The End of Scene#1

La Poem completed its first concert tour.

April 10th was the first day of La Poem's 1st concert <Scene#1> tour. I still remember this day when I went to Seoul Train Station to take KTX to go to Busan (see the post published on Apr. 25). After two times of postponement, Busan, not Seoul, accidentally became the first city holding La Poem's 1st concert. 

Image from Chaehoon's instagram

Last Sunday (August, 15), the third day of Seoul concert, La Poem finally completed their concert tour. I was there to see Scene#1 be ending at last. As the hyper-contagious Delta variant of coronavirus was dominating the entire nation, holding a concert itself was really a sensitive matter. On the concert day, everybody but the singers were masking up inside the hall at all times. The audience did their best not to make vocal sounds and only to applaud wholeheartedly. In the outside of the hall, people limited social gatherings and maintained some physical distance. Being aware of this grave situation, La Views voluntarily decided to halt their giveaways (see the post published on May 17) before the Seoul concert began. 

Over two months after the Busan concert was held, the tour resumed in Ulsan, continuing in Suwon, Cheongju, Seongnam, and Daegu. It finally ended in Seoul. All cities except Seoul had two days of concert over a weekend. I went to Seongnam on both Saturday and Sunday. The concert was held in sweltering heat in late July. Chaehoon was sensitive enough to thank the audience for coming to the concert under the sizzling weather. He seemed to be sincerely appreciative of it and posted a thank-you note on his Instagram on Saturday after the concert was over. 

It reads in translation: 

We just returned from La Poem's first-day of Seongnam concert. While watching all of you seated in the entire concert hall in spite of the sweltering heat outside I had a lot of thoughts--"Is it really happening in my life that I am performing music while being much loved?" I determined myself once again that La Poem (including myself) would work harder. Thank you as always! We'll focus and work harder to safely complete the rest of the tour. With Love.    

Image from Chaehoon's instagram

The last day of the tour in Seoul was my third Scene#1 concert. Well, it's actually my fourth if the Busan concert is included. But I feel like Busan concert is somewhat isolated from the others because it took more than two months for the next concert to resume in Ulsan. During this break, La Poem made changes quite a bit, trying to upgrade every aspect of the concert. 

For example, 

(a) a string team joined the session band after Busan, contributing to making richer sounds; 

(b) lighting and stage effects were also upgraded; and 

(c) a talk time was inserted, which made La View happier. 

Besides these, small changes were additionally made in Daegu after Seongnam. 

Major changes La Poem made during the tour

Setlist changes were the most conspicuous one between Busan and Ulsan concerts. 

Self-made image

Going to Ulsan, La Poem introduced new digital singles "Waltz in Storm" and "Half-moon" to audience and completely changed their solo performances.

Members' costumes also changed across these three divisions (i.e., Busan; Ulsan to Seongnam; Daegu and Seoul). The left panel shows members' outfits in Busan and the right panel in Ulsan to Seongnam.  

Image from La Poem official instagram

From Daegu, the members put on lighter colored clothes. They are shown below.   

Image from La Poem official instagram

Costumes worn during solo performance were changed as well over the course. Most of all, Sunghoon put on white shirt and pants, with the shirt decorated with black and white feathers. This outfit began in Ulsan and was maintained until Seongnam concert. While maintaining the ornamental feathers, he changed to black clothes in Daegu. In Seoul, he did not wear the feathers anymore.

Here's a bit of extra information about changes made during the tour:  

When performing solo, Chaehoon brought some interesting tool (?) to the stage. In Busan, he put on a long leather jacket and sunglasses. In Suwon, Cheongju, and Seongnam, he brought the Hammer of Thor to the stage. In Daegu, he changed to a new one, the Infinity Gauntlet of Thanos which is shown in the picture right above. (I'm sorry. I can't stop him.)

Minseong didn't play the keyboard anymore after Busan. He, however, added some acting during his solo. He starts to sing a song, suddenly stops due to some reason, changes to a different song, and then stops again for another reason. He then sounds as if he's finally decided what to sing and then sings "New York, New York" (sung by Frank Sinatra). Because of his sudden stops, we only tasted a bit of these two songs during his solo. He made sure that we could listen to at least one of these songs without stopping during the concert. I was happy to listen to these extra songs "A Little Girl" (by Lee, Moon-sae) in Seongnam and "Brink of Summer" (by Kim, Dong-ryul) in Seoul. 

As the concert tour was progressing La Poem seemed to be getting more comfortable on stage. I find that the members spoke more comfortably with one another and to the audience in Seongnam and Seoul compared to Busan. At the same time, they always performed in earnest and professionally, and never let their hardships shown to the audience. 

In closing the tour in Seoul, Kihun was very frank about the fear he had. He said that he was afraid every time he came on the stage. I was surprised but sorta able to sympathize with him, given the fact that his music background had been strictly classical. It must have been very difficult for him to make himself adapt to a new field, crossover music. No matter how fearful he was, I think that Kihun is one of the members who has grown most throughout the concert tour. He started to show true Kihun who is very endearing and fun to be around. Also, his vocal ability has expanded, which was gradually suited to pop music.

The Seoul concert was special because it happened in the last venue of the tour. It was much more special because La Poem prepared special gifts for La View. After all the songs in the setlist were over, they showed up again, putting on La Poem MD T-shirts, to sing encore songs. Each member was holding a banner displaying a La View related phrase. 

Here's a banner that La Views showed to La Poem on Day-1 in Busan (see the post published on Apr. 26). 

Banner for La Poem used in Busan

In closing the concert tour, La Poem showed us moving phrases like this.

Banners for La View used in Seoul

It reads "As always/Like stars that shine you/We'll protect you/La Poem will be with you."

Across three days of concert in Seoul, La Poem brought various phrases, all about affection for La View. The phrases shown in the picture were used on the 3rd day. 

La Poem's 1st concert <Scene#1> tour finally ended. Kudos to La Poem for completing a huge event successfully. 

On the last day I wasn't crying as much as I thought I would be. I think that I took it as a beginning of Scene#2 rather than the end of Scene#1. La Poem members also didn't look sad. They perhaps felt bittersweet in ending the long and tough journey. 

On the first day of Seoul concert, Chaehoon announced that he was selected to lead Culture Concert Nanjang as the 9th host. Nanjang, organized by Gwangju MBC, is a sort of live concert platform. Last year La Pome was invited to this platform and sang their to-be-released songs "Gleamy Night" and "Crescent" live for the first time (see the page Major TV Performances). A music-show host You, Chaehoon never occurred to me, but I'm sure that he will be great in leading the show. His new role could not have come at a more opportune time in which La Poem was ending their first scene. I am wondering what sort of things will be ahead of us in Scene#2. 

Chaehoon is closing the concert tour in a calm tone, promising to be back with more improvements after a short break. He says there will be many events even though the concert tour is finished. (Yes! In fact, several concerts of La Poem members are already scheduled.) Chaehoon also thanks the other members, people who came to La Poem's concerts from near and far distances, and those who could not come to the concerts but always root for La Poem. 

As La Poem was busy following their summer schedule, it was a busy summer for me as well. Now, I feel like having some break from La Poem and focusing on my own work. This is necessary to start a new scene of myself just like La Poem prepares for Scene#2.