Ateez....x3
Nov. 27th, 2022 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tullycat A post for Ateez! 8 makes 1 team and 3 shows makes 1 happy tullycat (and maybe a very long post, so buckle in).
I'll start this post with The Fellowship: Beginning of the End tour in January 2022. I had gotten tickets for their concert back in 2019, bare months before covid hit. While other tours eventually canceled or changed dates and refunded, I had no news from Ateez until Nov or Dec 2021 when they announced the new dates.
It was my first concert of 2022 and my first concert since the start of covid. Covid was still front of mind though: this concert was during the omicron surge and I have to admit, I was veryyyy hesitant about whether I should be going to it. It was, however, during the brief but glorious period when masks were still mandated at concerts, which everyone was good about following.
Unsurprisingly, a concert that had worked for me in 2019 wasn't as easy to attend in 2022, so I had to make a mad scramble to make that date and location feasible. Somehow it worked out and I spent a very fun weekend with friends I hadn't seen in 2 years.
I was a 'tastemaker' on MyMusicTaste for this concert, so I had early access and even had 10% off the ticket price. Ateez weren't as well known in late 2019 (friends got decent unsold seats in Jan 2020, a month after they went on sale) so I managed to get a pretty good seat in lower bowl with none of the ticketing stress I've had this year. They had no pop out stage and were in a smaller venue, so even with good seats they were pretty far back for the whole show, but no complaints overall.
I had spent most of 2021 not really listening to their Fever series. For whatever reason, the music didn't grab me. That definitely changed after the concert, omg. Fireworks and Take Me Home were my favorites, but the whole stretch of Fireworks, Good Lil Boy, The Leaders, To the Beat, and Thanxx really changed my mind on those songs. They were so fun live.
I also had a new experience - I got concert bias wrecked for like the first time ever. I'm pretty lax on who I call bias which means I'm generally very faithful to them even in concert, but yeah San bias wrecked me hard. (And none of my friends guessed it was San when I said I had been bias wrecked lol...too obvious.)
Fellowship Tour playlist
At the end of the January concert, Ateez said they'd be back soon, potentially even promising 'this year' but I didn't think much of it....until they announced their Break the Wall tour for November 2022. I had another instance of schedule scrambling but managed to get tickets for two shows.
I was the first stop of this tour, so I had no idea what to expect. Usually Korean concerts are much longer and get more songs, but this time the setlist was exactly the same. KQ Fellaz 2 opened the show and performed two songs. (I don't know their music at all so I'm unsure which songs.) They were cute and hopefully they enjoyed performing for such a large crowd!
Ateez took the stage around 8:24 which was when I knew I was in for a long night (in a good way). Ateez are great performers though so even with the concert ending at 11 pm, I was just happy to be there. This venue did have a pop out stage (yay arena tour!) and they owned it. Even in the January tour you could tell they needed a much bigger stage, so I'm happy I got to see them at this level.
Their intro is so dramatic and theatrical (and I believe used KQ Fellaz 2 as backup dancers) and such a fun way to start the show. Halfway-ish through, they had a pirate ship as the set background complete with a wheel for Hongjoong to steer. There was also a moon hanging over the pop-out stage, but nothing in their setlist was particularly moon/space related so I admit, that one confused me.
Seonghwa continued to hold his place as bias, but San still bias wrecked me. At point I asked Pop when he stops being a bias wrecker and just becomes a bias and she said now, so. I bias San now. (Yunho is also in the bias line but he's less of a diva when he performs so my eyes are drawn to the other two.) Jongho sounded really good the whole night, maybe even better than the January tour. And Mingi seemed so relaxed and happy. I'm really glad he was able to take his break a year or so ago. <3 It feels wrong for Hongjoong to not be in my bias line when I also love him so much so maybe I'll get bias wrecked again.
Stand out song of the concert was for sure Cyberpunk for me. It's my favorite off The World Ep 1: Movement and the performance is just so much. Seonghwa said it was also his favorite off the album because 'it shows the story of Ateez well.' I turned to Missi and said 'is your story Magic Mike??' so you can imagine what kind of performance it was.
This concert was different than other large Kpop concerts in a couple ways. For one, Ateez are all very good at English. Probably cumulatively the best of like, any group, especially considering none of them are native speakers. So all of their mentions were in English for this concert and the January one. They did have a translator - she spoke once for Yunho. This concert also had fairly short mentions. I get it, they had a ton of stuff to get through and we were already at the 3 hour limit, but I am used to long ments from Kpop groups. (They got their long ments out of the way in the January tour so this tour was just party time. I can't say I minded the brisk pace!) Opening with KQ Fellaz 2 and not having any pre-show music videos to hype up the crowd were also different - more like Western pop concerts.
Break the Wall setlist (plus From as the penultimate song)
(This didn't post to the reading page correctly the first time so I am reposting it! Will hopefully write up the last concert soon.)
I'll start this post with The Fellowship: Beginning of the End tour in January 2022. I had gotten tickets for their concert back in 2019, bare months before covid hit. While other tours eventually canceled or changed dates and refunded, I had no news from Ateez until Nov or Dec 2021 when they announced the new dates.
It was my first concert of 2022 and my first concert since the start of covid. Covid was still front of mind though: this concert was during the omicron surge and I have to admit, I was veryyyy hesitant about whether I should be going to it. It was, however, during the brief but glorious period when masks were still mandated at concerts, which everyone was good about following.
Unsurprisingly, a concert that had worked for me in 2019 wasn't as easy to attend in 2022, so I had to make a mad scramble to make that date and location feasible. Somehow it worked out and I spent a very fun weekend with friends I hadn't seen in 2 years.
I was a 'tastemaker' on MyMusicTaste for this concert, so I had early access and even had 10% off the ticket price. Ateez weren't as well known in late 2019 (friends got decent unsold seats in Jan 2020, a month after they went on sale) so I managed to get a pretty good seat in lower bowl with none of the ticketing stress I've had this year. They had no pop out stage and were in a smaller venue, so even with good seats they were pretty far back for the whole show, but no complaints overall.
I had spent most of 2021 not really listening to their Fever series. For whatever reason, the music didn't grab me. That definitely changed after the concert, omg. Fireworks and Take Me Home were my favorites, but the whole stretch of Fireworks, Good Lil Boy, The Leaders, To the Beat, and Thanxx really changed my mind on those songs. They were so fun live.
I also had a new experience - I got concert bias wrecked for like the first time ever. I'm pretty lax on who I call bias which means I'm generally very faithful to them even in concert, but yeah San bias wrecked me hard. (And none of my friends guessed it was San when I said I had been bias wrecked lol...too obvious.)
Fellowship Tour playlist
At the end of the January concert, Ateez said they'd be back soon, potentially even promising 'this year' but I didn't think much of it....until they announced their Break the Wall tour for November 2022. I had another instance of schedule scrambling but managed to get tickets for two shows.
I was the first stop of this tour, so I had no idea what to expect. Usually Korean concerts are much longer and get more songs, but this time the setlist was exactly the same. KQ Fellaz 2 opened the show and performed two songs. (I don't know their music at all so I'm unsure which songs.) They were cute and hopefully they enjoyed performing for such a large crowd!
Ateez took the stage around 8:24 which was when I knew I was in for a long night (in a good way). Ateez are great performers though so even with the concert ending at 11 pm, I was just happy to be there. This venue did have a pop out stage (yay arena tour!) and they owned it. Even in the January tour you could tell they needed a much bigger stage, so I'm happy I got to see them at this level.
Their intro is so dramatic and theatrical (and I believe used KQ Fellaz 2 as backup dancers) and such a fun way to start the show. Halfway-ish through, they had a pirate ship as the set background complete with a wheel for Hongjoong to steer. There was also a moon hanging over the pop-out stage, but nothing in their setlist was particularly moon/space related so I admit, that one confused me.
Seonghwa continued to hold his place as bias, but San still bias wrecked me. At point I asked Pop when he stops being a bias wrecker and just becomes a bias and she said now, so. I bias San now. (Yunho is also in the bias line but he's less of a diva when he performs so my eyes are drawn to the other two.) Jongho sounded really good the whole night, maybe even better than the January tour. And Mingi seemed so relaxed and happy. I'm really glad he was able to take his break a year or so ago. <3 It feels wrong for Hongjoong to not be in my bias line when I also love him so much so maybe I'll get bias wrecked again.
Stand out song of the concert was for sure Cyberpunk for me. It's my favorite off The World Ep 1: Movement and the performance is just so much. Seonghwa said it was also his favorite off the album because 'it shows the story of Ateez well.' I turned to Missi and said 'is your story Magic Mike??' so you can imagine what kind of performance it was.
This concert was different than other large Kpop concerts in a couple ways. For one, Ateez are all very good at English. Probably cumulatively the best of like, any group, especially considering none of them are native speakers. So all of their mentions were in English for this concert and the January one. They did have a translator - she spoke once for Yunho. This concert also had fairly short mentions. I get it, they had a ton of stuff to get through and we were already at the 3 hour limit, but I am used to long ments from Kpop groups. (They got their long ments out of the way in the January tour so this tour was just party time. I can't say I minded the brisk pace!) Opening with KQ Fellaz 2 and not having any pre-show music videos to hype up the crowd were also different - more like Western pop concerts.
Break the Wall setlist (plus From as the penultimate song)
(This didn't post to the reading page correctly the first time so I am reposting it! Will hopefully write up the last concert soon.)
no subject
Date: 2022-12-01 02:55 am (UTC)Yes it's true, if you can't rely on one person for English then you all kind of learn it. They do a great job.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-01 04:36 am (UTC)I have since remembered the one group I think maaaaybe beats out Ateez in cumulative English skills: WayV. But they might not qualify since Ten and Yangyang both went to international schools and were already basically fluent before entering the industry. (And in Yangyang's case, I wouldn't be surprised if he grew up learning English at the same time as Mandarin. His relative lack of accent definitely sounds like he started absorbing the language at a young age.) Anyway, aside from Ten and Yangyang, Xiaojun and Hendery are both very comfortable in English (more so than Korean, I think), and Kun and Winwin both understand a lot and can speak when called upon but are less confident. And if we want to include Lucas, English was part of the language soup he grew up in (I genuinely don't think he has a true first language, his background seems fairly mixed in terms of language) so he can converse in it although he's far from fluent. Anyway, this became a mini essay in your comments, sorry, lmao. I just think the communal linguistics of WayV are extremely interesting, and they should be studied.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-02 05:12 pm (UTC)I do not have any actual evidence, but I think that English is emphasized more (taught better?) in Chinese schools than Korean ones. I've noticed that generally speaking, Chinese idols seem better at English than Korean ones, although this is obviously not universally true. It also depends on which school (and WHERE...Hong Kong is an outlier in terms of English speaking, for example) and how good of a student they were lol.