Article: Mnet – “[Concert Review] YG Family Shows How It’s Done at ‘AIA Real Life Festival’”

[Concert Review] YG Family Shows How It’s Done at ‘AIA Real Life Festival’

Bringing some of the biggest names in Kpop together for the first in a long time, the artists of YG Family put on a show that won’t be forgotten any time soon.

With the weather holding strong after a day of sudden rain, the YG Family Concert took place at the Jamsil Sports Complex as part of the AIA Real Life: NOW Festival 2014 on August 15.

The show started approximately around 6:30 PM KST, with a grand intro video of every artist in YG Entertainment.

It quickly led into 2NE1 taking the stage with Crush, Fire, and Come Back Home, stirring up the energy and excitement in the crowd as the show finally began.

It was also the first time Park Bom appeared to the public since her drug scandal, and the crowd cheered extra loudly for her as she yelled, “I really missed you.”

2NE1’s stage smoothly transitioned over to Akdong Musician, who had everyone in the crowd singing along to Crescendo, a song the siblings last performed while auditioning on K-Pop Star 2. Throughout their entire performance, the phrase ‘They are so adorable’ could be heard from random patches of the crowd as Akdong Musician continued with Give Love and 200%.

Epik High was up next, getting all hands up in the air with Fly. Epik High also brought its juniors up to the stage, collaborating with AKMU’s Soo Hyun for Umbrella and 2NE1’s Sandara Park for Love Love Love.

Going back and forth from senior to junior artists, Winner hopped on the stage, performing Empty for the first time ever. The newly debuted group also sang Go Up and Smile Again, while thanking everyone in the audience for creating such good results for its debut album.

The screams grew louder as the name Big Bang came up on screen, and the five members of Big Bang gathered on stage for the first time in a while in Korea to perform Haru Haru, Bad Boy and Fantastic Baby.

But the biggest surprise was when Winner came up on stage once again to perform Just Another Boy. However, in a blink of an eye, Winner quickly exited in the middle of the song and Team B appeared to finish it with much excitement from the crowd, warmly greeting the members. The Team B members said they are continuously working hard and hoped to debut soon.

With the introductions finally done, the real YG Family concert began with collaborations left and right.

Big Bang’s G-Dragon appeared, twisting the lyrics in 2NE1 Cl’s Baddest Female and getting the crowd to call him ‘oppa yah~ Oppa, oppa, oppa.’ CL took over the latter half, drowning the crowd with her charisma while continuing with MTBD.

As CL exited, G-Dragon popped up, dressed with his crazy wig from MichiGO, but to everyone’s surprise and laughter, the imposter turned out to be Seungri, revealing his own taken on Crayon. But not for too long as G-Dragon appeared to perform the rest of the song with Seungri, sometimes playfully bullying the Big Bang maknae for imitating him.

The familiar sounds of T.O.P’s Doom Dada filled the stadium, but it wasn’t T.O.P, but Sandara Park who appeared, holding a giant microphone with a mustache above her lips. She sang, “Doom Dara dibby dada, Sandara dibby dada,” making the audience roar with laughter. Winner’s Song Minho took over, rapping for the first half of the song, but the crowd went wild when the original rapper himself made a dramatic entrance to finish the song.

Adding a powerful rock sound to the concert, Daesung and Kang Seung Yoon belted out 2NE1’s Ugly, rewriting the lyrics to fit their situation. Team B joined Taeyang in a sexy performance of Ringa Linga while Minzy started off Lee Hi’s string of songs by singing 1-2-3-4 with the rookie, who calmed the atmosphere with Rose later on. Tablo and Taeyang brought Eyes, Nose, Lips to the table, as Epik High switched on the energy back with Up, singing with its featured artist, Park Bom.

Winner and Team B had all the older generation of fans dancing wildly as they paid homage to OG YG singers, Jinusean and 1TYM by singing Phone Number and Hot Ddeuguh.

Big Bang had everyone cracking up as the members did an obnoxiously hilarious parody performance of 2NE1’s I Love You, which included a lot of butt grabbing.

After singing along and going wild for three or so hours, the energy of the audience, which included everyone from children to the elderly, began to simmer down.

As if on cue, Psy popped up on stage, pulling thousands of people into his own 15-minute mini concert in a concert and making sure everyone was on their feet and jumping. He sang Right Now, Celebrity, Gentleman, Father, Champion, and topped it off, of course, with Gangnam Style.

While all the performances ahead of Psy were phenomenal beyond words, the Psy show within the YG Family concert was something else and everyone became exhausted after 15 continuous minutes of jumping, singing, and screaming at Psy’s command.

But the show continued and energy was revived as 2NE1 and Big Bang separately returned to the stage to deliver their final round of hit songs.

After Seungri addressed all the foreign fans in the audience, G-Dragon brought the attention back to the Korean fans, thanking them for keeping Big Bang in their thoughts despite not promoting in their home country for the longest time. He promised to stop playing and work hard on bringing a new Big Bang album before the end of 2014.

The last few stages brought all the YG artists to perform Go Away, Fantastic Baby and Gangnam Style together. A train was formed by the artists to gallop together across the stage for Gangnam Style as audience members danced along below it. Energy ran high on and off the stage and enthusiastic cheers continued until the YG artists bowed out.

The artists disappeared backstage and the thousands of people in the stadium began to empty out, but the lingering feelings of ecstasy continued as four and a half hours of spectacular live performances, a flawless mix of the old and new, quickly zipped through everyone’s heads as they reminisced about what exactly happened in that stadium.

Just like the festival′s slogan, ′Real Music Never Stops,′ the music continued even after the concert was over.

By the end of it all, being sardined in a mob of people and disgustingly rubbing sweat up against each other in the summer heat seemed totally and completely worth it.

Credits: MNet