SMTOWN LIVE is a massive music festival celebrating the artists and musicians of S.M. Entertainment.
The artists performing as part of SMTOWN LIVE are KANGTA, BoA, TVXQ!, Super Junior, Girls' Generation, SHINee, and f(x).
Asia's top artists arrive at Madison Square Garden on October 23, 2011, to fascinate New York fans, after performing to sold out crowds in Seoul, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Paris.
The October 23, 2011 performance will go on sale Friday, September 9 at 10AM through www.livenation.com, www.ticketmaster.com, charge by phone 800.745.3000, and at select Ticketmaster locations. If tickets remain, they will be available at the Madison Square Garden box office beginning Monday, Sept. 12.
Getting tickets is probably going to be insanely difficult what with this venue having only 10,000 seats and considering that SSF will probably do their bulk-buying again that screwed so many people over.
I heard they had thousands of no-shows at LA last year and that there were tons of empty seats so maybe that's one of the reasons for a smaller venue this year.
Either way, if anyone wants a ticket, I'd make sure you can be online as soon as they start selling.
Last edited by Anderei on Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
Would be kinda cool to see BoA again and to see SYSD, but with the cost of tickets and the travel involved, no thanks. I also have fear that a lot of concerts this big end up being lip-synched, which is extremely irritating. Kpop seems far more inclined to this than Jpop has ever been and its not right, especially if you're paying big money to see it.
PQ! I am about to book tickets and they have a family plan (so you get 4 tickets for slightly cheaper!) Wanna be our #4? I know you are good for the money~ <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... >/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> (Plus then you can sit with cool people!!)
PQ! I am about to book tickets and they have a family plan (so you get 4 tickets for slightly cheaper!) Wanna be our #4? I know you are good for the money~ <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... >/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> (Plus then you can sit with cool people!!)
I called ticketmaster up on the phone and they said not even single seats are available anymore unless we spend $155+ each to have obstructed view. >:| I don't want drop that much just to watch a pillar to Mr.Taxi.
Not going to very many popular concerts here, I didn't know how quickly they would sell out. I was online at 10am at work that Friday morning, and the site was crawling. I ended up making the purchase by navigating the full site on my phone because I was able to get that to go through but not with my connection at work.
Got decent tickets for top dollar, but I'm considering it a 3-day-early 20th birthday present to myself.
I'm exciiiiiited, and not just for the concert. I've never been to NYC's K-Town... well, more precisely, I've actually never been to NYC outside of a few blocks perimeter around MSG (Big East college basketball tournament, you see. I was there for less than 24 hours. Fuck you, USF...) and I think I'll be staying in NYC for at least a night, maybe more.
Ok, so the concert was last night. I will write a really short review.
The MSG slowly but steadily filled up, I would say that by the end of the concert it was 90-95% full. That's cool, I heard stories of people overbuying tickets and then the event had many many empty seats last year in LA. At least this time that didn't happen. The stage was big, with a big runway that divided into two at the end.
I do think that they could've done a better job with the arena, though. The screens were super crisp and you could really see clearly through them, but the stage itself was very simple. They had an LCD super basic background drop that did some super basic light patterns, and they had some harnesses so everyone was flying in the sky at some point. They also used fire guns and fireworks, which where cool. I still had hoped they used more lights and patterns in the background, or in the floor, or more stage props... I don't know, the stage looked too simple with a black floor, only a few people dancing each time. Maybe it's not fault of the stage itself, but of the performers, where comes my next point.
*puts on shield*
I was expecting more, for some reason. I'm not gonna lie: I was a little dissapointed. I was expecting to see all this kids running like crazy around the stage, and sweating and getting involved with the crowd... I was expecting me not holding on and just standing up and dancing... I was expecting a blown up asian pop show. I got (for the most part) people singing and dancing in a stage empty except for the people singing and dancing on it. I still liked it and enjoyed it very much, and some of them really rocked and surprised me in a good way. Specially the male bands. I guess I'll write about each act.
F(x) - They opened the show, and performed all (if not most) of their singles throughout the whole concert. Sulli had a duet with Kangta (I think she was lipsyncing). They're definitely pushing Sulli a lot. Girl is ADORABLE. Amber is really popular here and everyone cheered really loud on her parts. They are all great dancers but for some reason their moves on stage look waaay more soft than in their videos.
Kangta - He's obviously not as popular as he was a few years ago, but he looks great, can dance like a pro and has a beautiful voice. It was cool to see him although the crowd was not really that into him and his songs are not that popular.
SNSD - Girls are hot! Hyoyeon is GORGEOUS and for some reason it doesn't show in videos or TV performances! I guess she's just not as photogenic as the rest of the girls. But she is awesome. Seohyon is growing up and damn she can pull of sexy now. She rocks The Boys. As a group, they were solid performers and people love them as a unit (the cheers for the individual members were not too loud, but for the group as a whole people went crazy). BUT they were very 'static'. Stood up there, did the dance, that's all. Even on the songs where they 'ran' on stage and divided up, they were so... lifeless. I don't know. I was so excited about SNSD and I loved seeing them perform but they let me down a little bit.
Shinee - They are GOOD. They are the best dancers of them all for sure and have a really high energy level. SPECIALLY Minho. If I was to say who was the best performer of the WHOLE show, it would be Minho hands down. He's soooo energetic, runs around, jumps, cheers up the crowd, he really gets into it... he was majorly awesome. Yay for Minho. Key was also very good. Onew and Jonghyun have amazing amazing voices (onew even did an opera performance haha), and taemin is really shy but he's a great dancer.
SuJu - They are good too. Sang all of their hits and did a great job on them all. They were probably the group that got the most out of the people with their performances. Granted, they are 8 guys with a ton of energy so it's kind of easy for them. EunHyuk was great! He dances so well and his energy level is really high up there. SuJu were performing at the most part of the few songs during the whole show that I had to stand up :)
TVXQ - They are really good, but it's not the same with just 2 of them. They performed rising sun and that made me happy.
BoA - She's awesome. But again, the stage looked empty. It could've been way more exciting with more stuff on stage.
All in all, I'm glad I went, I bought super cheap tickets but got upgraded when I was there and ended up with pretty decent seats, had a good time, watched all these kids I've been following for quite a while, but... It was not as amazing as I was expecting. There, I said it.
I want to go to a H!P concert circa 2003 or 2004 u_u
I, on the other hand, had no expectations for this. I didn't even know most of the artists there. So I was pretty blown away- the energy from both the crowd and the performers was insane, and they performed 50 songs total. So I definitely feel like I got my money's worth.
As Kaworu said, the male groups in particular stood out and were the best ones there. I'm checking out their stuff from now on.
But bascially it was the absolute best night of my life. Kyuhyun pointed right at me and just omg it was perfect in every way, I had so much fun and I hit Teddy Riley!
http://mollyhime.tumblr.com/tagged/mine - Pictures. Not done yet. I've got most of my Super Junior pictures up but I spent like 8 hours editing and watermarking today, I ran out of ambition to do other groups
The New York Times did a mostly favorable review of the concert in today's edition. The reviewer, Jon Caramanica, seemed to like the boy groups best. And the only photos feature the boy groups. BoA at least gets mentioned in the piece. I would love to see pix of BoA and Girls Generation in The New York Times. Girls Generation is apparently releasing a single in America.