Cloud USA

Dresden Music Festival – 19 May 2011

By: huhuhuhu @The Cloud English Talk Board, 5/31/11

Images: 레겐볼케 DC rain gall /  Dresden Music Festival/Dresdner Musikfestspiel @Facebook / Hyetty @rain-cloud

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This is a very belated account of the Dresden Music Festival. As I did not follow our prince around and did not approach him for signature or anything, I could not provide much detail about our prince’s whereabouts and what he did. I am trying to share with you something about our prince from a different angle.

I met up with my friends and we waited for our prince at Dresden airport to welcome his arrival. The airport was small and quiet, we could see our prince clearly when he came out. He wore a blue (or black) jacket with large words on the front side, tight fitting rolled up jeans and the same gladiator sandals which he wore when he was filming Ninja Assassin. He looked chic, neat and elegant even after a long haul flight. He had his hat and sunglasses on and his face did not show any expression, but he shook hands with a few fans before he walked out and got into the car.

I had no idea beforehand that we would be staying at the same hotel as our prince (there was a more up market hotel nearby). Still, we decided not to follow him but our prince proved to be very approachable and conspicuous throughout his stay in Dresden.

The next day when we walked back after lunch, we saw our prince sitting at a table with his dancers and staff outside the hotel café. There were quite a number of fans further away at various tables but our prince seemed relaxed. He didn’t have his sunglasses on. We saw him signing for two European friends. My German friend also had a photo and a pen but was hesitant to walk up to our prince. I encouraged her on and she came back afterwards trembling and almost in tears.

This was what happened. She asked if our prince could sign for her. He replied “sure”, took the photo and signed, and then offered his hand to her for a hand shake. Despite her nervousness and excitement my friend had not failed to notice that our prince was wearing pierced jeans which revealed his nice leg as he sat, and he had big and warm hand. Later on when we looked at the signed photo we noticed our prince finger print on the edge of the photo. A signature with a finger print – imagining our prince eating like a child with his finger brought the super star prince so close to us, and the finger print was as treasured as the signature itself.

After about two hours when we went out of our hotel again we were quite surprised to see that our prince was still there. But he had changed to another table and had his sunglasses on. My friend took the opportunity to give him a hamper of gifts prepared in advance. It contained local goodies and our prince was surprised but pleased as he accepted it with grateful thanks.

The hot and sunny weather changed quite suddenly at about 6 pm when we arrived at the opera building. Dark clouds covered the sky with strong gusts of winds, and guessed what? It rained. We were not able to set up our banner and table for the donation project, and we might run out of time, but I explained confidently to a reporter who came to visit us that RAIN always brought rain when he held a concert. It was a good omen and the night would promise to be a huge success. I guessed he must have thought I was nuts… But promptly the rain stopped, and we had our first success with the donation project.

I was really surprised by the large number of European fans coming to the concert because of our prince. Young men and women, many of them students, gathered outside the concert hall. Some girls dressed up specially for the evening. They were well prepared too. They had banners like “I am a bad, bad girl”, congratulation words in Korean, and even a Korean flag. They gathered voluntarily to take a group photo and chanted “Jung Jihoon, Jung Jihoon”.

And they were very happy to see the CDs. BTTB was so eye catching, but Rainism was equally good. They had a hard time deciding which CD to choose. At the end many of them made a second donation in order to get both CDs. Two young men walked up shyly to look at the CDs. We told them they were our first male donors and they cheered out happily. The shyness was gone. They made their donation and we gave them both CDs as a reward being our first male donors. They beamed with joy. Later on they returned, and one of them made another donation and took a CD, saying “this is for my mom”. We gave him both CDs again because he was a good boy!

A middle aged man came to our stand. He clearly was not a fan and probably he didn’t even know who our prince was. Still he made a donation and we gave him a copy of Rainism. Much later on he returned, made another donation and asked for BTTB. He told us (in German) that he played Rainism in his car. He liked it very much so he wanted to have the other CD as well!

A couple came to our stand with their teenage son. The father read our banner, looked at the CDs, talked to the mother who nodded. He made a donation, took a CD and gave it to his son, asking him to have a go! I was certain our prince would have one more young teenage boy fan after he listened to it! And later on the son would convert his parents into fans, hohoho..

And we had to thank the many young fans who helped spread the donation project around. They called their friends and told them our prince’s CD was available. We saw many excited, happy faces when we gave them the CDs. Some even asked if we had other merchandize to sell…. These young people traveled from different parts of Europe and not just Germany. In fact our own working group was an international team comprising clouds from many different countries. If I had more time I would really love to chat with these young people to know more about their love for our prince. But time was running short, we had to stop and get ourselves ready for the big night.

During the donation a lady told us that she was at the press conference in the morning. She said that our prince was very shy. She said he even attempted to run away (which puzzled me). She had also talked to Mr. Vogler so she knew the program for the evening. Her final comment was “you’re going to enjoy it”. So I was full of curiosity and anticipation as I sat down to my seat.

The concert hall was an interesting mix of audience. Mature, respectable gentlemen and ladies formally dressed for the occasion dominated the front rows of seats and the floor level, whereas young, chic, colourfully dressed men and women, many being students, were sitting higher on the second and third levels. And amongst them of course are us die hard clouds. Two men brought us together.

The run down was they each had their solo performance. Then they would perform together, and afterwards each had a solo performance again. In between they talked to us and each other. Jan Vogler even had a life “interview” of our prince!

And they were two beautiful men with many similarities despite the difference in their performance. I was amused to see Jan Vogler sweating quite a lot after he performed his solo piece. And of course we could literally see the sweat dropping from our prince’s face before he even finished his first song Rainism.

Our prince was very gentleman and very humble. (and by the way, so was Jan Vogler.) He kept bowing to the audience and said repeatedly that it was a great honour for him to be there and that it was a great experience for him. His English was very good, but when he was slightly unsure or shy he gave such innocent and sweet smile. I believed this was one of the reasons why all the audience, old and young, fans and non fans, all fell under his charm.

If our prince was intimated at the press conference, he was totally King of the Stage when he performed. I would not go into details – there were many fan cams already. Just a few highlights. During one song, he suddenly sat down at the edge of the stage. He was just a feet away from a lady at the first row, looked at her, smiled sweetly and sang to her. I could not see the expression of the lady, but from her gesture I thought she must be mesmerized.

The two beautiful men performed together “How to Avoid the Sun” and “Love Song”. It was a truly beautiful scene when Jan Vogler was playing his cello and our prince glided to his side gracefully and sang passionately in his rich vocal. They looked at and smiled to each other – full of accord, harmony and friendship.

Our prince ended the concert with “Hip Song” and set the floor screaming with his killing dance – the part when he held up both arms in front of his face and made his pelvic move. Even the man sitting next to me couldn’t hide his excitement. But more killing was yet to come. Towards the end of the song he gave us his bunny hip dance. He was so sexy yet so cute I heard my neighbour laughing heartily.

The two beautiful men then performed “Love Song” again as the encore song. This time when it came to the chest move, our prince pulled off his jacket just wide enough to let the audience enjoy his chest dance.

What made me particularly proud and happy was that our prince captured not just his fans. I mentioned about the man sitting next to me. He was with his wife, a middle aged couple who clearly were not Rain fans. After each performance I would look at them to see their reaction (I was worried my screams might disturb him). He and his wife were laughing and smiling so much that I knew they enjoyed our prince’s performance tremendously. He wasn’t displeased by my loud cheers at all, and at one point he even asked me, “how old is Rain?” I told him he’s 29. He then turned and told his wife, “He’s only 29!” He was clearly impressed. I asked him how he felt after the concert. He told me it was very, very enjoyable!!

And how had our prince captured the whole audience? None of us left after the encore. We wanted more. Then I realized that my neighbour was stepping his feet – which was a sign for encore. So I followed, and I could feel the floor shake as we all stepped our feet and waited patiently. And then a man in business suit who was sitting in the first row stood up. He turned slightly towards us (as a signal to us) and started to clap his hands. I took it immediately, stood up and gave my standing ovation as well. I believed this was the greatest respect the man was giving to the two artists.

Many of us still gathered outside when the concert was over. Many young fans wanted to get the CDs so we had another round of donation. We were supposed to hand over the donation money to the Dresden Music Festival staff that evening, but this was not possible because we were still collecting money. The staff were very helpful, they even made donation themselves in order to get the CDs from us.

And how had our prince captured Europe? The first night when our prince arrived Dresden, those waiting for him around the hotel area were mainly Asian fans. When the concert was over, we had a late night meal. As we walked back to the hotel we saw many European fans waiting. A young man accompanied his girlfriend and they waited patiently outside the hotel. I understood this very well. It’s not easy for these European fans to see our prince in person, so they treasured every opportunity even though it meant a long wait.

And indeed it might be a long wait for a two year sabbatical. But dear prince, you know very well, we will be waiting for you!

BY: huhuhuhu

~ by Cloud USA on May 31, 2011.

Posted in Bi Rain, Bi Rain News, Cloud USA, Jung Ji Hoon, Rain in Germany, Rain Topics
Tags: Bi Rain News, Classic meets Pop, Dresden Music Festival, Jung Ji Hoon, rain bi, Rain fan account, Rain in Dresden