Jan. 7th & 8th Taiji-Newsletter

There was a very heavy snowfall all over the country after Pusan concert. Isn¡¯t Taiji like a Scissorhands? There has been a snowfall each time his concert is finished. Anyway, I think we had a great time in the Pusan concert. Taiji and all band members were satisfied with it. Taiji was so excited as to make some over-actions during his performance and talking. He said, ¡°the essence of live performance is some cracks in sounds.¡±

Taiji and all staffs left Pusan at 1 a.m. and arrived in Seoul at 12 p.m. It took almost 11 hours to get back to Seoul. I¡¯m thankful that all of us didn¡¯t have any big accidents on the road, although some fans had a slight car accident due to the slippery road.

We decided to provide our fans with rent buses on their way to and back from the local concert places. The fans in Seoul-Kyungki areas, who are planning to go to Taejon, Changwon, and Cheonju concerts, can use them for free. So if you bought or are going to buy a ticket for Taejon concert, contact the managers of fanclub websites. We need to know how many buses should be rent. The buses for Taejon concert will start at 1 p.m. Jan. 9. Come to Hodori Plaza in front of the Chamsil Main Stadium in time.

The opening bands in Taejon concert are Diablo, Crow, and 45 rpm. We rent 11 buses for 495 fans. Those who applied through the Taiji-mania fansite will get on #1 to #8 buses, and # 9 to # 11 buses are for those through Yangoon Entertainment. If you bring some banners and placards, leave them to the members of Taiji fan safeguard. We will hang them in good places and give them back after the concert. And don¡¯t throw water bottles or anything like that onto the stage. It could be a dangerous weapon even if you don¡¯t mean it.

There were some arguments between fans over our intention to rent buses for Seoul-Kyungki areas. The foremost reason was that there was a slight car accident on the way back to Seoul as I mentioned above. We decided after discussion that we¡¯d better provide insured buses for fans. There were no commercial purposes in making this decision. 80 percent of those who would use the buses already bought tickets before our notice came out. And we got to know that many of Seoul-Kyungki area fans bought tickets for Taejon, Changwon, and Cheonju concerts. Please, take into account the fact that this decision was made in haste. So, we didn¡¯t have enough time to check the number of fans in each local area and provide them with rent buses. Taegu concert was not included because most of its tickets were sold to the local fans in Taegu-Kyungbuk areas.

The tickets for the local concerts were not sold out like for Seoul concerts. We anticipated this when Seoul Entertainment, which knows well the local cultural conditions through their experiences, objected to local concerts. But Taiji insisted on local concerts, saying that he made a promise to local fans and that ¡°what matters is not how many but who comes to see my performance.¡±

See you in Taejon. I¡¯ll visit you on Jan. 10.

(Trans. By Dream of Balhae)