The last two weeks of January Doro and the girls were away, so I looked on the web to find something that I could not do when they were back. On the weekend of 27 and 28 February I found a big rock festival in Seoul, more than 12 hours of music per day, until 5am, a different group every hour, with bands invited from UK, USA, Japan, etc... great! I wrote to Holger and Erik, and Holger decided to come along. So we went on Saturday.
We knew that the entry ticket was expensive, around 80 dollars. Quite a lot for Seoul, but normal for a top event. However when we arrived something that sometimes happens to the "exotic" foreigners in Korea happened also to us. They thought that we were rock-stars, or something like that. It was really funny. We went to one of the counters were they sold the tickets. The girl looked at us, she opened her eyes widely and she smiled excitedly, like if Kurt Cobain was back to life, right in front of her. Fantastic. She wanted to see our ID, we gave her our korean immigration pass. Our names were written with latin letters. She started to nervously type our names on her laptop, but when she could not find us on any list of invited people, she immensely apologized, put on our wirst a "free pass" and called a colleague who gave us two vouchers for a free vodka, a bag and a book with the program. We went inside like stars.
With our surprise, it was a huge open space, enough to contain 10 or 20,000 people, but it was nearly empty! Maybe there were 2-300 people inside. Incredible. But it was nice. I have made some photos with the cellphone of Dorothea. The quality is not great, but you don't take your best camera at a rock concert...
After a quick tour around we found the free-drinks stand. It was in fact a promotional event. Two stands promoting an emphatically green Sauza-tequila, and a strikingly blue Sky-vodka. The drinks were free, but in order to get them we had to stand near this squirrel, let them take a photo of us and promise that we would put it on our Facebook page, to promote their liqueurs. Of course I did not do that, but they are among the few bright photographs that I have from that night, so I put them here. Actually they should at least send us a free bottle for this promotion.
The sky vodka was really blue. I was uncertain on whether I should drink something so weird, but then went for it. It was really sugary. Anyway, after getting a tequila and a vodka, we went to eat something. As in korean swimming pools and in general by large events on the side of the main hall there were tens of stands, but they were almost empty. We got some korean sausages.
The music was much better than what we expected. The first band was a japanese one, "Sokabe Seichi Band" and it was really good. Tons of energy. Then a bunch of korean groups followed, of which "W & Whale" was really special and "Sultan of the Disco" really weird (you know, a group of men wearing big turbans over the head and dancing like Britney Spears?!). Between the korean series a british group, "Fanfarlo", made their show. They were excellent but also very perplex by being in front of such a small audience.
After some time we wanted to go to drink more, but at the tequila/vodka stand they were only promoting, not selling, so we went to the girl who made our photo and asked her "how can we get some more drinks?". She replied "just say IPPUDA!"... Holger was perplex, but quickly said "IPPUDA!". She smiled immediately, so I said "IPPUDA!" again and she took a glass, she filled it with tequila and gave it to me. Holger said "IPPUDA!" and he got his green tequila glass as well. Somehow the girl thought that we knew what we were saying. She told us "Ah, foreign men know how to get things from korean girls! IPPUDA!" and she started laughing. I asked her what IPPUDA meant. She became surprised, then red and shy, and said "it means pretty!". I laughed at that, and I told her, "Ah don't worry, you are really IPPUDA!". She smiled and went away.
We went there later again for another shot. This time a friend of the girl of before wanted us to say something like "OMMAM IPPUDA!". We promptly repeated that, and she gave us a double fill. After one hour, then, because the entire place was so empty and they had so much to drink, they just rose a panel on which they had written "free drink". Everybody could go and get as much as they wanted. I had enough, I did not want to get sick. Holger had some good extra drinks but that did not affect him. Some girls instead started to accumulate glasses full of vodka and tequila on their table, and after two hours a couple of them collapsed asleep and one had a major hangover just under her table. However immediately the people of Souza-Sky styff came and quickly cleaned up. I am always amazed by how precise and gentle koreans can be (when they want...).
Holger was really happy. He bought devil horns for him and for me. While I was getting more and more tired, he was more excited.
Around midnight the concerts were over and the DJ's started. The first was DJ Koo, with a very original show, with pieces from Nirvana in the middle of the dance, and some original dancers that I have filmed. A great energy. After that I went a bit to rest while they continued to play.
With only a few potential customer, some thought that it was a good time for sleeping...
I think that this was one of the best days for Holger since he came to Korea. Absolute relax.
We took a taxi and came back at 5am.
