We’re on our way home from Long Island after seeing Enhypen’s Walk the Line concert last night. It was FANTASTIC.

Now, I’m not really that much of an ENGENE (that’s their fan name in case you care) but I do know all of their members and 90% of the songs. In fact there was only one song they performed last night that I wasn’t sure if I had heard before. But I sat out last summer’s concert and had big regertz after that. Mostly because when they came back with their song “XO,” I was fully obsessed.

So when they announced this current tour, I bought 2 tickets in the 200s section.

The drive was long and uneventful. We were able to check into our hotel in Linden, NJ on the way so that was nice, but we didn’t hang around very long – long enough to put on the latest Jake Webber video which I sent of picture of to Chooch and he said he was glad he wasn’t there lol:

It was only around 4pm but we left immediately to start the drive to Long Island because GPS reported lots of accidents + rush hour. And we wanted to eat somewhere before the concert too.

The drive was chaotic. I absolutely could not do this myself, and I am secure enough in my GIRL POWER attitude to admit that this is a big reason why I am glad to have a man/driver at my beck and call.

We went to this vegan place called Rockin’ Roots. It was VERY small and two of the four tiny tables were taken.

The whole reason I wanted to go here was because they have vegan sushi but when we got there, the chalkboard menu had everything erased under the SUSHI heading and their printed menu doesn’t mention it at all so that was my sign that they didn’t have any for that I guess. I got the daily special – the Cuban – instead. It was really good but I only ordered a half and was still so hungry after. Not to mention that the lady at the table next to us HAD SUSHI. AND SHE DIDNT EVEN FINISH IT. I figured she must have gotten the last of it and I was pissed.

Also, Henry bumped the table SO HARD that my can of Olipop tumbled over and this was literally a second after I had decided to wait to pop the top. That could have been such a disaster because we were like 90 minutes away from our hotel at that point and I’d have had to go to the concert in Cherry Pop stained shorts. It didn’t happen but I was still so mad at him for being an oaf.

THEN SOME GUY IN AND THE DUDE WORKING BEHIND THE COUNTER TOLD HIM HE COULD MAKE HIM A LOBSTER ROLL!!!!!

I was soooo mad.

Henry was like, “I’ll go up and order one to go!” But at that point I was fully committed to pouting and ruining the day at least for the next hour or so, so I said, “NO JUST FORGET IT!!!”

Then I proceeded to whine incessantly about still being hungry because Leo problems. We ended up stopping at a crappy bakery and got a really crappy cookie. I couldn’t even finish it out of principle and the stubborn need to stay in my diva character.

I was still being a bitch when we arrived at UBS Arena but then I started getting freebies so this pulled me back down to earth. I love getting freebies at kpop concerts!!!

Then after we got in a really long line, some UBS employee came over and was yelling, “Are there any AmEx cardholders here??” And I yelled, “Ooooh!!! Me!!!!” So he gave a handful of us instructions on where to locate the ELITE AmEx entry lol. The line over there was much shorter after all the non-cardholders were weeded out but I’m not sure how much time it actually saved us once doors opened.

While standing there, I got a bracelet and a keychain after I heard the rustling of cellophane behind me – I turned around to see an older lady and her little kid handing them out and I said, “Oooh! Can I have one too?” Being an older fan, you have to speak up for freebies or else most of these people will assume you’re too old to care but yo, I will always be young at heart enough to want to wear friendship bracelets with idols’ names on them. I even got sunnies with “EN” beads glued to it and a rubber duck with the concert date and location written on the bottom! I love stuff like this. Especially SINCE THE CONCERT TSHIRTS WERE ALL SOLD OUT, dafuq???!!! I ended up having to buy a dupe on Etsy today.

My Enhypen glasses lol. I got them from one of the girls with the girl wrapped in the flag in line in front of us, in case you were dying to know. There was a young teen girl also in line in front of us and she kept scrutinizing me, I felt like. She was looking at all my kpop accoutrement dangling from my purse and I really like she was judging me and trying to determine if I was a legit fan.

Answer: I’m a certified and legitimate multi-stan. You’re safe.

Mister Softee sighting!!!

We were in section 208, the middle of row 1. Henry was happy because this meant he could stay seated through the whole thing while enjoying an unobstructed view. I was just happy to be comfortable and take it all in since it was my first experience with ENGENES. They might possibly be the loudest/screechiest fans I have encountered yet. If I close my eyes, I can still hear what sounds like horny seagulls ricocheting in my ears. It was cracking me up because the screaming was at full capacity JUST WHEN ENHYPEN MVs WERE PLAYING before the show started. I was like, “Dang if they’re expending this much energy just on music videos they’ve seen a million times, how will they have anything left for the actual concert?!”

Oh not to worry – they had A LOT left in the tank, lol. I appreciated their unwavering moxie, for sure! I could have done without the teenager behind me legit BELLOWING, “NI-KI!!!” at random intervals. Like girlfriend, he isn’t going to look at you up here. But I get it.

OK I gotta say – I was RULL into this concert. I went in as a casual stan and came out having an existential crisis over who my bias is (it was Jungwon and Sunoo going into this but HEESEUNG GOOD LORD, MY GUY) and then Henry and I spent the car ride home today dissecting everything, putting on our favorite songs for relistens, evaluating their stage presence, etc. I can confidently say that I have NO REGERTZ – NONE after this experience. They held my interest from start to finish.

Sunoo though! He was so adorable all night. Easy to see why fans call him the Happy Virus.

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I super-loved the people around us in our row. There was an older woman to my right, and then Henry had an older couple next to him. Loved that for him. There were two empty seats next to the lady next to me, and around 8:40, these two girls (I really think it was a mom and daughter but it was hard to tell) came running in, plopped down into the seats and immediately TOOK UP SO MUCH SPACE. I was like, “Yo, how do you people lack THAT much noonchi?? LOOK AROUND, GIRLFRIENDS – you’re encroaching upon the personal space of others!” Now, they weren’t directly affecting me that much, I could only see them in my periphery, but I felt so bad for the lady next to me. She was having a great night and these two numb-nuts came, started filming each other lipsynching, USING THE FLASHLIGHT ON THEIR PHONES, and turning the night into a legit photoshoot with their selfie sticks. I get wanting to capture memories, etc and it’s not like I don’t also film snips of songs, but they were being SO PERFORMATIVE. One of them clearly had to be a TikTokker, that’s all I can figure. She was also dressed like the daughter of a corrupt CEO in a K-drama in a weird fitted suit dress. Looked like this:

They were literally the ONLY negative parts of the whole night. Even after the show, they stood there and blocked our row from leaving because they were back to doing another photoshoot until Henry elbowed past them and muttered a gruff, “EXCUSE ME.” I mean, there were like 8 of us trying to get the fuck out of there.

Like I have said before, people enjoy concerts their own way but this was just so incredibly obnoxious. Like, turn your fucking flash off!!!

Anyway!! The highlight for me was when they performed Bite Me, No Doubt, Moonstruck, Pass the Mic (I LOVE this song after seeing them perform it live!) but MOSTLY I was there for XO. I love that fucking song SO MUCH. It really helped distract me when I was mourning last year.

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Overall, I would say that it was well worth the ticket price and excruciating pain of having to get back in the car again after just spending a week driving around Missouri and Iowa (that was poor planning on my part – I already had these tickets on lock before I started planning my birthday trip and didn’t even consider the fact that this was literally DAYS after we returned from that long-haul road trip, oops). It made me appreciate them even more after seeing them in person. I will say that Seventeen and NCT127/NCT Dream really have us spoiled when it comes to the in-between videos (VCRs if you’re a kpop stan), and DEFINITEY onstage banter & encores. It comes off so effortlessly with those groups, and especially with Seventeen – the encores are untouchable, unlike any other concert I’ve ever experienced. So it’s a high bar! But Enhypen, for being a relatively “new” group (only just debuting in 2020), already have such a strong collection of songs and their personalities come through HARD on stage. I’m so excited to see where they go and will happily stan them even harder now!

THIS JUST IN: Henry said out of nowhere that he likes their song “Loose.” I put it on for him and now he’s doing weird car-dancing to it with his arms and it’s making me uncomfy.

ETA: it’s been three days and I had to come back here and say that for just being a “casual” fan, I have not been able to stop thinking about this concert and have spent all weekend bingeing Enhypen content on YouTube. I’m officially an ENGENE and for confident in my bias choice of Jungwon.

Also! I failed to mention that before the show, we stopped at one of the arena bars and the middle-aged woman bartender asked Henry if he was the same guy who was there for the show the night before as well (Enhypen performed two nights at UBS and we were night 2).

“He looked just like you! He was carrying a bag of candy.”

“I wish he was carrying a bag of candy,” I mumbled, fixing my Firestarter eyes upon Henry’s dumb face.

“I just thought it was so cute that he was here with his daughters,” she gushed, and I was quick to inform this broad that Henry was here because he likes Kpop and not because he was a chaperone.

“We like this stuff so much that we got married in Korea,” I said, never letting an opportunity to brag about this pass me by. Hey, I waited 23 years to get married, let me fucking live.

She was like, “Oh wow,” and didn’t really have the same “That’s cool!” reaction that most people do? So, after we walked away, I was like, “I mean, she didn’t think I was your daughter, did she??”

So, that was fun.

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