[REPORT] FT Island at Concert for Japan in Toronto

As everyone knows, FT Island came and rocked with Canada for a charity event to aid Japanese relief efforts. Since I’m a huge unofficial Primadonna, I jumped on the chance to be able to cover this event for Kirin Radio, even though I live almost on the other side of the USA from where the event was held.



During this event, I came to realize that Concert for Japan was, even though the attendance fell short, overall extremely well organized and properly staffed for such a large scale event. There was a lot of security around the entire venue, especially covering all the special areas, and even a team of paramedics on site at all times. There was a free zip line and suspended bar to play on. In our press tent that we had access to, there was even full service catering. I felt so VIP! Ah, but there was a special VIP area for the attendees who purchased those tickets, and they also got catered to with covered meals and had their own restroom area. During the second day, there was even an ice cream truck parked right in the middle of the venue. Score! I only hope that the next time they do this event, there will be more attendance. It was so sad to see it lacking when it had so much to offer.











I don’t want to bore you, so back to the point of this article! FT Island’s performance was scheduled as the closing act for Saturday’s set of artists. When I arrived at the venue that day around noon, a girl was sitting outside asking all fans that she came across to sign a Canadian flag with a message to the band that she would later give to them at a meet & greet she was attending. Of course, I signed for Kirin Radio and continued on. Once inside, there was already at least 50 or so people dressed in yellow clothes, holding yellow balloons, flags, and home made signs, waiting for their favorite band to come on stage, even though it wouldn’t be for several hours later. I, myself, even brought some gear. Work or not, I still had to show my support, so I was seen walking around with my official FT Island pentastick, light stick, and blanket the whole day!



During the day, it was hot. It was SO HOT, I thought my skin would just melt off! Seriously, I had eyebrow sweat…and I NEVER sweat! Then suddenly, out of nowhere at about 3PM, it just poured rain and blew winds so strong that it knocked the merch booth over completely. As I was taking shelter in the press tent, the ground was slowly getting flooded and muddy. After about 20 minutes, it ended like nothing happened and went back to being hotter than bacon outside. I ventured out and….a lot of FT Island fans stayed outside by the stage and toughed out the heat/rain/heat combo. These girls are some of the toughest fans I’ve ever met! Not only tough, but nice, too. Everyone I talked to was super friendly, and as I watched from different perspectives around the venue, I noticed that these fans even had fun with the other bands performing. In my many years attending various events where people are there for a specific group, more often than not, these so called fans boo the other acts right off stage until their favorite comes out. This was not the case! These FT Island fans cheered and danced and played with every single act that came on stage until our boys finally came out last. Again, I was impressed and felt rather proud to call myself a fan!



Shortly after 6PM, all the media at the festival was able to sit down with FT Island and have a small press conference. Before we began, the members signed at least six guitars, later to be auctioned for charity. After, each media managed to ask about three or four questions before being shooed out of the tent in order for the next media to ask their questions (our press conference/interview will be posted as soon as we can get the translations done). This all happened in a tent next to the stage, where another band was performing, so at times, it was hard to hear what was going on if you weren’t paying 110% attention. There also wasn’t a translator present to translate all the questions for everyone at the conference, so if you didn’t know Korean, you were were out of luck. Luckily, there was a nice guy there that helped me with my own questions, since I only have a kindergarten level understanding of spoken Korean. All in all, it was fairly unorganized how the media was handled, but in their defence, this is Concert for Japan’s first event ever and I’ve definitely been to worse. I’m sure they learned from this and will do better next time, which I look forward to.



By now, it’s beginning to cool off as the sun is setting. The audience has grown to around 200 or so people, all there for one group. Now, it’s about 7:20, the host comes on stage: “You’ve waited in the sun! You’ve waited in the rain! Now, are you ready…for FT ISLAND?!” The crowd, as small as it was, erupted in shouts and cheers so loud, I had to cover my ears! Setting up the equipment proved to be a bit of a challenge. Seunghyun’s gear seemed to be having trouble producing sound out of the amps. Four guys, including one of FT Island’s staff, were huddled around his guitar and equipment for at least 15 minutes, failing to get sound. It wasn’t until Seunghyun himself came onstage and helped them that everything finally got back on track. Everyone left the stage, only to have the boys come out moments later, waving to the audience, and picking up their instruments. Que wild fans and lots of screaming.



The members didn’t do much at first. They did a lot of smiling and waving, Hongki did a cute mic check. Soon, they started right in their first song, which was Hello Hello. Not a lot of energy with this song, Hongki did his usual hand choreography. At the end of this one, it went straight into 사랑 사랑 사랑 without a pause. Again, not much energy, but the show was just starting!
After song number two, the boys took a few moments to breathe and introduce themselves. Even though their English isn’t that great, their accents were wonderful and you could at least tell what they were trying to say. As Hongki put it “I no speak English! Sorry!” I do want to give a lot of props to Jaejin, though. His English was spectacular! His accent was great and he was able to make complete and coherent sentences with proper grammar and everything. Impressive!
Once their adorableness ended, Minhwan introduced the next song to be Revolution. It was definitely noticable that everything was picking up with this one! By time the next song played, called I Want, Hongki took the mic in hand, ignored the stand and started prancing around the stage. Such a powerful song, and Seunghyun’s rapping skills has greatly increased over the years.
Hongki now asks the audience: “Can you twist? Everybody, do twist!” just as 빙빙빙 begins to play. Now, as every fan knows, this is one of the most fun songs to see live, as Hongki gets the entire crowd to spin, twist, and move their hips with him. This song is where the energy soared, as if Hongki drank a few red bulls before coming on stage. He was running back and forth, dancing with Jonghun, and simply having fun.
바래 now begins without much hesitation. The crowd went absolutely wild for this song. Hongki held the mic out to the audience a few times and the crowd took this opportunity to shout the lyrics of the song as loudly as possible, correctly and on beat. This seemed to please the members in a surprising way, since everyone in the audience sang along quite loudly for the duration of this number.
To spare my readers a long and drawn out report, I’ll sum up the rest. The next songs that they performed, in order, was: Let It Go, Flower Rock, and Wing for the encore. Hongki had so much energy, he was running around, jumping, head banging, and playing with his members like he was at a normal concert back home in Korea. When it ended, you could physically see the happiness on all their faces at such a successful show, no matter how small the audience may have seemed. I’m almost positive that this festival has opened a door for them to make a true debut in North America in the future.



To put it simply and quote a security guard I talked to: “Those Korean kids kicked ass!”

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