Taeyang Is Proof That Music Transcends All Boundaries
It’s the point of no return.
I am somewhat of a ‘newbie’ to the K-Pop World. I started during the end of last year after my friend’s suggested this genre. Having lived in Hong Kong for 6 years, it is impossible to have not heard about this hugely popular music, so I decided to get my feet wet with this one group’s name I had only heard of (but didn’t really know anything about them) – Big Bang. I had previously watched one of their performances on an awards show that was widely circulated on my Facebook feed a couple of years prior, and started looking more into them.
That was the point of no return.
Since then, my 10 months into this world of K-Pop, I discovered something completely unexpected – the fact that this genre reaches not only to Asians as I first expected, but to all ethnicities and ages. And, how big K-Pop is in L.A.. K-Pop groups come to L.A. to perform frequently, and shows are sold out very quickly.
I had the privilege of attending Taeyang from Big Bang’s concert in L.A. last week, who gave a great performance (as expected from a member of my now favorite group!) But what drew me to his concert was not just his singing and performance, but the audience. The crowd was cheering wildly even before he showed up on stage, eagerly waving their “VIP” yellow light sticks around (K-Pop groups all have their own custom fandom light sticks.) Everyone was excited, and I even chatted with the ladies behind me about where they were from – they had flown all the way from Dallas for this concert!
The audience, as previously mentioned, ranged from all ethnicities and ages, but the reason these concerts are so hot is clear – it is the one place where you can unite with like-minded individuals who share the same passion as you for this genre, and the same love for the groups as you do. Everyone sang along to all of Taeyang’s songs at the top of their lungs – even though Taeyang had strategically pointed the mic to the audience at sections where the lyrics were in English – that didn’t stop the audience from singing the rest of the song in Korean lyrics!
Other groups’ concerts may require translators so that the artists can speak freely in their native Korean, but Taeyang’s English was perfect. He thanked the audience on how passionate they were for his tour and his group, and expressed how much love he had for the L.A. crowd. That being said, he was quite cheeky and pretended not to hear/understand when the crowd shouted for him to “take it off” (his shirt.)
After watching Taeyang in L.A., I came to the conclusion that the saying “music transcends all boundaries” is very true. K-Pop is living proof of this!
