My Date with PSY: soju chugging, shirtless dancing + some singing

I almost missed my date with PSY, but I have a long subway ride and my love of Twitter to thank for getting me up front and personal with the man who brought Gangnam Style (722,762,395 views as of 11/15) to the world.

Five days on an island will leave you feeling disconnected. Although armed with a smart phone and tablet, I spent a long and blissfully detached getaway on Jeju this fall. I snapped a few pictures with my phone and did read a bit using my tablet, but for the most part I managed to stay away from the black hole that is the internet.

We arrived back in Seoul on a Wednesday evening with the Jeju travel group and from there I still had to venture further north to my city of Uijeongbu. I sat squished next to my vacation companions on the subway with little left to say to each other after five days of bonding. I took this time to catch up on my Twitter obsession and scrolled aimlessly through a few days worth of updates. All of a sudden I was bombarded with a blast of tweets about a free show Psy was promising his Seoul fans if he made it to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. I had to piece together the news, but I gathered that there would be a free concert in Seoul that following night and that Psy might be shirtless at some point during the event. Less than 24 hours later I was on the same subway heading back into the city to finally meet the man who had recently, in the eyes of my family and friends, made my move to Korea an impressive one.

My friends and I decided to play it safe and we made our way into Seoul around 4pm for a 10pm concert start time. As we climbed the stairs to the Seoul City Hall subway exit we realized that the early arrival game-plan was not exclusively ours. The Seoul municipal government closed off streets around the exit and security and safety officials were already directing fans of all ages as they clamored to find the right sitting spot to wait out the early evening. We managed to find a small patch of grass to claim for the next few hours and the atmosphere continued to intensify as time ticked by.

At first I was impressed with the patient and orderly Koreans who sat quietly waiting for the right time to stand and enjoy the show, but then things got hectic. The section we were sitting in got closed off because too many people were trying to walk through the seated audience members. My friend who had gone in search of food was told she couldn’t rejoin us. Older Koreans who had been waiting for hours grew tired and had to be carried out of the crowd. I even witnessed one older gentleman faint in the middle of arguing with a security guard. One moment I was on the phone telling my detained friend to duck under the security tape and make a run for it and the next moment the Korean crowd simultaneously decided to stand up and rush the stage. Picnics were trampled as little children were scooped up. My other friend grabbed my arm as we were pushed forward and my constrained friend used the instant of confusion to dart into the moving crowd. A few minutes later we found ourselves smack dab in front of Psy’s stage. My lost friend found us and we all stood in silence admiring our close proximity to greatness.

It was only after the fact that I learned of the crowd’s staggering statistics. More than 80,000 people came out to see Psy perform for two hours. Psy was very humble on stage and there was more than one moment where he seemed to stop and just stare at the crowd in disbelief. He laughed and told us, “I did not get here because I was worthy of it. I’m here because of all of you. I’m just a fat man with two kids.” The Seoul concert was an elaborate thank you to Psy’s Korean fans, who supported him before the horse dance was a phenomenon. I admit, I did not know many of Psy’s other songs, although all were dance-worthy, but I was most curious to watch Psy perform, and boy did he. The crowd loved him and he took many opportunities to thank them for their continued support. He ran back and forth along a long stage that extended into the audience, only stopped dancing at one point to chug an entire bottle of soju, graced us with two versions of Gangnam Style and went shirtless at the end of the show, as promised. I went from watching the video (with no volume) on my iPad back in July, to being a few inches from the front row security guards with my surprised waegook face plastered all over the big screens. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, that happened. I love life.