Yesterday was the best night of my life. Granted when my son was born that was the best day of my life. But the best night of my life was last night. Though the entire day leading up to the night was a mess. Actually, the full 24 hours before were a bit messy and chaotic. But one I would… mostly do again.
Now in my life there’s only been a couple of bands that I have been obsessed with and that was when I was far younger. As a kid it was Hanson. Then in my adolescence it was The Plain White Ts. I’ve met both of them multiple times. To round out my top 5 albums of all time (as one is a Hanson and one is a PWTs) The albums would be Yellowcard Ocean Avenue, The Ataris So Long Astoria, and Augustana All the Stars and Boulevards. I’ve also met all of them (some of them multiple times). As far sports go Mike Mussina is my favorite and I haven’t met him so there is that. The only other athlete I REALLY like would be Urijah Faber. Back in 2016 I flew across the country to California and spent a week at fight week out there. I had the first row behind the couple rows of media. I met him multiple times. I also met The Iceman, Mighty Mouse, The Cowboy, Cub Swanson, and a ton more. As far as actors go I’ve obviously met a ton of them. But last night? The.Best.Night.Of.My.Life.
Let’s rewind a bit in time. The tour was announced rather shortly before the tour actually began. I joined the fan club so I could be in the 1st round of pre-sales. They had more people that were fan club members that signed up then tickets to go around. So I was put on the wait list. Well the entire tour sold out hour within minutes and I never got off the wait list. I decided I would still go and kept checking 3rd party sites for ticket options. I had looked at what the view was like from every section in USB arena and made a list of where I would sit. I was pretty sure I would end up in 305. It was Friday, 5 days before the tour began. I was idly doing things and not paying much attention to anything. I picked up my phone and was confused about what I saw. As it started to become clear I started freaking out as the text was sent 11 minutes ago. I immediately hopped online and went straight to Ticketmaster and entered my code. I had 8 people ahead of me in the que. When it was my turn I went into the Thursday night show and began to frantically look at what was available. There was no time to look at my list now. Tickets kept going in the cart and disappearing as others were buying. I realized I needed to work quickly. I finally settled on a ticket in the 12th row of section 117. I perhaps should have stopped there. But I got curious. I checked Friday night and there were over 1,000 people ahead of me. So I said NOPE and then thought I wonder how Wednesday is looking with people trying to get tickets. So I headed over there and there were just a couple people in the que. So, I waited because I wanted to see what was left for Wednesday. When I got in I saw a floor VIP Soundcheck ticket. I bought it. Or so I thought. I actually almost didn’t get it. They couldn’t verify my card. I said well I guess God doesn’t want me to spend the money on it. A few minutes later I noticed I had a text. I checked it out and it was my bank texting me about a suspicious purchase. I said nope, that’s me. So the ticket was no longer in my cart and when I got back to the the page to choose from, there were NO floor Soundcheck tickets left. I kept refreshing though cause I thought maybe just maybe something might happen, like what happened to me. And then I saw it. A Floor VIP Soundcheck ticket. I bought it. And then the reality of what I had done began to sink in. I could only go 1 night and I had 2 very expensive tickets. I immediately listed my Thursday on Stub Hub. They said similar tickets have been going for 300-900. I listed it at 800 on a off chance to start.
(By this point I had also lowered the StubHub ticket to the money back to me being able to cover what I paid for the ticket) I got through the weekend relatively easy as far as the concert was concerned. I was rather distracted by personal matters. But Monday rolled around and things began to sink in. The kiddo had said from the start he wanted to go to the concert. But it didn’t even START until an hour after his bedtime. So it was a definite no go. And it’s a good thing to, because he would not have been able to hang. But they were opening up the tour merch tent the day before on Tuesday at 2pm. I asked him if he wanted to go to that as sort of a consolation. He did want to go. So I left work early and picked him up before aftercare began and we set out on our hour and 40 minute drive. I knew I had to deposit money in the bank so I looked for the closest branch of my bank without going too far out of my way. I found one. I was there for 20 minutes and in the end they couldn’t deposit the check. It’s not a very enthralling story so I’ll skip the rest of that. I looked for another bank and headed there. They deposited it no problem. Then it was on to USB Arena. As we drove to it I could see people behind the arena that looked like they were in a line and I said, Oh boy I hope that’s not the line. It was. We came 45 minutes after it opened and the line was longer than the length of the arena. I said to the kiddo that it was not going to happen. I asked 2 security guards if they could do anything. They both said no. The merch tent was open for 5 more hours and there was no guarantee that we’d even get in before they closed let alone whether or not there would be merch left. So I said we’re not going to be able to do this. He was sad. I was sad for disappointing him. And I couldn’t believe we drove an hour and 40 minutes for this. I didn’t want to disappoint him so we walked back over and I went over to the line about 15-20 people back from the front and I just announced how far we drove, how he wanted to go in, because Suga is his favorite and he’s too young to go to the show so he really just wanted to see the merch but he can’t wait in that line. Then I began to cry. Cry is not the right word, I began to sob. So a group of women were looking at us and one of them said, did you want to get in line with us? And I said I mean if it was alright I would really appreciate it. So she said yeah but you’ll need to go around. So wee did go around the line and headed to the women. No one said anything to us which was nice. I think because they saw me crying and they saw a small kid. If it were just me and I was crying I’m fairly certain I’d be out of luck. But people can sometimes be nicer when kids are involved. I’ve come across people who definitely are not, but overall most have a soft spot for not wanting to disappoint children. When we got inside I took a photo of him with the merch behind him. And he wasn’t greedy and just wanted 1 item. I then bought a T shirt and an Army Bomb. I knew I’d need the army bomb for the concert and I wanted a tour T shirt. They didn’t have any mediums so I had to get a large. They had wild rules there, once you left the tent you could not come back inside for any reason. But Big Hit had a rule that there would be no returns. You could return something if it was broken but only on the same day you bought it. So, I left the table and went to the side of the tent to open the arm bomb and see if it was okay or not. Someone from the venue said I had to leave. I said but you don’t let anyone back in the tent once they leave. And she said right. I said but Big Hit has a rule that anything broken must be exchanged same day. She said right. So I said I’m going to check my merch before I leave. She said I had to go. The army bomb didn’t see to be working and she said no it only works ta the concert it goes with the music. Two Armys came over and said no it should work now too. The woman again said no. By this point the kid was yelling “we aren’t going to the show” everything the women from the venue said it only works at the show. One of the two Armys looked at me and she said no it should work now. I definitely trusted her more than the woman at the venue. The Army messed around with it a bit and got it to work. I didn’t check Leo’s thing and when he opened it at the car it was broken. I don’t believe he knew that. I think he thought that it was a stand that he had to put YoonGi in. We went out to a Korean restaurant and got lots of food. Then fished up with a walk down the block to get a made to order donut. When we got home I realized it was broken. So I got out the glue gun and glued it together for him. He did notice in the morning that it was glued together.
On Wednesday morning I woke at 630 am like any other weekday morning. I got the kiddo ready for school per usual and dropped him off at 8:12 am. Then my day became entirely different. I drove out to Belmont, NY, I found the USB Arena parking garage, I picked a spot right at the exit, and I walked over to the arena. I got in line about 945-950a. There were already so many people in line. I was confused as it was the VIP line. I couldn’t understand why they were doing all the VIP levels in the same line. How would they know who needed to get into soundcheck?
After about 15-20 minutes of waiting, I got talking to the young woman behind me. She was from Georgia. She had seen BTS before, I told her I never had and it was my first K Pop concert ever. As time went on we became friends. It was unseasonably chilly so she held my place as I went back to the car to get my forgotten army bomb and fleece. We ended up helping each other out throughout the night, when one need to use the rest room etc always holding a place for the other.
We finally received our wrist bands at about 115 – 120pm. We then got our VIP complementary merch bag. Afterwards we waited in line for the VIP merch booth. The VIP merch booth was to open at 330 pm. We weren’t that far back in line but we didn’t get in until closer to 4pm. When we finally got up to the booth they were sold out of sizes of certain things, and most other items completely. I was however able to get a medium tour shirt which I was unable to do the day before. I now need to sell the large. (If anyone is interested hmu here. It’s unopened.)
Then we had to get in line inside the venue for sound check by our numbered wrist bands. They nput people in sections of the venue by 100’s but not in any particular order. As in it was the 800’s then the 1200s it made no sense. It was even more disorganized than anything else that day, and everything was disorganized. Doors were to open for soundcheck at 530pm and then soundcheck was to start at 6pm.
Well by the time we found our “section” it was about 440pm. Our numbers were over 900. I was confused about why all these people were there. It wasn’t making sense to me. But since we had numbered wrist bands we both were able to head to the ladies room which was right next to us. While in there we heard soundcheck starting. We both screamed and rushed out of the stalls. As I was furiously washing my hands I yelled, “I did not pay 575 dollars to miss this shit!” and ran out to find nothing happening. Well, nothing for us. I was told he was having a soundcheck for the soundcheck. I’ve known enough musicians and been with them through set ups to know that sounded odd. He ran through a ton of songs which again didn’t make sense for a sound check as they usually only do a couple.
So once what I thought must have been close to a full run through everything went silent. And nothing happened for quite some time. Then sometime after 530 they began letting people in by grouping numbers. But somebody messed up and letting groups into the venue in the wrong order. This is what happens when you put the groups all haphazardly. They finally figured out their error and began to stop them to allow us to go in. The floor was already quite covered with people for the VIP soundcheck. By the time my new friend and I got down there our best was to go stage left. (which if you are looking at the stage is the right side.) At that point we were 5 people back. We should have been less but the venue made a really bad error. So bad that I’ve now mentioned it twice.
Soundcheck didn’t start until after 630p. So I’ve now been up for 12 hours and on my feet much of the time that I wasn’t in the car. But when Agust D came out all the bad from the day went away.
I however was unable to really take photos so that caused me major disappointment. I took a couple before he came out and then flipped the camera to take one of me and the screen went blank. I tried closing out the app and everything– still blank. My new friend googled things and so I cleared the cashe and it started working again. Then it errored out again. I was scared to turn it off and turn it back on. Why? Well because when we were in the restroom and heard the sound check for the soundcheck start I dropped my phone in the toilet and I didn’t realize it. It was only upon looking for my phone 10+ minutes later and I retraced my steps that I saw it in the toilet, submerged. Since I had no clue how to get home I didn’t want to risk turning it off and not being able to turn it back on. Sometimes I miss the days before cell phones with GPS so I actually paid attention to routes and thus LEARNED them. (But to be honest that’s only one of the reasons I miss the days before cellphones. The others however don’t have anything to do with this story.)
After soundcheck we waited some more. It was always waiting waiting waiting. The concert was supposed to start at 8p but as it was getting close to 8 we saw that the seats were still pretty empty. Of course they were it took forever to get the “VIPs” in let alone everyone else. What do I mean by “this”VIPs”? Well, I bought the VIP soundcheck ticket for $495 face value. when buying it appeared there were different levels some with soundcheck and some without. But somehow somewhere either on Ticketmaster’s end or the venue’s it was either in the system wrong so we thought there were different levels (when there were not) or there was a misunderstanding and it was supposed to be this way and things were priced wrong. Either way, the ENTIRE FLOOR was VIP, VIP merch, VIP merch tent shopping, early access, soundcheck. Every.single.person with a ticket to the floor. Which is why it took almost 4 hours to check in and get my wrist band. I was #941. There were over 2,000 tickets sold for the floor.
To say a lot of us were upset, disappointed, and ANGERED by this is an understatement. I don’t know who owes me money, USB Arena, or Ticketmaster but SOMEONE owes me about $200 bucks maybe more. But we’ll call it even at $200.
The concert began at 825p and it lasted about 2 hours all included. I waited 10+ hours for a 2 hour concert. But was it worth it? Yes. As I said it was the best night of my life. He was AMAZING. He was even more handsome in person. He was funny, he was more than I could have imagined. The videos that played along, the special effects on the live video, the stage set up and the pyrotechnics were all on point. The only thing I was disappointed about was that he played a song off the stage on the floor on the left side that I couldn’t see. Then, he did one on the right side and I really couldn’t see that one. Finally he did one at the piano on the floor in front of the middle area of the stage which I also could not see. By the end the entire stage was gone. As time went on through the concert sections of the stage raised up toward the ceiling until he was left with 1 square at the end.
Once he left the stage and people began waiting for the encore I wandered further down and noticed there was space at the barricade. More visuals played and we thought Tony Montana was coming, which we thought mean Jimin would be there as he is in town for a Tiffany’s thing and Yoongi literally asked him to do it on his show. So for the encore myself and my new friend were at the barricade. About half the time we saw his back, but we were so close and he was so clear. I was standing next to a speaker I knew it was going to be a problem. But from there I could see the band we were practically next to the band. Well, we did not get Tony Montana, nor did we get Jimin. I bet he’ll probably do Friday in Jersey if I were to put my money on an east coast one that he pops up at. If not, LA will be lucky.
When the show finally ended we made our way out. My new friend said she would share her pictures and videos with me (THANK GOD) and I gave her a ride back to her hotel 10 minutes away. From there I drove home and was home in an hour and 20 or so, including my stop at McDonalds to buy almost $30 bucks of food. Ridiculous. But I had two snack size bags of goldfish and 1 20 oz bottle of water all day. On the way home I played Agust D (of course) and I realized the volume was up to 27. I usually listen to it at 10 sometimes up to 15 if it’s highway driving. I def have some hearing loss, hopefully it comes back soon. I brought earplugs with me, but I just wanted the 100% full authentic experience. Which was probably the wrong choice.
I woke up today and I was dreaming of Yoongi. At the concert he went down and took 1 lucky person’s phone and took a selfie on it. I was dreaming about that and then all of a sudden I was in my car driving home. Then all of a sudden I see Yoongi in the back seat of a car with body guards on my cellphone screen and we’re on a video call. I say hey I’m sorry in Korean and that I didn’t mean to call him. He said its okay. I said but since I have you on the phone. I’d like to tell you that your music speaks to my soul. And my son who’s 5 calls himself the 8th member of BTS and asks to listen to Daechwita everyday on the way to school. Then I woke up.
I began writing this the night of the show through voice note and I’ve slowly been editing it since. It is now June 7th and I am ready to post. I still haven’t gotten the photos from my new friend, but luckily someone else sent me photos. At the concert there was an older couple and they were front row of a section near me. They were very well dressed and kept taking photos. But took off their glasses to take the photos then put them on to review the photos and then take more. This was all before the show started. My new friend and I were talking to a group of ladies behind us. We found out they were ALSO from CT. I kept saying they must be my long lost parents cause we act so much alike. I started calling out “Mom” in Korea. One of the ladies took a picture of the couple. I asked her to send it to me. She did through text. A few days later I texted her and told her what happened to my phone and asked her if she would share her photos with me and she luckily agreed. So at least I got some photos! So the photos you’ve seen within this post (unless otherwise noted) are hers.
UPDATE: June 8, 2023
I’ve decide to include the set list here.
- Haegeum
- Daechwita
- Agust D
- Give it to Me
- Trivia Seesaw Acoustic Version (BTS)
- SDL
- People
- People Pt. 2
- Moonlight
- Burn It
- Interlude Shadow (BTS)
- Cypher Pt. 3 Killer (BTS)
- Cypher 4 (BTS)
- UGH! (BTS)
- DDaeng (BTS)
- Huh?!
- Life Goes On
- Snooze
- Polar Night
- Amygdala
- D-Day
- Into Never Mind (BTS)
- The Last
Weekend Warrior Mama 
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