A weekend of screaming, part 1

Not as prominently displayed at the concert as I hoped.

I went to the Rain concert yesterday night at the SM Mall of Asia, expecting more of the craziness I encountered when I went to the Super Junior concert at the Araneta Coliseum. And I guess I did get what I wished for.

Just as with the Super Junior concert, the lines were already long hours before the concert even began. But despite that, everyone was pretty well-behaved. When they started herding everyone into the venue, everyone was still on their best behavior. I thought that it would actually be a pretty sedate crowd compared to the Super Junior kids.

How wrong I was.

When I finally managed to get in, the people in the VIP area were already four rows deep, which I didn't mind at first because I'm not really a big K-Pop fan. However, as more and more people kept coming in, I became more and more concerned.

You see, most of the people I was sharing the VIP area with were either Koreans or teenage girls. I will most definitely sound racist and ageist after I type this down, but it has to be said -- these two groups can go really batshit crazy at events like these when push comes to shove. But I tried not to think about it, even if one the fans (a Korean teenager OMG) kept pressing her boobs against my back.

I got an inkling of trouble when Christian Bautista -- one of the two front acts -- took the stage. Because from behind me, I felt what could be best described as a Korean rush. You could feel them pushing forward en masse and if it were not for the other Filipinos I was with they would have broken through the ranks.

But that was just the first attempt. U-KISS was up next.

This is U-KISS.

Perhaps my countrymen were distracted by the Korean teenagers onstage -- one of the members of U-KISS is only 16-years-old -- because when the Koreans pushed again, the barricade gave way like a battalion of Orcs being trampled by the Rohirrim. Since I was the only one standing firm, I ended up being carried by the current all the way up to the second row.

While all of that was happening, the Korean girl behind me kept pressing her boobs against my back, distressing me enough to tweet this:

And yet, I still wasn't prepared for what happened when Rain finally came out. Because when he finally did, it was crazy.

I guess you can't blame them.

When Rain came out, the girl behind me practically heaved me and everyone else forward, and pretty soon I found myself against the railings. The Korean teenager was right behind another girl, and she had both her hands and a leg grabbing onto the railings for dear life. By this time the other concert goers were furious and were yelling at her to stop pushing. Korean girl replies in an indignant voice that she is not pushing, even as she looks the way she does.

All throughout Rain's performance, Korean teenager was screaming her head off. "Oppa! Oppa! Opppppaaaaaaa!!!!" followed by really heavy breathing. She may have been convulsing too but I didn't care to look. I was, however, curious as to what "Oppa" meant.

The craziest and most hilarious thing about the concert, though, was the fact that it ran so short. I barely had enough time to get my metaphorical panties in a bunch before Rain was bowing to the audience and departing the stage. I wasn't too bummed out, but the guys all around me had this shattered look in their eyes.

Afterwards, I went out with a bunch of friends to a karaoke place and screamed my lungs out, as I did precious little of it during the concert itself. A fun time was had by all, especially since one of us got hilariously drunk.

"It's a fucking concert!"

My understanding of concerts has always been this: the performer does his thing, and the crowd goes wild. it's a pretty simple dynamic, and something that I am really, really fond of. It's one of the few instances in life where it is absolutely encouraged that you stand on chairs and scream your hearts out.

As everyone of my Twitter followers found out last night, I was at the Kris Allen concert. While it started out a little low-key with Boyce Avenue, the crowd was getting pretty pumped by the time the Jabbawockeez performed, and it would have been a cakewalk to get them into a frenzy once Kris Allen went out.

But all throughout the concert, if anybody so much as stood up ON THE GROUND, security personnel would walk up and ask us to sit down because the people at the back couldn't see. There were also people from behind shouting "Sit down, we can't see!" It got so annoying that I would routinely shout back "Stand on the chairs then, it's a fucking concert!" We got asked to sit down so many times I just gave up and tweeted for most of the show.

I haven't been to a lot of concerts, but all of the ones I've been to had security AND audiences who were absolutely cool with you standing up to show your appreciation. You happen be blocking their view? Fine, they'll stand on the chairs. Even THE CLICK FUCKING FIVE audience understood this dynamic.

And to top it all off I ended up being one of those people at every concert who end up misplacing some of their stuff and never finding them again. Perhaps I was being too obnoxious when I told them to stand on the chairs? But you see, I never thought I'd have to reason to ever say those words AT A FUCKING CONCERT.

* * * * *

From left, Ruhal Ahmed, Brandon Neely, Shafiq Rasul

Guantanamo guard and inmate become Facebook friends.I know, this story is a month old. But isn't it amazing? These two probably got along better than I did with those concertgoers.

* * * * *
A Contract for the Gay Guy/Straight Guy Friendship.

* * * * *

Lesbian Albatrosses Raising Chick Together.

* * * * *
They're going to be teaching drag at Brazil's first gay school.

* * * * *
Finally, I know there are some Ben Whishaw and/or Brideshead Revisited fans on my flist, so perhaps you may be interested in this article from Out. Brian Moylan from Gawker indirectly came out in that article, specifically because of this exchange:

While he might reject labels -- his character in Cock declares that the labels gay and straight are “words from the ’60s made by our parents…only invented to get rights” -- the coincidence of appearing in consecutive plays (Cock and The Pride) that explore sexuality might suggest a subconscious desire to discuss his own identity. Are the plays a way to make a statement without making a statement?

“Maybe it’s subconscious, I don’t know,” he says. “It’s intriguing to me that these parts come along. Of course the choices you make express something about you to the world, and of course the work I do is all about me, but rather than me standing up and making statements about myself and things, I’d prefer to let the work do the speaking.”

This part of the article is also interesting;

Whether this is a disingenuous fudge or a heartfelt response from a man who, at 29, still seems something of a boy, Whishaw is not oblivious to the complex and painful issues that the question raises. Asked if he thinks it’s important for young gay people to have positive role models, his ambivalence vanishes. “I really agree with that, and I feel in my heart that it’s important, but I don’t quite know yet the way to go about that. Maybe that’s the transitional thing I feel I’m in the middle of at the moment. It’s something I think about, but it’s important for me to do it at the time that’s right for me. And I’m not there yet.”

What do you guys think? Gay or Nay?