It’s a Friday night in Hongdae, one of Korea’s most bustling nightlife areas, usually filled with university students, Kyopos, and foreigners. It’s dubbed “Hongdaewon,” since it’s now starting to fill with more English speakers than Korea’s infamous foreigner area, Itaewon.

At S-Club, one of the local hip-hop clubs, a flood of Drunken Tiger posters are posted everywhere, inside, outside, even on a giant van that was driven around Hongdae all night. I’ve been to a lot of DT shows, both here and in the States, but a DT promo van? That’s pretty hardcore lol

It was first come first serve, and knowing how crazy DT shows get, me and my friend went early – almost too early. I was the first person there -_- So I took the time to take photos of the interior/exterior of the club.

outside poster

faux DT carpet haha

anyway, the actual inside of the club I couldn’t capture on camera, but  i was allowed to take photos of the performance. a little weird logic  in a way, but as long as i was allowed to get the performance, it was cool.

the club is quite small – maybe fits 300 people at most, and by midnight, the place was jam packed. this is probably one of the smaller venues I’ve ever seen DT perform in, but when your used to the US version of 3000+ people, a club does fare quite differently. When I saw the stage, I was reminded of something Shine once said a long time ago about how he used to perform at places with no stage.  There was a platform for DT to stand on, but not much to much to work with. Reminded me of old school days when DT was still underground and new, but then again, that was quite a golden era so the reminder wasn’t bad.

Soul Dive starts the set, but I was too distracted to even pay attention. After waiting 3 hours and being the first person there and fighting for a place at the front of the stage, a douchebag 6’2 bodyguard stands right in front of me to block my view (you’ll catch his big head in some of my photos). I am 5’0ft tall and obviously this had me fuming! >=O

Luckily, I was able to squeeze my way on to a step, with literally 6inches of room to stand on, and was able to get a good view to capture vids/photos [see below]

Palo Alto & Bizzy start the set. Palo debuts his upcoming single for his new album and Bizzy does a quick set that includes includes his single,  “해어진 다음날 (After the night we broke up).” It’s a quicker set than what they did on the MTV special, but I guess they had to cut it since JK’s set was going to be longer.

JK starts off with “Monster,” of course, and then right into “Do You Know Hip-Hop?,” which is a twist on what he usually does these days. He only does it once in awhile now, but considering the club setting, it seemed fitting. It originally was one of those songs meant to rile people up at the club, and it really did rile up everyone. O_O

He follows with “Isolated Ones! Left Foot Forward!,” then a slew of old school songs that rile up everyone.  He does “Good Life,” “Thumb (acapella),” and then “I Want You,” for an encore. DT is usually booked for a 3-4 song set, but JK’s extended set made it feel like a real concert (Hell – I used to pay $75 to see a set this long!).

Anyway, afterwards, I ran into some of the Tigerbalm staff and it turns out a bunch of us were already there, just scattered all over the place. They’re staff is huge, but they’re a sweet bunch. 🙂

Anyway, enough of my talk – videos!

Do You Know Hip-Hop? live (some chick knocked out one of my earrings, so you’ll see 5 seconds of floor as I pick it up)

“I Want You” live – JK came over at about 1:10 minute and mingled with fans around me, however, that resulted in me being completely overtaken and nearly falling over into the madness (“Death By Fan Hands” my friend calls it).

P.S. props to S-Club staff for cutting me some slack on the photos/video 🙂

NEXT WEEK – R16 FESTIVAL (Roscoe Umali, Drunken Tiger, Epik High, & Rakka of Dilated People)