We went last night to watch Mr Rain, the Korean pop star, at the Impact Arena at Muang Thong Thani. It was a reward for the little girl’s successful storming of the Thai tertiary education sector.
Mr Rain, singing and prancing from the midst of a burning bush
Most people seemed to spend their time taking photos, although as the above shows, it was difficult to capture that much from where we were sitting.
As ever in Thailand, the event was characterised by people walking in and out all the time (why would you sit waiting in an arena for 45 minutes and then leave just as the band begins?) and not paying a great deal of attention. We paid a lot for tickets (Mme paid, in fact), as much as two weeks of minimum wages per seat and so most people there would have paid something similar. Yet there appeared to be a number of people who did not fit the target demographic and did not in fact seem terribly interested in the event. The man three seats along spent the whole time asleep (or, I suspect, pretending to sleep) while his mousy wife at first sat anxiously before, ultimately, standing up and joining in (everyone stood up as soon as the man came on). So, plenty of people who seem not to have paid for their tickets.
As for the concert itself, the singer sang nicely and showed off his perosnality to the delight of the young women who made up the bulk of the audience. I would have preferred to see more of the band (who were quite together, I thought) but they were stuck up at the back of the stage almost out of sight. There seemed to be a lot of backing vocals work but I could not see any singers – were those parts taped? The dancers danced around, with the boy dancers usually at the front and the girl dancers at the back.
