIG BANG

Despite Daesung’s absence, the guys put on a typically good show. That being said, and I am aware how strange this sounds, but it was very obvious that there were only four of them. Something about the movement around the stage just wasn’t quite right. There was no bias in my shooting, but I won’t lie that GD was easier to track with his hair.

They sang GARA GARA GO!! and followed up with Lies which the crowd went wild for. Both performances were very solid and although, as with most, I spent most of my time tracking individuals around the stage through a zoom lens, I did get to watch a lot of it. I can’t say whether or not they looked tired or not, but I suspect they were. G-Dragon had been performing at The Global Gathering earlier on in the afternoon.

Can’t wait for Daesung to get back to full fitness and return to activities with the group.

[KOR] 2NE1

Being my first time seeing the girls live, this was very exciting for me. I was not disappointed as they performed both Fire and I Don’t Care, dressed in their original outfits for their debut. Having just finished their promotions, they are looking like a very mature and well oiled machine on stage. I have been following them on various music shows and they looked, and sounded, very good here.

I was expecting them to look fatigued but they didn’t and both CL and Minji were overflowing with energy during both performances. Having seen CL will her bum and Minji do the splits in person, I can now die happy.

[KOR] GIRLS GENERATION

I would like to start by personally thanking Girls’ Generation for wearing their white sailor uniforms and standing in mostly good light. It made taking pictures of them so much easier and enjoyable. I promise that I wasn’t tracking Tiffany on purpose. Honest.

They performed Tell Me Your Wish and Gee, before coming out at the end to sing a song promoting Seoul with Super Junior. All performances were typically polished and the vocals were very strong. They chatted between performances and and seemed very comfortable on stage, with some laughter and joking around. I can now cross both songs off my list of songs to see live.

[KOR] SUPER JUNIOR

Thank you to Donghae for taking a leaf out of SNSD’s book, and wearing some white. I used him as my marker on stage. Super Junior performed It’s You and Thirst – the later being somewhat of a surprise to me. Thankfully, they performed SORRY, SORRY as an encore after the show was finished and before their duet with GIRLS’ GENERATION.

I enjoyed the performances a lot and despite being down 3 members[?], they looked solid on stage. The dancing was what you’d expect from Super Junior in that it was well timed and fluid. Their duet wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the sort of song I listen to. It was a song written by them to promote Seoul.

Check out the pictures from their ‘SORRY SORRY’ encore below.

SNSD & SUPER JUNIOR DUET

The song itself wasn’t very interesting but the interaction between 소녀시대 and 슈퍼주니어 was pretty interesting. Also, they stood still which made it a lot easier to take good pictures.

[JP] GACKT

GACKT really didn’t help me to take any sharp photos. His first performance had very strong red lighting and the fact that he was wearing a black jacket and what looked like a tin foil bodysuit did not make it easy. He then decided he’d perform with his band on the top section of the stage that was not only poorly lit, but set back in the stage so I couldn’t see him as well. In the end, I did get some good shots, but I couldn’t use the zoom as much as I had with the other artists.

He performed two songs – the first of which was a robotic style, heavy trance track [Ghost], somewhat reminiscent of hyde and X JAPAN. The second was a more typical rock number [Redemption] and of course was exceptional live. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of the dork’tard that I’ve seen on variety shows in the past.

[JP] V6

V6 performed Thunderbirds, Darling and Guilty from their upcoming release. V6 is a group that I don’t know that much about despite starting my love for Asian music in Japan with Johnny’s Entertainment and ARASHI, but I have seen their performances online before. They are just as I would have expected a Johnny’s Entertainment group to be – vocally competent and have solid choreography.

If the pictures seem focused on Okada Junichi, that’s because they are. My friend was all about him. Oh, and celebrations to me for seeing my first JE live performance!

[INA] Agnes Monica

Agnes was probably the surprise of the show for me. She came on stage with some backing dancers and was sporting black hot pants with a little black jacket and knee high green boots. She looked cute if nothing else with her cropped hair.

She started her set with A.G.N.E.Z which didn’t come across very well for me. It could have been the ‘shouty’ nature of the song or the fact that we were sitting off to the side, but it just wasn’t very clear and the bass seemed to mask any real melody. It was during her second song, No Logic, followed by Temperature where she really started to get the crowd going. I’ll confess to wanting her to finish so that I could use the last of my battery for BIG BANG, but after she took off her top to reveal a skimpy dress and an ample bosom, I decided to give her a break.

Just when we thought she was going home, she came back on the stage and performed Michael Jackson’s Heal The World which caught everyone off guard. Once she had finished, she asked if the crowd knew the words and proceeded to sing the chorus again acappella. I, along with everyone else was suitably impressed.

[JP] MIHIMARU GT

The only thing I knew about Mihimaru GT before they started was that there was a guy and a girl. While that was confirmed during their performances, I also learnt that she will not stand still and can’t help but flap her arms around at every opportunity. I took a surprising number of pictures of them but most of them had to be deleted because they were blurry.

They sang two songs which were both pretty high energy and fun. It wasn’t really my style of music, but I enjoyed the performance and it was made better by her reading off a cue card while she gave shoutouts to the crowd in Korean.

[THAI] K-OTIC

K-OTIC are a typical idol group in that they’re all young, acrobatic and, as is so important these days, multicultural. The introduced themselves in Japanese, English and Thai which was well received by the crowd.

Their performances were tight and the vocals came out quite well despite both of the songs being heavy beat, dance tracks.

[CHN] Chris Lee

I had never heard Chris Lee before but I was impressed by her vocal performance and energy. Both of her songs were heavy beats and she made good use of the backing dancers. She was wearing a black and shiny silver suit which came across quite well on camera.

[HK] Ekin Cheng

Ekin Cheng was another artist who I knew nothing about before the concert. He first sang a soft ballad and then moved on to a slightly more up tempo song with some simple choreography. I don’t have a lot of experience in music from Hong Kong, so I wasn’t able to comment on his voice as much as I’d like, but it did sound strong. During the ballad, there was an almost ethereal touch to his singing.

[UKR] Ruslana

Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot to say about Ryslana. She was loud and proud, but I didn’t find myself enjoying her music. The crowd was polite when she kept asking them to be louder, but I don’t think she came across that well.

Artists Coming Together at the End

I don’t think everyone came back out but almost all of them did, where they were congratulated on their performances and thanked for making the show a great success. GACKT looks awesome here.