Billboard Online Covers Day 1 of K-Con 2014

From Billboard:

Saturday morning, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena and its surrounding area was turned into a K-pop heaven with panels, workshops and a marketplace dedicated to all things “Hallyu” (aka Korean wave). Throughout the first day of the convention, fans got to meet Ricky Luna (producer of Taeyang’s “Ringa Linga”) at the Into a Music Producer’s Mind panel, learned the choreography to G-Dragon’s “Crooked” at the Dance All Day tent and saw artists like VIXX, IU, B1A4 come say hi at fan events.

But it was all leading up to the night’s grand finale with a five-act concert that would be filmed for South Korea’s K-pop music program show “M COUNTDOWN,” likened to a modern-day “TRL” but with live performances instead of music videos. Last year, KCON grew to two days of festivities, but ended the second day with a concert. This year, the K-pop fest split the 10 artists up for a concert each night, promising longer sets with each act performing five songs versus last year’s three.

Danny Im, ’90s/’00s veteran K-pop star and “Danny From L.A.” host, acted as MC for “M COUNTDOWN” on a circle stage that had general-admission fans surrounding him on all sides; though the north side looked a little emptier, perhaps from fans not realizing how far the stage extended.

(Paragraphs on other artists. See full article »)

The concert looked great visually, but there were so many different points for the artists to look that if concertgoers wanted to watch from one of the four huge screens hanging in each corner of the stadium, their view was more than likely obstructed by multiple hanging wires or speakers. With that, some of the camera choices were odd with the broadcast at times moving to odd shots of members who were not singing or panning to audience members at moments when they were checking their phones.

But little did that matter when it came time for headliner G-Dragon. While some fans in the upper rows were sitting for the other acts (Who could blame them? They had been in the SoCal sun for nearly 12 hours), it felt like most of the stadium rose for the BIGBANG member as the stadium chanted his name.

The singer/rapper kicked off his set with the knocking hip-hop track “One of a Kind,” smiling while moving through his raps and, at one point, spanking one of his female backup dancers – likely making fans wonder if he could get away with that in Korea. While G-Dragon also performed at KCON 2013 (and brought out Missy Elliott to premiere their collaboration), he hadn’t released his “Coup D’Etat” EPs and, thus, he kept this setlist focused on his newer material. He moved into EP tracks like the fizzy EDM banger “GO,” the melancholy piano-pop track “Who You?” and his take on British rock with “Crooked” – all to deafening screams.

With bigger lights and loads of smoke shooting from the stage, G-Dragon undoubtedly had the most pyrotechnical set of the night and the 25-year-old looked elated, taking in the arena-sized love he was receiving. He asked the crowd, “What’s my name?” when everyone obviously knew it, but the dude was lapping in his moment before humbly adding, “It’s great to be here.”

GD ended the set with his party-jam single “Crayon” that had the whole crowd shouting the addictive hook, “Get your cray on!” over the pounding beat. Confetti shot from the stage, flying down from the ceiling as the other Day 1 performers made their way back to the stage. All the artists gave respectful bows to G-Dragon upon seeing him, to which he returned, as they waved goodbye to fans one last time. B1A4 left the stage last cutely waving at the fans who were left even hungrier for Day 2 of KCON 2014.