#tokyolo: TVXQ

Featured Song: Believe In You, TVXQ

I love the ocean. I love the ocean in all its moods and colours. When the wind tosses the water up high and the waves come crashing down; when ripples of water lap at the sand and over your feet; when the clouds slowly turn turquoise waters into a dark blue grey.

Waiting for the concert!! | diary of a dysaniac

But I love the ocean the best when it is red, filled with screaming fangirls of all ages (and I mean of all ages) with matching light sticks, waving them to the same beat, chanting fanchants that I chant but don’t actually know.

It felt like I was in a cult. But let’s be real, I’ve been a Cassie the minute Mirotic dropped back in 2008. And I regret NOTHING.

I mean, the whole point of #tokyolo was TVXQ. And even though the TVXQ duo aren’t my favourite members, they are still DBSK, and their skills and their strength and their charisma were everything I imagined it to be. Maybe even more than what I imagined.

Everything, from their dancing, to their singing, to their costumes, to even their awkward Japanese gags, everything made me fall in love with them again. I never saw the two as the strongest singers in the group, and I never really cared about them as much as I did the members who are now in JYJ. But apart from their starting song, which was so cringe I couldn’t even, every moment was as strong and as synchronised as if they had always been a duo. Both my friend and I felt all their energy and amazingness even from where we were seated, a little bit too high to be considered close to the stage, but close enough to still see them in their all their awesome amazing sublimity.

Our lightsticks! |diary of a dysaniac

This was still not close enough for some of the fans though, because we saw so many people holding little binoculars. At some point during the concert, when I glanced over to my right, the entire row of people next to me had their binoculars up and staring very very intently at Yunho and Changmin. I never thought people actually brought binoculars to concerts, but here you go. Japanese fangirls do.

Something else that Japanese concert-goers do is wave their light sticks in unison in the air, without singing and dancing and all that. I knew it from all the concerts I’ve watched online, but it was still bizarre to see 50,000 light sticks being waved in unison in real life. And it still didn’t stop me from singing along and bopping around like a tween at their first music festival.

There were also moments when the concert organisers would tell us to switch off our light sticks so that our light watches could glow in a different colour (usually blue) for the ballad sections. The effect of the colour change was profoundly beautiful, and by the end of the concert, all the feels and the things were making fans bawl their eyes out. Including me, but instead of bawling at end of concert feels, I was bawling at my two most favourite DBSK ballads, arranged and sung by two people, but in my heart was being sung by the five in their perfect harmony.

TVXQ ‘WIth 2015’ | diary of a dysaniac

And once Yunho announced that they were going to take an indefinite break and implying that they were enlisting for their two years of military service towards the end of the concert, the bawling turned into a sobfest that actually threatened to turn the red ocean into a real ocean. Not that we knew what was happening at the beginning when he was speaking, since my friend can understand only basic Japanese and my brain had switched off when he launched into a lengthy speech. But we figured it out, once the sobbing from the encore ballads turned into ugly crying all around us.

Whoever did the setlist really knew how to make everyone open their floodgates, putting ballads before and after the announcement.

Whoever did the setlist also knew how to make everyone feel happy again, since they sprung two super upbeat surprise encore songs during the credits onto all of us.

Ultimately, in the end, no matter how they felt, I don’t think people could have left the stadium feeling dissatisfied and angry and depressed about anything

I mean, we will always wait for them to come back.

Because we will Always Keep The Faith.

And once they come back, we will be waiting. And hopefully by then, both my friend and I will have enough money to actually buy a concert varsity jacket.

Wish I had a clear red ocean photo of my own! TVXQ ‘Tone 2012’ | tvxq5vnn

#tokyolo: impressions
#tokyolo: Lockup
#tokyolo: LaQua Spa

On Raging

Sometimes, you just have to rage.

For sure, sometimes rage is justified, like that time when some random in class starts going on about how your motherland is basically all about that propaganda lyf and what he says just gets worse and worse and at some point could probably be counted as racial hate in a way and you get all worked up because you’re getting personally offended because they’re insulting your roots even though you insult your roots yourself 90% of the time but it’s different when some outsider is doing it and it’s just like YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING YOU’RE MAKING IT ALL UP NOW STOP JUST STOP A;DLFKJAL;KDFJ

And so on.

But most of the time, that rage is uncalled for. Like when your mum decides to clean out your room and chuck half of what she call ‘rubbish’. Or when a friend is being stupid and not seeing sense and you have had enough about just how blind and immature they’re acting so you get all angry and immature too.

And sometimes, you get inexplicably angry explaining things to people -coughdadscough- who are just missing the point.

Today, my dad decided to ask if it was possible to memorise twenty minutes worth of music to play and perform. Concert pianists memorise hours of music, so of course it’s possible. Personally, I have strong aural and muscle memory, and I began to elaborate how it’s hard for me to change things once I’ve committed it to memory because I essentially have to record over the permanent track in my head every single time I play.

And then he had the bright idea that it was the best type of memory, because then it meant that as long as I heard things a certain way, I would be able to produce it exactly as how I hear it. Fair enough, because it’s true… but it’s not possible for someone to learn just from hearing things. It means you have no foundation. You can’t read music, you can’t fix yourself, you have no basis for anything you do or anything you play apart from what you hear.

“But that’s a good thing! If I give you a track of a world famous concert pianist, then you’d become them too! And you would be perfect!”

WHAT GAVE YOU THAT IDEA YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS AND TECHNIQUE

Dancers can’t just watch other dancers and copy to become great without knowing the basic moves or without training their flexibility and coordination. Builders can’t just look at a house and copy it to build solid architectural monuments without knowing what tools or materials they need. Singers can’t copy Beyoncé without technique and not ruin their voice forever.

Besides, every player has their own nuances, their own take on pieces. To be successful, you need to find a personal balance between interpretation and staying true to the music. You can’t just copy someone’s style. It just doesn’t work.

And so the more we argued, the more I didn’t get why he didn’t just understand. In the end, I just stood up and left the room.

Looking back on it, it was probably the mature thing to stay calm and rationally present my arguments.

But sometimes, you just have to rage.

#gleemily

Yesterday was Halloween. People running around in costumes going to parties, kids going trick-or-treating in suburban streets, adults avoiding these trick-or-treating kids by pretending they are away… another year, another Halloween.

Yesterday was Halloween. Yesterday marked the end of a chapter in my life. Yesterday, for the last time I sung as a part of the UTS Glee Club at a society End-Of-Semester concert.

I know it’s not like I’m never going to see them again, and it’s not like I’m never going to sing or perform with them again, but… being friends with them and singing with them is just not the same as being part of the society as a student and working on songs every week. Added to the fact that I’ve been part of the Glee Club since I started uni four years ago (with a semester or so of absence in the middle somewhere), not having Glee in my life. it’s not going to be the same.

I’m going to miss going into the Theatre Lounge to practice. I’m going to miss getting relocated to the Harry Heath room and waiting until the last possible moment to get out and let EGG take over. I’m going to miss warm ups, non-stop jamming, working on one song and then talking for the next hour, seeing people come week in week out, catching up with members who can only make a few weeks a semester…

Most of all, I’m going to miss the people. Those who have only been here for a semester or two, those who have been here since the beginning, those who have graduated and still come back, all of me loves all of you.

Glee, it’s been fun <3

#Gleemily5eva