Climbing Moss

Last Saturday we finally – finally – broke another KPop Cherry, we went to our first proper KPop Concert, here is what our experience was like.

The Rose started back in 2015 as two guys busking on the same street, the met and played occasionally, one was a trainee the other just a guy who wanted to sing, over the next year they started to get more serious, finding a third member and then a fourth when they realised they wanted to take it more serious. They named themselves Windfall and eventually got signed to J&Star Company and signed as The Rose.

They released Sorry in March 2017, Woosung says the first gig was in front of 20 people and half of them were of friends in run down club in Seoul. On Saturday night we joined 50,000 other fans to watch the four-piece Eclipse that and sing their hearts out at the London OVO Arena in Wembley.

As Bob had said last year (2023) when they opened for Blackpink in Hyde Park – I would have paid to see the Rose but not so much Blackpink and now she got the chance! Bob has been listening to the Rose since well the Love of Korea began (what is that like 6/7 years or so ago?)

Getting up at Dawn months beforehand to buy tickets get results and as Time flew past, more and more tickets were released but we were holding out for south side seats first tier for as long as possible, but as the dates grew closer we were getting Nauseous, hoping for a Lifeline someone who already had those tickets would have a See-Saw accident or the like – not wishing them to not be Alive, but just someone to have a Baby and to not be able to go and to sell back their tickets, so we could get the best view we could. But alas no major catastrophes or Shift in reality befell anyone in S1 seating area and we ended up on the North side on the upper tier, but in the end they were good enough to get the real sense of the bad and the audience.

The prices likewise were enough to give you a heart attack, gone are the days of Childhood memories when you paid £20 to see The Rolling Stones in Wembley *In the Rain! (Ash and his friends did many years back and is still angered by The Black Crows poor performance to this day!!)

We arrived in Wembley to walk towards the stadium with a mixed bag of Strangers – you usually get a type, a look, a genre of a crowd, at a Metallica concert you’re not normally going to get a girl in pink neon lycra, at an Adele concert there aren’t going to be Red Mohawk punks and at Coldplay you’re not going to see R&B gals. As we queued at the barriers – trying to understand the gruff mumblings of the security trolls – we looked about at our fellow audience members and Yes we accompanied by all the aforementioned, neon ravers, Hip Hop baggy jeans and bucket hats, 2,000 different colours of hair and Mohawks, quiffs, shaved, Street Turk Mods and everything in between, there were teens with their accompanying parent, there were 70 years olds with their accompanying children, their were families in full merch band merch, mums and daughters, Dads and sons, gangs of friends and ordinary everyday people, there was no one ‘type’ waiting to shuffle in.

But shuffle one step at a time we did, queueing and moving until we got to our seats, of course we stopped off to get a beer, unfortunately Wembley is still in the dark ages when it comes to Craft Beer, it’s Lager or Cider and that’s it and at £18 for 2 beers they know how to charge. We sat and watched as the crowd grew, the General Admission floor crowd sauntered in having lost the barrier to those who had paid for VIP and Meet and Greet options and had probably been sat at the front of the auditorium all day, the crowd of Beautiful girls and guys in Angel Wings and the assortment of odd creatures alike filled the vast empty floor space.

From our vantage point we could see a clear view of the raised oval stage planted atop the fixed stage and as the crowd grew and the lights dimmed, the crowd started to get into the mood, working out how to makes their newly purchased light sticks change from white to blue to red and waving and dancing along with random strangers sat on the polar opposite side of the stadium.

But with all the audience in the lights dropped and the beats sounded, the crowd Whooped and awed in Wonder as four good looking Korean guys – clearly these guys are anything but The Definition of Ugly, as they stepped up onto the stage and lifted their instruments and Boom The Rose were on Stage playing, lights flashed, fireworks sprayed, streamers flew to the rafters (and didn’t come back down!) and the crowd sang and sang, song after song, 50,000 Black Roses (Fandom name) voices joined in and sang the lyrics.

A far cry from the first time the foursome performed at the Student Union in London that first year, singing their two songs, their busking numbers and a mass of covers of English songs. This time we lost count of the discography played out to the crowd that swayed and swooned as all four musician sang and played through the night.

As to the music what is it? We have said before when you listen to someone like Ariana Grande her music sounds consistently one style and similarly Lana Del Ray sounds like she’s going to kill herself and going to Take me Down with her in every track (or so we have heard). The best way to explain KPop albums is to imagine Taking a song from every Taylor Swift Album and putting them together, you know her voice and their is a commonality between them, but they are varied and different enough, that’s what you would expect and what we got last Saturday night. The music ranged from ballads to rocky numbers to being blasted into Cosmo for a Electro Dance track, it is so different like comparing Dawn and Dusk!

There was even a pretty Blue haired Cellist and a Redhead Violinist during the Definition of Ugly which was surprising!

I don’t know you but I think seeing those newly bought Light-sticks turn to Candy Red for the song Red and went to green for Sour (not automated, just a collective consciousness to turn the torches to the appropriate colours for certain songs made for a sight that no Western Artist’s concert could ever have given us.

We watched on as the band played and couldn’t help but watch the concert Photographers capturing the moments and bringing memories Back to Me (Ash used to be one of them in a past life!)

It all ended all to soon, we felt Alive, buzzing from the new experience a Lifeline, brought a Shift in our expectations as we exited along with the buzzing hoards to vanish back into the London Dusk, feeling the Shift, Cure for the London blues and we can safely say The Rose I.L.Y!

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Well another different post from Climbing-Moss and another avenue to report on in the future, come back next week when we will tell you about something else we have been up to!

*The title is ‘She’s in the rain’ but it didn’t fit!