KCON DAY 2
After recovering from Day one’s insanity, I returned to the LACC for more.
The first event was the Kep1er artist engagement at 11 AM. I lined up early enough to get the plebian barrier view at the left-hand side of the stage. Which looked to be great until some giant yellow mascots started roaming behind prestige and blocking the view of the section I was in. Whose bright idea was it to bring those things in during an artist engagement?
Luckily the mascots moved away, and I got a clear view of Kep1er. Shen Xiaoting is even more beautiful in real life. It was difficult not to look at only her. But I did manage to take in peeks at all the members. Youngeun and Mashiro also caught my eye as they were closest to my line of sight.
From what I could hear from the crowd, Hikaru and Bahiyyih are very popular with western fans. There were quite a few Hikaru fans screaming behind me to validate that.
Their artist engagement was lively. The super rookie charm still radiates from them. The things they did were the same as STAYC, where they do quizzes and some games based off of songs suggested by fans via social media. So I think if you attended a lot of artist engagements, you saw the same presentation template used for all of them. Which I guess is great for consistency.
Once that was over, I was going to get back into the audience line for ITZY, but it was very long, and there was no feasible way I would get a barricade or second-row placement. As much I like ITZY, I was ok with sacrificing seeing them get food and rest up for the Star Square appearance of LIGHTSUM.
My advice is If you have two popular acts back to back on your schedule, you will probably have to prioritize which one you want a closer look at. Or ball out and get prestige, so you don’t have to worry about all that.
After resting, it was off to the con floor to see what was happening. There was a Kep1er Pop Up Talk on the KCON Stage that was ok. I saw more Xiaoting before the sea of cell phones obstructed my view of the relay dance.
I then went to Star Square for LIGHTSUM. I managed to get behind someone at the barrier, where my view was somewhat clear for the most part. I recorded their entire appearance and tried to take some stills. The video turned out better, I think.
After that, I was planning to go back to my hotel but stuck around to try to see ITZY at the KCON Square. A futile effort as the rabid MIDZY packed the convention floor rows deep.
With my duties over, I hobbled back to my hotel to rest. An hour later, I walked back to The Crypt for the concert. It took some time to find my seat, but once I was settled, I noticed that I was almost in the same section as night two of 2019, just over a couple of rows.
I had a view of the rear stage; many performances were with the artist’s backs to me. Still, it was a fantastic view. The concert was 3 hours and change, with each act getting time to showcase themselves throughout the night.
My section was full of older Asians who were all marks for dude groups. The rest of the fans around me were young ladies with high lung capacity. My earplugs certainly worked overtime whenever male groups hit the stage.
ATEEZ, Enhypen, and Stray Kids, in particular, had the women around me throwing fits.
I being the girl group, mark was in the minority. It was not nearly as loud for them. Except for Kep1er, western fans love Hikaru and especially Bahiyyih. The crowd in the Crypt was apeshit for her.
Kep1er’s first song choice, a cover of IZ*ONE’s La Vie en Rose had the crowd nuts. It was a bold choice, but they pulled it off.
The other surprises included the appearance of Bebe Rexha to perform the collaboration version of her song Break My Heart Myself with Yeji & Ryujin of ITZY. It was funny that Bebe and Yeji combined had way more time on stage than Ryujin.
LIGHTSUM had a good showing at their first KCON. Seeing them cover (G) I-DLE’s Tomboy was fun. They had the right amount of youthful attitude to do justice to the song convincingly.
The concert overall was excellent, and the little extra things like the cover songs were nice touches. Only one of the MCs was awkward as technical difficulties had ITZY stretching for time.
