120613 - Arirang Simply K-pop Recording - A-JAX Posted at 10:02 PM 0 comments (+) A bit different from regular music shows, Simply K-pop tapings takes places every other week and records enough material for 2 weeks' worth of broadcast at once. Hence, the taping sometimes takes place over the entire Wed afternoon+evening, and may be broven into 'parts', so you have to check the artist list according and decide which one you would like to go for. For today, it was divided into 3 parts, and due to my being cross-eyed and mis-reading the timings, I didn't manage to get there in time for Part 2. So I sat around and waited for Part 3, it was a near 2-hr wait, and it just so happened that I could see the artistes going in and out of the studio - BTOB who was recording for Part 2 was there and a couple of Singaporean Dalmation+BTOB fans there got so excited, they initially attempted to take photos but the guard threatened to kick us all out from the area so they stopped and just waved frantically+showed their iPads to the boys. So anyway, at 6pm, I got in with the A-JAX line (since I didn't know that the foreigners' line gets in first, and I didn't pre-apply as I only found out about this program a day before through the A-Jax fanbase.) The studio set up is very different from the regular music shows - the audience sits at the sides, and the artists performs on the central area, so it was really really close to all of the audience, and felt really cozy. In fact, if you're sitting on the lower rows on the right of the stage, the artists would pass by barely a meter away to go onstage, just like at "Club Answer" for MTV The Show. And where I was seated on the left, I was 3 rows above the MC, which turned out to be LED Apple's Hanbyul! I didn't know that he grew up in Australia, so I was quite surprised to find him perfectly fluent in English! I like the one song I heard from LEDapple back when they were promoting in March, but didn't have the chance to listen to more so far, though my friend Valerie is a HUGE fan of them. And halfway through, 4 members of VIXX popped out and 2 sat beside him, 2 sat behind him - i am still unfamiliar with VIXX, as I have only heard my friend talking about them before, but they seemed really friendly and nice. One even turned to Dixon, my friend who as seated beside him, and asked where he's from. I totally didn't mind, but enjoyed watching the Korean girls squirm as they tried to not get their faces caught on camera... During my segment of the recording, there was (of course) A-JAX, FIX (new group of 3, with a fluent english speaker that is hosting another Arirang program), My Name and LEN (he's realyl really good! A-JAX did 'Never Let Go" on top of their title track "One 4 U", and I was glad to see that rare performance as I had missed the ones on debut weekend. M.I.B., Dalmation and Dal Shabet, whom I have seen multiple times as well, was there too. Also worth a mention is Baek ji Kang, who's voice is really good and is what we call an auntie(ahjumma)-killer - there was a HUGE LONG LINE waiting for him outside Arirang before starting, and I recognised a couple of them from when he turned up at Show Champion! Lol. Loyal ahjumma-fans... (

By the way, when A-Jax came on stage to perform 'Never Let Go', I thought I had eye-contact with Jaehyung as he glanced around, stopped, smiled and waved in my direction - I had his name on my HP LED again - and sorta called out to him as he came onstage. I say 'sorta' because the studio is really small, so there's no need to yell to make myself heard, he's just 5m away. After a couple of other beautiful smiles, and even once when he pointed right in my direction, I decided to test my theory that it was me that he's smiling at, and not the other A-Jax fans nearby - so I formed a "heart" with my arms and he returned it! One-handed as he had a mic in his other hand, but surely enough it's in response to me! So he definitely remembers my face now! <3 *excited* This is exactly why I love the setup here - the artistes can see all of the audience, not just those in the front couple of rows, so we can sorta 'intereact' too. P.S. Usually I don't do the 'heart' thing or yell saranghae, I'm a little old to be acting like a lovestuck-fangirl.)

The taping finished at about 9pm, and although it is kinda long, I'm glad I came - I would be back for more future tapings, as it's a cool program that's easy to get into, and I can sit comfortably throughout, plus it's pretty close to the artistes.

Labels: music show, simply k-pop