you’re probably asking yourself how someone who never followed k-pop ended up going to a BIGBANG concert.
well… blame my friend.
yes, the same friend who suggested BTS and got me hooked.
“BIGBANG is another group you should go and see,” she said. “they’re having their 20th anniversary concert.”
BIGBANG, eh?
now, as with BTS, i couldn’t just go and follow a group without doing some research first. i knew almost nothing about this world. i needed to know who i was listening to.
little did i know, i had already come across their name. i just hadn’t connected the dots.
a little while earlier, i had been scrolling through youtube, looking for another episode of Run BTS, when a documentary called burning sun appeared.
it looked interesting. curiosity got the better of me, so i started watching.
the name seungri came up. so did BIGBANG. he had been one of their members.
ah… that was where i had heard the name.
a few days later, i asked the friend who’s going to the BTS concert with me next year whether she had heard of BIGBANG.
she immediately started singing “bang bang bang” and dancing.
well, that answered my question.
“they’re having their 20th anniversary concert. wanna go?”
“yeah.”
i laughed and walked away.
apparently, that was all the discussion we needed.
the next day, she told me her sister wanted to come too. she was a big BIGBANG fan and had attended g-dragon’s concert the year before.
my friend was coming along for the trip, as the hype person…
kidding.
she was leaving the concert to her sister and me.
g-dragon? eh?
back to google i went.
once again, all my friends seemed to know about a group i knew nothing about. first BTS, now BIGBANG.
where had i been? lol.
we created a group chat just for the concert, and i joined the fan club and bought a membership so i could get access to the presale. my friend’s sister did the same.
a membership for presale tickets. this was starting to feel familiar.
there was only one australian concert, in sydney.
good luck to us getting tickets.
when presale day arrived, i was nervous. the BTS ticket experience was still very fresh in my memory, and i wasn’t particularly keen to relive it.
my friend’s sister had the day off, so both of us were ready to try.
i can’t remember my queue number, but hers was ridiculous.
then i got in.
i clicked on a pair of tickets.
couldn’t get them.
clicked on another pair.
couldn’t get those either.
i tried again. and again. different seats, different levels… anything?
no luck.
meanwhile, she wasn’t having much success either.
then her computer froze.
then mine froze.
of course.
i was just about ready to give up when she finally secured two tickets.
we got them.
geez… breaking up with someone is less stressful than this.
i was so happy. after all that clicking, freezing and watching tickets disappear, we had the tickets we wanted.
now we just needed flights and a hotel.
thankfully, everything got sorted in the end.
i texted the friend who had suggested BIGBANG in the first place.
“i got the tickets!”
she was so excited. now it was her turn to try for the concert in singapore.
somewhere along the way, learning the dance came up too.
sure, why not?
meanwhile, my research continued.
i learned that BIGBANG had started with five members, and that this anniversary concert would feature g-dragon, taeyang and daesung.
and then i heard t.o.p’s voice on “last dance.”
wow.
i did not expect that voice.
that was one thing i noticed quite quickly about BIGBANG. with BTS, it took me some time to recognise each member’s voice. with BIGBANG, i didn’t have that problem. their voices sounded so distinct to me.
so here i was again.
it started with a friend mentioning a group. then came the research, the music, a membership and a very stressful ticket presale.
now there were flights, a hotel and a concert in sydney.
all because i asked, “BIGBANG, eh?”
sydney, october 31…
with BTS, i thought i was only joining a membership for presale tickets. we all know how that turned out.
now i’m telling myself i’m just going to a BIGBANG concert.
just.
i really should know better by now.
i’ll tell you the rest after sydney…
bang bang bang…
