Sounds of South Korea: K-pop concert in PyeongChang
Feb 21, 2018, 6:53 AM | Updated: Apr 17, 2023, 4:02 pm
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — K-pop, short for Korean popular music, is a movement that started in the 90s. It was made popular by boy bands whose audience was mostly kids, but now it’s branching out to include nearly every type of artist, band or group under the sun — or in this case, stars.
With the Winter Olympics in town, the K-pop World Festa has set up shop in PyeongChang.
The festival is three weekends of K-pop at a nearby university, and it’s getting nearly as much attention, fanfare and celebrity status as the Olympics.
That’s especially true for an American family we met.
“We love music and we love Korea. So it’s the best of both worlds,” Roger from Connecticut said. “I was just looking on the web for something to do on a few down moments between events, and we saw this and were like, ‘Sign us up!'”
Thousands braved extremely cold temperatures for hours outdoors on their feet to see their idols, like Cheetah, JunoFlo, WheeSung, Double K, Killagramz and, of course, Dynamic Duo.
The lights and stage setup are larger than life, and there is no shortage of signs letting you know this is a big concert.
The artists here aren’t the biggest K-pop stars, yet they still garner tens of millions of video views on YouTube and sell out shows throughout Asia.
I can’t understand anything, but the music transcends language.
Perhaps the best compliment one can give a K-pop show when you don’t speak Korean is that on this night, the stars even got me moving — and I’m no kid anymore.