Cloud USA

— Written by: Stephe Thornton, Managing Editor ^@@^

PART 3: It gets Cloudy in Manhattan… and KPOP blows the roof off at SM Town Live NYC. Sunday, October 23.

Did anyone get the license plate number of that Zamboni? When we got up on Sunday morning, we both felt like we’d been repeatedly backed over by a couple of Zamboni machines on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. Every muscle in our bodies was rebelling like a mofo, particularly the ones we didn’t know we had. We gaped at each other in utter disbelief. Did we really have to MOVE AROUND today? Really?? (Picture a couple of JiWoos in The Fugitive: Plan B here, lying face down on a couch after NaYoung had planted her shoe in his crotch, whimpering and trying to slap his own ass back into joint. Gaaaaaaaaaaah) (I want my mama)

We didn’t lie there long though. Thoughts of Clouds and Korean barbecue, SM Town, press conferences, Madison Square Garden, and the world’s most beloved K-Pop groups in their own hotel suites right down the street from us lit a bonfire under our butts like nobody’s business. We borrowed a page out of Rain’s book— suck it up! the show MUST go on!—threw on our games faces with a rebel yell, grabbed our laptops, and got down to press conference preparation and Cloud USA business. (owwie owwie owwww)

One thing about that Sunday, the day moved really fast (probably because we were going at breakneck speed through the whole thing and had so much to do). So before we knew it, time had crept up on us and it was time to go meet our CloudUSAers for lunch at 묵은지 (Mukeunji). Promptly at 1 pm, we were in Koreatown and planted at a table in the restarant, looking down at a tableful of delicious side dishes, waiting for our peeps.

A Gayle/Oprah moment:
Terri (staring in disbelief at a side dish that is one HUGE whole fried fish): “What am I supposed to do with that? How do you cut it? All I have are these little chopsticks!”
Stephe (also staring in disbelief): “I… I don’t know! I… There’s our server. Let’s ask what the hell we’re supposed to—”
With her chopsticks in a fist, Terri suddenly harpoons the thing like a street thug shanking a victim, rips it in two, and begins devouring it. Stephe jumps and looks at Terri like this: O_______o. The poor fishy looks rather surprised.

(Terri also tried the squid. She said the texture was a little tough, but it tasted good.)

Ah, I cannot tell you what a cool moment it was when our peeps began filtering in.

It was just like in a novel, where you immediately recognize someone the second you lay eyes on them. When Cloud peeps see each other, we simply know each other. (insert X-Files music here!) MarLo, Viola, and Gigi were such welcome faces, all sunny and bright and full of fun, with the prettiest smiles and personalities that you ever did see. It had been overcast that day, but these ladies sure did make the sun come out for us. We also got to spend time with Viola’s friend Julia, a bubbly-cute KPop lover who made us laugh and laugh. And we got to meet Viola’s mom, a nice woman, very quiet, who just had to be wondering what could have possessed a black Georgia peach and a white Southern belle—both 50 years young—to co-found a promotional site for a 30 year old South Korean mega-star. LOL 😀

Terri ordered bibimbap, one of her favorite dishes.  I was so excited to see everyone that I’ve forgotten what entree I ordered. I’ll bet it had to do with pork, though. Korean pork tenderloin and I are joined at the hip (and it’s all over my hips, to be frank.) Great food, great peeps, terrific KPop conversation and Rain-gushing—what else could we have asked for?

The only answer to that question is more time. Because before we knew it, it was time for Terri to report to Madison Square Garden to cover the SM Town Live press conference, and for me to get back to the Chandler to check on Cloud USA and to do some fiction writing before heading to MSG myself.

We exited the restaurant to find Terri’s hellokpop team waiting patiently outside for her. HKP Writer Nicole (Nini) graciously agreed to take a picture of our group for us.  Viola and Julia were also going to be at the concert, but the odds of us running into each other again in that MSG K-mob was pretty much nil. And so it was with laughter and hugs and great regret that we and our peeps parted ways.

(This lovely picture was coordinated by our very own drill sargeant Terri. “You stand here… you here… no, over here, there you go, move it, move it, okay everybody smile—” CLICK!)

Gigi, MarLo, Viola and Julia—it was so sweet of you to come have lunch with us during our visit to Manhattan. We’ll never forget this special time. We’ll never forget you.

You can see Terri’s SM Town Live press conference coverage and thoughts about the concert on HelloKPop.

Organized chaos. I got to Madison Square Garden about an hour and a half before the concert, waded my way as best I could through the throngs outside and somehow found the proper line to wait in. The crowd was insane! It was also the oxymoron “organized chaos” come to life, because so long as you stayed close to the person in front of you and moved right along with your ticket in hand, nothing seemed to get out of hand. Squeezing into the main MSG doors and filtering into the inner gates and herding up the escalators (about seven of them, and three WEREN’T WORKING) honestly had me feeling like a bovine being sent to its corral. It was after I came out into the main arena, saw the SM Town stage, and found my seat that the excitement began to kick in. OMG.

By the time Terri finished with the press conference—during which she got to ask Leeteuk a question!— and caught up with me and took her seat (about 3 minutes before the show was supposed to start), I’d had about an hour of K-gushing with other fans, as well as joining a massive portion of the audience in bouncing and chanting SuJu’s “Mr. Simple” the countless times the teaser flashed across the JumboTron:

“DAE-da da da da da da da da da da da-duh-da da da da, DAE-da da da da da da da…” 🙂

SM Town blows the roof off the sucka. I’m not kidding about that. They came to town to get down, and straight up kicked ass. I have been to many an awesome concert in my lifetime, and this, my first KPop one, bumped the others to the back to my mind. The show was between three and four hours long, a real marathon, and I loved every second. Everyone sang so many songs that I lost count, and no way can I put every performance in this write-up, so here are my absolute favorite moments.

I first saw KangTa (former leader of H.O.T.) when he was male lead in the KDrama Loveholic, and quickly became a fan. I hadn’t seen him since he’d finished his military duty in early 2010 though (he was a super-soldier like Rain is now, high marks, top of the class and all), so I was waiting for him to hit the stage and when he did, I pert near passed out. I couldn’t believe I was actually seeing him! Live! OMG! I totally spazzed out.

(Kangta was breaka shaking it, baby! Wooooooo! Courtesy of yaminifurukiseki / japananimelover)

SNSD really kicked it up a notch with that hot new “The Boys” and one of the COOLEST renditions of “Genie” ev-vah! My only regret was that Jim wasn’t there to enjoy it too. They’re one of his favorite girl groups (he’s a leg man, as you can guess LOL).

(SNSD bringing the boys out! Courtesy of  Exhibites)

(One COOL Genie. Courtesy of onetwo)

Oh my lord, SHINee. SHINee just killed it, and Tae was popping his butt clean off. After “Replay” and “Ring Ding Dong” and other hits, they left the stage and I thought that was it. But later they suddenly came back with “Lucifer” and were targeting us all with green laser beams, and I lost my ever-loving mind. Terri was fan-camming at the time and needless to say, I ruined that! LOL! Just. Amazing.

(Replay courtesy of Back2BLAQ)

(Ring ring ringadingy!! Courtesy of japananimelover)

(Lucifer with frickin’ Streetfighter Vega laser beams! Courtesy of xmxmavixmx)

Super Junior was trying to hurt somebody! OMG. What a performance!
bwara Mr. Simple, Simple, geudaeneun geudaeneun geudaero meotjyeo
bwara Miss Simple, Simple, geudaeneun geudaero yeppeo S J Call!

(Mr. Simple… courtesy of japananimelover)

I got a whole new respect for f(x) that night. Their fans were enraptured. And that Amber—talk about popular! Anytime Amber even looked like she was moving to sing in the front, MSG erupted.

(He’s staring, he’s staring… courtesy of onetwo)

BoA has an unbelievable stage presence. She dances and sings like nobody’s business, and watching this phenom was an absolute pleasure. There is no reason on Earth she shouldn’t be completely “over” in America. So why isn’t she? There’s something wrong with the music scene in the U.S.—that’s why. Totally wrong. This phenom also speaks beautiful English. So when people say Rain’s English has to be perfect for him to make it here, I say bullsh!t, explain BoA then. The problem is in the industry, not them.

(BoA eats us up. Courtesy of onetwo)

I have to pause here and say that over two hours of stunning KPop performances had played out before us by then. We were in heaven and didn’t see how it could get any better. Yet a glaring question remained—where was TVXQ? Had something happened? Would they make it on stage? Terri had been in the press con with them, so we knew they were there. But why hadn’t they performed yet? [Terri:  Yeah, by this time I was thinking, ‘Okay now.  Where the hell did they go?’  I’m just saying, if I wasn’t a Rain’s Cloud…]  And how in hell would they top what we’d already seen—duets, dance battles, multiple acts sharing the stage, and a gajillion favorite hits?

Hoping against hope, I took a walk to warm up and stretch my legs (to be such a legendary place, MSG has the lousiest, tiniest, most pathetic seating ever… unless you’re three years old or something, then you’ll be in total comfort). I’d made it halfway around the arena back corridor when a thunderous intro theme and a deafening roar from the fans told me to get back into the arena with a quickness. I barreled for the nearest gate, almost took out a security guard (sorry, dude!), darted into the place and up against the closest barrier just in time for Changmin and Yunho to ascend from On High and float through the air past my face and down onto the stage.

The fans were so loud, you couldn’t hear anything but your own pulse beating in your ears. I just stood there, unable to move. At some point, I started screaming along with everybody else.

(Kings of SMT… courtesy of japananimelover)

(Going the maximum with TVXQ. Courtesy of onetwo)

(Under our skin… courtesy of onetwo)

(Keeping our heads down with TVXQ. Courtesy of onetwo)

(Note:  The official performance videos of the Madison Square Garden event are on SM Town’s Official YouTube Channel, if you’d like to see those.  They are super quality, more like music videos.  Go see.)

I was already crazy about Max, and couldn’t believe he was right there in front of me, shaking that new shaggy-do and pouting those lips, but U-Know… I hadn’t really noticed until then just how well that man rules a stage with every move he makes. (That’s what it is to be a Cloud, folks. When Rain gets you, he really gets you and there is little room in your bewildered brain for anyone else!) Yunho is fantastic! He and Changmin (of the luscious lips) set the place on fire and there was no putting it out!

Somehow I made it back to my seat in the midst of the blaze and commenced to some good ol’ fan-girling with Terri. Yes, they topped what we’d already seen and kept the show’s momentum going full steam. Sometimes I still can’t believe we were really there. TVXQ/DBSK TORE IT UP.

Likes: All the artists speaking to the audience in English as well as Korean. Max and U-Know, out of breath after their energetic first number, passing the buck back and forth on who would speak to the audience first (U-Know lost). “Go ahead…” “No, you go, I insist…” “No, you go. Can’t you see I can’t breathe?” LOL!  The encore show, where the all the artists were so warm and friendly and taking pictures and video with fans’ concert goods, some of them clearly upset and not wanting to leave the stage, even after the music ended. ♥ The really cool group of KPop fans from Minnesota, who sat in front of us and were entertaining to watch and wonderful to talk to. Hi Amanda #1, Amanda #2, Katie, and Sara! 🙂 The mom named Lisa, sitting next to me, who had brought her kids down from Maine to see the show. Thanks for the great conversation!

Dislikes: SME’s weird service announcements about “being your friend” across the JumboTron every few minutes, before the show. All our favorite KPop artists in the commercials were handsome, cute, bubbly, very warm—but if that was supposed to make us forget the controversies about how SME treats them, it didn’t work. Fans erupting right after an artist spoke in Korean, instead of waiting for the translator (who had a sucky mic) to tell us what they said. What sense did that make? Somebody could have said, “I eat human children” and there the fans all were, clapping and screaming like fools. LOL!

Just like on TV. Terri needed to meet with her HelloKPop team after the show to go over press conference footage and notes, so after once again maneuvering through crowds and telling her to take care, I headed back to the Hotel Chandler. I don’t mind telling you I was beat, so after watching how the “natives” did it, I copied their movements exactly and immediately had a taxi at my service. Talk about exciting! It might sound weird, but I’d always wanted to know if NYC cabbies on TV and in the movies were exaggerated or truly meant to be feared. 🙂 I got a nice Hindi fellow, very polite. I told him in no uncertain terms that I had a map, I knew where my hotel was, and that I needed to get there ASAP, so no funny business with the “out-of-towner”. And that I appreciated him stopping for me. He gave me a genuine grin, welcomed me to Manhattan, and off we zoomed.

While we were stopped at a red light on the back side of MSG, I heard crazy fan screams and turned around to look. One of the girl groups was getting on their bus, between ten and twenty feet from my cab (looked like some SNSD). They were smiling and waving through the windshield, and the fans surrounding the bus were having fits. It was a great scene! Then our light changed green and my cabbie put pedal to the metal. Somehow he avoided most of the traffic, all of the red lights, and though we went airborne in a couple of intersections, he got me to the Chandler in one piece and without a high fare, all with a grin and nice conversation. I thanked him profusely as I paid up, and smiled as he sped off.

The way NYC cabs are portrayed on TV is oh, so true. 🙂

Next: The journey home… and finding Rain off the beaten path. See y’all with Part 4 (final) on Wednesday!

—Stephe @cloudusa.wordpress.com / CloudUSA.org

~ by Cloud USA on December 19, 2011.

Posted in Cloud USA, Hallyu Korean wave, Korean pop, usa cloud
Tags: cloud usa community members, Cloud USA News, Cloud USA roadtrip, fan account, Korean pop, Kpop fan cams, SM Town Live in NYC