Some JJ Bakery, Cashews, and a whole Realm of the LA Night Lights
Basking in: JJ Lin’s Yogurt Love
I am quite lax about updating my blog, but I just felt that I absolutely HAD to recount my precious experience yesterday at the APAHM Concert (American Pacific Asian Heritage Month). In order to celebrate this movement in the month of May, JJ LIN, (YES JJ LIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heavenly Dimple Sweetie), Vanness Wu (Hottie with THE Body), Evonne Hsu (Mumbling Pretty Girl), and Mike Relm (Quirky Video Ripper…DJ….?) held joint concerts in the big cities of the US (DC, NY, SF, LA..Seattle). Celeste and Vivianne were going to go to the one in LA, but Vivianne decided to pursue more wholesome and Asian-parent worthy activities (scholarship banquet), so Celeste invited Ash Wash and I to go. At first, I thought that Hottie Vanness would be at the concert, to , you know, add a little spice to JJ Lin’s cuteness…but then I found out that Vanness would be performing in NY and Seattle, and that JJ would do the other three cities…..I almost didn’t go! But I thought about how much I loved JJ and what a big fan I was; so I decided to pay for my ticket and go! And I’m so glad that I did!
The makeover with Stylists Vivianne and Celeste was so fun! Especially the part where Vivianne was trying to curl my eyelashes and Ashley was making me laugh. And me trying to go number 2 with Ashley right outside singing Wang Leehom songs. I laughed so hard that I didn’t even end up going number 2. Sigh. Oh well. Vivianne put fake eyelashes on me, and Ashley had a “sexy” dark look, hence her exclamations of “I wanna look sexy for JJ!” The ride on the way was fun…we educated Celeste by making her listen to JJ songs. I almost lost my voice by singing so loudly, but thankfully I had enough larynx endurance to scream like a banshee later at the concert. After a quick dinner at Starbucks (Yardhouse had a ridiculous wait time), we idled in the line, waiting for the doors to open at Nokia Club. Ashley wanted to look for hot guys to grind, but we only saw one (AND IN A DARK BLUE TUX, TOO!). Sheesh Ashley. We decided to stand in the mosh pit…well the standing area. It was right next to the stage. We sort of stood in the middle part closer to the stage. We waited….and waited…..for 40 minutes. I had almost passed out in anticipation.
When FINALLY…the lights dimmed, creating chaos and much screaming, the MC, Tom (sort of cute, I must say) bounded on stage and got us all hyped up. Though he did mention the Lakers, to my distaste, I screamed along with the rest and jumped up and down. The first act was announced, and the curtains parted to reveal Mike Relm in all his nerdy glory, flanked by an iPad, a Mac, and those record thingies that DJ’S always scratch with their…fingernails? Lol I’m quite clueless about all this mystery DJ stuff. Mike Relm was pretty funny, and the videos he scratched (is that the term?) were pretty amusing (especially the ‘Charlie bit my finger!’ one from youtube.) Thankfully, though, his stunt was only about 15-20 minutes tops. Everybody got tired after a while; we were all waiting for our beloved JJ!
THEN…DUN DUN DUN!!! The MC announced “JJ LIN!!!!” and hysteria ensued. My heart was going to jump out of my chest, I swear. You can see my excitement in the video I took; when JJ comes out, the image shakes like crazy. Even better, his opening song was 曹操(Cao Cao); the first song I ever heard from him. When the opening piano notes were sounded, and the audience went insane! His stage presence is really captivating. He came out on stage amid his backup dancers and struck a pose with his legs spread apart, his head tilted to the side and back, one hand holding the mike, one hand up in the air, and hit that opening high note like….like…..it was simply perfect, amazing, hot, sexy, cute, charismatic, and every other word you could put. I was speechless….I could only scream as I watched him nail note after note, and strike a stance with every “freeze note”. He wore a close-fitted suit (!!!) with one of those skinny ties. After that, he addressed us in his adorable English (he’s from Singapore, so his English is pretty much close to perfect). His singing voice and his speaking voice are pretty similar. They’re both pretty high for a guy, but his voice is not thin and reedy. It’s sort of…smooth, with a consistency close to like smooth..yogurt. or something like that. I’m so weird, but that’s the only way I could describe it. It’s smooth, not too thick, but just right, and his high notes are pure heaven. His voice just melts you, no matter if he’s singing a fast dance song, a pining ballad, or a cutesy love song like (豆漿油條). He talked to us quite a bit in between, in both his adorable English and Mandarin. I’m quite proud that I understood 100% of what he said. He’s such a sweet human being, and has a very caring and considerate personality. He talked of his experiences of going to more rural areas in Taiwan and spending time with the kids there. He also recounted the time he was sick and lost his singing voice for a while, and the fear that he felt that he wouldn’t be able to use the gift that God gave him (let’s meet in heaven, JJ!). There were hilarious moments as well. We all chanted for him to take his coat off, “take it off, take it off” and he countered sweetly, “But I like my coat!” A white guy behind us kept on yelling, “JJ, 我要你tuo ku zi!” To which JJ shook his finger and said, “You guys are naughty!” Later in his act, a grand piano was pushed out, and JJ serenaded us with a couple of beautiful ballads. After the first song, he stopped and said “Oops! You can’t see me!” and put down the music stand in the piano. He’s so sweet! While he was sitting at the piano and talking to us, Ashley told me that she really wanted him to respond to us, so I counted to three and we yelled together, “我爱你!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” JJ smiled toward us (though he probably couldn’t see us, hehe) and said in English, “I love you too!” I could have died right then and there. Celeste, Ashley, and I screamed and jumped up and down with glee. Later I thought of what a good boyfriend JJ would make; his big dimples, his sweet smile and caring persona. *oozes happiness*
But anyway, he left for a short break while the MC came on and talked for a little more. JJ returned, now clothed in looser, khaki pants tucked into boots, a white shirt, and a vest. He walked on stage and said, “See? I took it off!” Cutie! The same guy yelled again, “Ku shi, JJ, 我要你tuo ku zi!” JJ smiled and went into his next songs…in my adrenaline rush, I can’t remember exactly which songs he sung, but I know he performed a couple of my ABSOLUTE favorite ones. Sadly, he didn’t perform “Eternal Life”, which is my number 1 favorite song of his. JJ would pause in between each song and talk about himself, his love for his fans, or his thoughts about the song. He talked of his hardships during producing his newest album, and how he wrote his song, 100 天, for his fans. Of course, we all “aww-ed” and melted into the floor. But a big highlight was when he sang another one of my favorite songs, (I know I make it sound like that I adore every one of his songs, but seriously, I really liked this one), 不潮不用花錢 (Without Trends, No Need To Spend). His dancing is so cute, and a good view of his perky butt was a plus. It was such an improvement from dancing to this song by myself while cleaning the bathroom…to watching HIM DANCE IT! At the rap part, he switched up the lyrics and instead yelled, “LA LADIES ON MY SOFA!!!” Ahhhhh *fans self*. The energy was through the roof; the whole crowd was jumping up and down and waving their cameras and glow sticks. It was a high at its best. Before singing the last song, JJ started to talk about he was going to leave for home tonight on a plane, and unable to contain my sadness at him leaving, I screamed, “不要走!!!” to which JJ literally went, “Awwwww” and smiled his adorable dimple smile. I know this is pretty lame, but I just love how he personally responded to ME. For his last song, he came off the stage and literally was 10 feet away from me, or probably less, if not for the huge mass of people squeezing at me from all directions, trying to touch him. Sadly, I wasn’t able to fight my way through to touch JJ, but I got a pretty up-close view of the top of his head through the crowd (he’s not the tallest celebrity hehe). His big black bodyguard glared at the audience, and JJ got back on the stage after braving the crowds for probably a minute. He bowed and said good-bye, and left, with much screaming following him. *Sigh*. He’s so….wonderfully wonderful. I never thought that he was good looking; just cute…but he looks sort of different in real life then in talk shows and videos. He’s actually quite handsome…and so charismatic! I could go on and on, but I think I’ll spare you guys with my coos of “so cute!” and “charismatic” JJ.
The last act was Evonne Hsu, another Taiwanese artist that I had heard of but never actually listened too. Whoops. I just scrolled through my iTunes and found that I actually have songs from one of her albums. Heh. Anyway, she was actually a really good singer, but I just didn’t find her that interesting after JJ. She had some funny interactions with the MC, who acted like he was one of those shy fanboys, but mostly I just squatted on the ground (my feet were killing me after standing and jumping up and down excitedly for 3 hours), scrolled through my pictures with Celeste and re-watched some footage I had taken of JJ’s performance. I felt sort of bad for Evonne because a couple of people started leaving the pit area, but I did my duty as a fan and screamed for her (though not as intensely and often as I did for JJ).
Ashley, Celeste, and I really hoped that JJ would come back at the end for one last song, but he didn’t, so we left when the concert ended and fought the crowds yet again to purchase those key-chain necklace…things…..but JJ STYLE! They had his signature (printed, of course), with his picture on it. With any purchase, they threw in a free JJ Lin poster, so we just bought the key-chain things in order to get those very large posters of JJ. On the way home, we sang JJ songs and gushed about JJ’s perfection. A big thank you to Celeste for inviting me to go, and to both Ashley and Celeste for being such great company and being properly fan-girl-ish. Screaming and hyperventilating is all part of that “idol experience”. After going to that Wang Leehom concert last year, I think my endurance for all that adrenaline is much better now. I’m able to keep up my energy throughout the night, and I didn’t get sick or lose my voice. And yet I still got JJ to say “I love you” to me, and “awww” at me. Pretty good, I gotta say. I love artists like JJ and 王力宏. They’re so considerate, and truly love their fans. Why else would they go down off the stage and brave the wild fans..in order to interact with those very hysteric fans?! This makes all the difference between Korean artists..well and other artists…who get annoyed and pissed off when their fans try to get close to them. Though I don’t necessarily blame them; those Korean fans are pretty scary. Hopefully I won’t get bashed for this haha. But that won’t stop me from going to Hollywood Bowl next year…that is, if SHINEE COMES!!!!!! But that’s another time….. J
“Love it is…love it issss!!!! Whoa-o-o-yeah-yee-yeahhhhh” – JJ, my love.
