Cléa goes to her first pop concert ever and tells us about it.
Transcript
Frank So, good morning. It’s Saturday, the 22nd of April. It’s just after seven o’clock in the morning here in France. And it is just after two o’clock in the afternoon in Seoul, in South Korea. And we have Cléa here with us. Good morning. Good afternoon, Cléa. How are you today?
Cléa Good morning. I’m fine.
Frank You’re fine. You’re a little tired. I know that because you’ve had a really, really busy week. But thank you for this time. So, I’ve got a few questions about the concert you went to last Saturday. You went to see a K-pop group called Twice. And apparently, it was a really good concert. So, I’ve got a few questions for you. Cléa. What inspired you to go to the Twice concert at the KSPO Dome?
Cléa It was the idea of my friend Seunhyun. She just came to me, and she just showed me like the Insta post of the group Twice. And it was like an ad about the concert in Seoul. And so, she said that we have to go there. It will be super, fun. And it will be my first concert. So, I thought that was a good idea. So, it was a Friday. Like the tickets went on sale. Yeah, the tickets sale was a Friday. And so, she just tried to like buy some tickets, two tickets for us. And it was a success. We were so lucky about that because to have tickets for a K-pop concert is always very, very, very hard. Like in two minutes, there’s no tickets anymore. So, yeah, we were lucky about that. And because also like the things that inspired me to go there because like Twice was, I think with BTS, my first K-pop group, like the first K-pop group I discovered like after BTS.
Frank Okay.
Cléa In 2018.
Frank So, you’ve been around that with them people, with those for a long time. Okay. So, how did you feel when you first arrived at the KSPO Dome? I mean, it must be a huge place. So, how did you feel?
Cléa Yeah, it was such an amazing feeling. Like her dad proposed me to drive me to the Dome like together. So, we were a bit like stressed about like the traffic, like so tiny. But it was okay. So, yeah, because we went at like, the concert was at 6pm. And we were at the Dome at 7pm. So, it was like one hour from our place.
Frank No, no. So, you went to the concert. So, at 5pm, the concert started at 5pm. Yeah.
Cléa But, and so we went to the Dome. And at first, we wanted to like buy some light sticks, like K-pop light sticks from Twice, like the Twice light stick. But we saw like the line and was like, there were like many, many people. So, we just say, okay, so we will not buy the light sticks. And so, we just took some pictures like in front of the KSPO Dome with like the poster.
And there are many, many foreigners, like K-pop fans. And I think they were there just for the concerts. Because there are many, many foreigners. And some of them were like, so like fashionable. It was very funny to see that. Because like their hair was like pink, purple, blue, it was a rainbow. And, yeah, and so after that, like the, on the mic, like, I don’t know what it was like, it wasn’t. I don’t know how to say that. Not the mic, but like, in French, we say haut parler.
Frank And the loudspeakers
Cléa on the loudspeakers. And it was like a Korean lady was just like, we say that the concert is like in 10 minutes, so you have to go to your line. And so, we just went to our line. And so, because I’m French, I just felt about like, the waiting, like, you know, waiting, we will wait like for an hour or I don’t know, like, 30 minutes, maybe. And we literally like passed for two minutes, like we just waited one or two minutes to go inside, without any security, without anything, just to see, they just see the tickets. And that’s it.
Frank That’s very different to what you experience here.
Cléa Yeah. And, and so we just, at first, we went to we go to the toilets. And after that we, we just went to our, like the,
Frank the seats.
Cléa Yeah. This Yeah. And when we are real, like at the dome, like in the, in the room, I don’t know.
Frank In the hall.
Cléa Yeah. In the hall, we were like, so surprised because like the stage was very, very, very, was huge, but it was like, very near from us. Like, we were just so surprised. It’s very, yeah, it’s near, like, we can see them, like, they’re not just little, like people like that, but we can see them in real life. And so we were, it was incredible.
Frank Okay. Fantastic. So Cléa, what was your favourite part of the concert?
Cléa For me was like, when they, they arrived, like, was just incredibly like, Oh, all the people screamed and went crazy. And it was wow. And they just came a very, like, in, in a majestic way. Like it was very, like, there was on a cube or something. I don’t know, like nine of them like that. Yeah. Went up. And so, we’re like, whoa.
Frank Okay. So, so I think you said somewhere the, the entrance of the, of the group was fantastic.
Cléa Yeah. The entrance of the, how they, when they started the concert, that was, that was okay.
Frank So, were there any surprises or any unexpected moments for you during the concert?
Cléa Yes. At first the concert, like, lasted about three, four hours. So, it was very, very long and they were very like professional because like they don’t do, they don’t, they didn’t, they didn’t, they don’t had like many breaks. So, yeah, we felt that we spoke about like their, maybe they were very exhausted. They don’t feel exhausted. So, we’re like, whoa. And so, the unexpected moment was when they literary came, like they came very, very near from us. Like we, those type of, I don’t know, it was like they were in wagon, or I don’t know,
Frank like a little carriage,
Cléa yeah, a little carriage. And they just came like that. And they were literally like, there were two seats from us. Like we just can’t, if, if I just like.
Frank You could reach out and touch them all right.
Cléa Yeah. If I, if I, if I, like my hand could reach out to them. And so we went, everyone went crazy, but everyone was really respectful. Like they were very, very near from us. That’s fantastic. That was, whoa.
Frank Okay. So Cléa, how did you become a fan of K-pop and in the group twice in particular?
Cléa I think it was in 2019 when I first discovered BTS with the MV Boys, Boys with Love, something like that. And after that I discovered another groups like twice and twice was like my second favourite group, I guess.
Frank Okay. But but you were still living in France at the time. So, so what’s it like now to be in the country with, with the people, the groups are very close to you now. You were all in the same country. And then you could see the, the, the group. How was, how was this journey for you from living in France to now seeing a K-pop group in, in the case, the KSPO dome in Seoul, everything in Korean? Did you think back in 2019 that this could actually ever happen?
Cléa Oh, no, not in 2019. I would never like, believe if someone like told me that I will live in like my, my favourite country, like my dream country in Korea. And yeah, I think it’s very far K-pop stand. It’s very incredible to like live in the same country as those, those idols.
Frank Okay. All right. So, you said you said BTS and you said TWICE, and then we have Blackpink and probably lots of other groups. So what do you think makes TWICE a little bit different from, from the other K-pop groups?
Cléa At first they’re a huge group. So, I think everyone can relate to like one of them, right. Yeah. And also that they’re very good dancers and they have good like vocals. Like when in the concert, like their mics were opened, like they’re the same for real. And the fact also that we can see that they’re real friends, like some groups are just here for the business. Like they’re, you can see that they’re not real friends. But in that case, like you can, you can see, you can tell by their acts and their, when they speak to each other, like it’s a very good friendship between them. Like there’s.
Frank Okay. Okay. So you see the group live on stage. You were within 10 meters of them. And you had a really great time. Do you think the way you see the group has changed now? So when you hear about the latest news about twice, do you, do you think, Oh yes, that, that I understand that now. And I’ve seen the concert. Do you think the way you look at the group has changed?
Cléa I think they become like a fair, like almost at the first ranking in my, in my ranking, like they’re at the first place. Yeah. One of the, because like I can see like close their, their real talent and like they’re singing live and yeah, they’re really talented.
Frank Okay. And was there anything particular about the concert, any of the songs or the, the performance that you really enjoyed?
Cléa Oh yeah. Like I think there’s two, the two of the, like the first ones, one is my favourite song is Go Hard. And they’re just, the, they’re like choreography and everything was incredible. Like they were like on the, on the stage with like, like their shadow, because like the, the, the lies where like where like positions, like in a way that you see their shadow. It was very like incredible and everyone’s screaming. And the second one was like one after three hours. So we just, everyone was like, yes, they’re, I think their last song or, and they did like a dance break, like and they really enjoyed like the dance and the smile and the love very much. So yeah. And after that say, I’m young. And so we were like, oh, the ends and was not the end.
Frank So did they, did they give any any extra songs at the end of the main, any encores? That’s the one I’m looking for to encore to encores.
Cléa Yeah. Yeah. They just had like a, I don’t know, like a in French, like, you know, when you. Okay.
Frank. So how would you describe the energy and the, the atmosphere inside the, the dome during the concert? Okay. I know it was the first time you went to one of these things, but how would you describe it?
Cléa It was very, very calm and quiet. Like Korean, they’re really respectful. So, they’re all standing down, like sitting on, on the, on the seats. And it was very, very calm. Actually, it was for a huge group, like TWICE. I didn’t expect it. Like those, why it was like, it’s incredible.
Frank Okay. All right. So you’ve had your first concerts. So if you, would you, would you go to another K-pop concert in the future? And if so, who do you want to see?
Cléa Yeah, I would like to go to over like K-pop groups concert, such as for me, Blackpink or maybe In Aiken or G-Idle. It’s my three, one of my three favourites K-pop groups.
Frank Okay. All right, Cléa. Well, thank you very much for your time.
Cléa Thank you.
Frank And I hope that we can speak again about other K-pop concerts in the future.