OK I have put this off for nearly two weeks now, but on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, Henry and I drove to Chicago (Rosemont, specifically) to see night 1 of the Seventeen US Tour.

I was popping off internally. Not that the rest of the groups I stan don’t mean as much to me, but SVT….hits different. And of course, there is that connection that I fabricated between them and my cat, Bambi. So when she died, it catapulted them up in the love bracket inside my heart (Henry continuously gets knocked down, haha). I knew that the emotions were going to be strong with this one.

We stayed about 20 minutes away from Allstate Arena this time so we have to drive and park there which was annoying because we always stay in a hotel right across from the arena but this time there was an issue where Henry accidentally booked two nights and when he tried to call  them and get rid of one of the nights, they said NO so he had to cancel the entire reservation. Look, I don’t work in the hotel industry but that seemed really stupid to me. It was about 4:30 by this point, and I was getting so worked up seeing all the Carats roaming around the hotel parking lot and lobby so I said, “LET’S GOOOOOOOOO.” There was early merch going on so I thought it would be a good idea to get that out of the way, because when we went to see ATEEZ, THEY SOLD OLD OF MERCH by the end of the night and I had to buy my shirt from Amazon (it seemed legit though!).

This is how we came to stand in a line outside of the arena for over an hour, Carat-watching, collecting free stuff (I usually don’t go early to these concerts anymore so I miss out on all the freebies!), and just being generally giddy (well, one of us was). Carats are special people, you guys. Legit the only toxic fandom I have encountered to date has been BTS Army. But being around 10,000s of Carats in this weird stage of still-grieving-my-cat/bff was beyond soothing. I can’t explain it. But seeing all the people dressed up in outfits from various music videos, hearing the two Carats behind me go from strangers to friends by the time we made it to the merch truck (Miriam and Catherine – they talked for an entire hour before finally introducing themselves and I was dying), hearing Carats cheering on people doing dance challenges in the parking lot—it healed parts of me in ways that time and therapy can’t.

These girls were walking around with Joshua and (now I can’t remember who else they had) cardboard cutouts for photo ops. I wanted Henry to get his picture taken with them but he STAUNCHLY refused.

I did get him to hold the banner though.

Here’s Henry pairing my lightstick, lol. If you have never been to a kpop concert, every group has their lightstick and you can pair it to bluetooth once you get to the venue so that it will coordinate with the music. You have to put in your actual seat # too. I don’t always have the patience to do this but Henry handled it for me this time :)

(I heard Taylor Swift does something similar now after finding out that Kpop is like this, and that’s gross to me but if she can swing the vote in Kamala’s favor, I will never say another disparaging thing about her Napoleon Dynamite twinning or boring music.)

My favorite part of the day was when we got all the way to the front of the merch line only to find out that 90% of everything was SOLD OUT. Every single t-shirt, hoodie, etc. GONE. They only had little accessories left, things I would never buy. I just wanted a shirt. When I got up there, the lady apologized and said that everything was going to be restocked at the merch booths inside, which, OK cool, but honestly they couldn’t send anyone around to make this announcement to the people standing in line? That line went back even FARTHER at this point from where it ended when we got there but OK just let those people stand there for hours.

So fucked up!

At this point, it was after 6PM so we got in one of the many lines to get inside. The doors were just starting to open but you know how venues, after decades of holding concerts, still can’t figure out an easy and painless entry system. It never fails to be a clusterfuck. But we did get in by 6:45 I would say. It was really windy the whole time we were in that parking lot, and I hadn’t realized just how close it is to the airport until I saw REALLY LOW planes passing over the arena on their way to landing, and I started having all kinds of disaster thoughts.

OK OK OK, let’s speed this up: we got inside the venue, which is way too small for Kpop concerts IMO, it’s a crowd-crush sitch waiting to happen in those walkways.

Found our seats first:

They weren’t great – we were in the 200s section because literally it was all we could get the day the tickets went on sale before the prices doubled. I fucking hate you, Ticketmaster. I just felt grateful that we got seats at all though and didn’t have to try to deal with resellers. I just don’t trust anyone.

After finding our seats, we fought the crowds downstairs and eventually found the end of one of the merch lines. It was outrageous and I was so scared that for the first time ever, I was going to miss the beginning of a concert. But we made it to the table, I got my Rosemont-specific shirt, and we ran back upstairs to our seats. My heart was RACING.

Almost exactly at 7:30, it started and I was SHOOK. The emotions! The excitement! The awe! Seventeen has been a group that I have known since getting into Kpop. They were rookies back then and my fave Kpop dance aerobics channel, SarahKpop, had a few routines to their songs. It’s how I first heard their famously popular (and notorious!) “Aju Nice” and I was so excited to hear it in person!

Bambi’s bias, The 8 / Xu Minghao <3

Obviously, I wish that I could have seen OT13, but Jeonghan has just recently enlisted in mandatory miliary service which I feel like I don’t have to explain anymore now that BTS made the entire world aware of this, and Jun is in China filming a TV show.

I wanted to see them in 2022 when they were in Newark, but we had already registered for Coastin’ by the Ocean in Wildwood and couldn’t swing it. I would take Kpop over coasters any day of the week though, just let that be known.

My bias Seungkwan <3 Jeonghan also shares this status, but after this show, Hoshi is 100% my bias wrecker. Like, 10000%.

Hoshi <3

Minghao <3

The chaos that was their “Oh My!” performance. I love the duality of Kpop groups. I love that they can come out so sultry and edgy, so fierce, then suddenly they’re being their true dorky selves and having a dance off with people dressed as blow-up animals. How can you not love this!? How could anyone not find this entertaining??

(And I’m crying now lol.)

(Janna if you are reading this you better watch this video!!)

The costume people came out again unexpectedly during “God of Music”!

I also have to say that this was BY FAR the loudest Kpop (or any) concert I have ever attended. There were times when it felt like the ecstatic shrieking around me had pierced through my skull and continued to ricochet inside my head like rubber bouncy balls. It was PAINFUL. The most ear-and-head pain I think I have ever experienced and I was legit scared for my life several times, lol. Even Henry was like, “HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT IS HAPPENING.”

For reference, I have been to a BTS concert and this by far exceeded those levels of fanaticism. The girl behind me simultaneously sounded like a Beatles-mania-era teenage girl and also an adult man. I don’t know how she was doing it but her shrill shrieks were morphing into guttural roars and it was concerning. I kept tossing glances over my shoulder because I was curious as to what was going on behind me!

The whole show was one giant highlight reel for me but I have to mention that I walked away with “March” as my new favorite song – previously it had been one of those tracks that I never paid much attention to when it would come on but after seeing them perform it (it was a surprise, too!) something clicked in my brain and I have listened to it on repeat on my walks every day since then.

Henry was bitter that the hiphop group performed Water and not Lalali, cry about it, Henry!

I FUCKING DIED that the performance group (minus Jun) did Lilili Yabbay! (And Rain, which is my favorite song off their latest album, in case you cared to know.)

Henry just asked me how it’s going, recapping this night, and I let my wet eyeballs answer that.

The encore though! I have never seen anyone understand the encore assignment as well as Seventeen does. The crowd engagement! The energy! The unhinged hilarity! My whole fucking face hurt from smiling and laughing – it was everything that I needed to help fill that Bambi-shaped hole in my heart (crying again). And when I’m able to share this experience with someone who also enjoys it, understands it, stans the group (yes, I mean Henry if you can believe that) it makes it even better. We dissected the night on the entire drive back to Pittsburgh the next day and we are still rehashing it! He said his favorite part was the encore and I know you’re thinking, “Yeah, because that meant the concert was almost over and he was stoked on that” but it’s because it seriously is complete pandemonium! SO JOYOUS AND PURE!

Part of their encore is never-ending Aju Nice where every time you think it’s over, the chorus kicks back up and Seungkwan LOVES to go into the crowd and let fans sing the high note, so Carats at the barricade will hold signs that say “Can I Aju Nice??” It is epic and well-known in the Kpop world – they even did this at Glastonbury and Lollapalooza Berlin and the non-kpop fans in the crowd evidently ate it up.

They also did a dance-off during the encore and the energy was so strong. I can’t believe we were there. I can’t believe I got see neverending Aju Nice!!!!

I gotta wrap this up before I start posting videos from the whole entire concert.

SET LIST:

Act 1

VCR

1. Fear
2. Fearless
3. Maestro

MENT

4. Ash
5. Crush (I fucking died)

VCR

Act 2

6. Water (Hip-Hop Unit)
7. Monster (Hip-Hop Unit)
8. Rain (Performance Unit)
9. Lilili Yabbay (Performance Unit)
10. Candy (Vocal Unit)
11. Cheers to Youth (Vocal Unit) – linking the actual MV here because it’s so fucking precious and uplifting

VCR

Act 3

12. Oh My!
13. Snap Shoot
14. GOD OF MUSIC!!

Ment

15. Home

VCR

16. Love, Money, Fame (debut of the English version)

MENT

17. March
18. Super (fucking iconic)

ENCORE

19. Adore U
20. ‘Bout You

MENT

21. Campfire (they made everyone sit for this – but let it be known that Henry was already sitting because he never stood once until it was time to leave #old)
22. NEVERENDING VERY NICE!
23. Hit (extended)
24. CALL CALL CALL!
25. Snap Shoot (extended)
26. Holiday (extended)

This entire nearly 30-minute encore will live – AS THE KIDS SAY – rent free in my head for the rest of my life. I hope that when I’m old and a near-vegetable in a nursing home, this is still playing vividly behind my eyes. I am so forever grateful that I found Kpop that one fateful Xmas Eve 2015.

Now I will live vicariously through the rest of the Carats on Instagram who are attending the rest of the dates on this tour!

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