The Story by Jonghyun Epilogue

It's been such a long time since I've written here! I started writing something about Key's The Moment lecture but I was suddenly swamped and never finished. Hopefully I can dedicate some time to writing that up later. In any case, here we are post Jonghyun's Epilogue concert! As many of you already know, Jonghyun performed 12 solo concerts back in October titled The Story and this weekend just gone he put on an additional 5 shows which brings his total to a phenomenal 17 shows worth of joy, misery, wonder and just plain old emotion.


I didn't finish up writing a post about the original concert series because apparently I suck and should just give up running a blog, but in hindsight maybe it's a good thing I didn't write that post because it gives me a really good opportunity to talk about the two concerts in comparison now.

For the first concert series, I went to three nights; one night on the first weekend, and then the nights Nine and Zion. T came as guests. I don't really remember much about the guest at the first concert because he spoke really quickly and I didn't know who he was at the time. For the Epilogue I was at the Saturday night concert and the Sunday afternoon concert. I have to say...I was a little relieved to hear that the guest portion of the concert had been scrapped for the Epilogue. I realize that Jonghyun's concert series was about telling a story about his music and all the people he invited as guest's were people he considered important to his musical journey, but without the guests I have to say I think it runs more smoothly. I like that there isn't this shift in focus and break in the flow of the concert in order for Jongyun to interview his guest and then let them perform. Don't get me wrong, I love Nine and Zion. T and it was an absolute delight to listen to them perform in such a unique context, but I really did enjoy the flow of Jonghyun's Epilogue concerts more without the guest segment. It's my personal feeling though, so maybe if you spoke with others they would disagree.That said, that's virtually the only complaint I would even consider making about both the concerts!

The concert starts out with some of Jonghyun's more well known tracks. Deja-boo was the perfect opening track, it's fun, it's upbeat, it has an interesting dance and it started the concert on a really high note. Concerts for me are really emotional experiences and lately I've found that in the first part of concerts my mind is usually all over the place, I have a hard time focusing past my rush of emotions and adrenaline and I'm fighting to throw everything out of my brain and just focus on Jonghyun alone. That said, Deja-boo is a great choice to start any concert because there's a fanchant that a lot of fans know and Jonghyun was immediately engaging the crowd and encouraging participation. The charm of both the location and Jonghyun's style of performing was how engaged you were constantly as an audience member. Jonghyun wasn't making us stand up and dance around or anything, but there was this constant feeling of participation and being included in the performance itself.

Jonghyun immediately dove into Hallelujah after Deja-boo and....I have a confession to make. Jonghyun is such a multi-dimensional person and he has so many diverse talents at his fingertips, it's really easy for fans to list for days and days his charming attributes. For me, I'm really attracted to Jonghyun's brain, his emotional IQ, the way he expresses himself and the interesting way he thinks. So when Jonghyun performs songs like Hallelujah and Internet War it's completely inevitable that his fans go absolutely mental batshit crazy, screaming in agony and I'm left giggling like a mental person because I love the reaction it gets from fans and I also think hyper masculine Jonghyun is...a little...cute ^^ There I said it. Maybe I'm broken inside, but I really like Jonghyun's 'sexy' performances for slightly different reasons than the norm. His voice in Hallelujah really is no joke though, so smooth and rich.

Jonghyun does a lot of talking throughout the concert and it's quickly obvious as you're watching that Jonghyun has benefited from his time as a Radio DJ. He's superbly smooth and well-spoken and even when he has to pause to think, it's well-timed and everyone's clinging onto his every word. One thing which I really really liked about the concert series was the beautifully casual way he spoke with the fans. Jonghyun is respected for his frank manner and his honestly...Jonghyun's a little no-bullshit with fans. It's really refreshing. There's a huge market in the k-pop industry for feeding fans pretty lies and false promises. And I'm not knocking it, because certainly a lot of girls want that. But I've always appreciated that Jonghyun especially has so very little sweet nothings to spare and a lot of sincere truths. I sometimes think that this aspect of Jonghyun comes across as cocky or uncaring, but in reality I think he shows this almost sassy aspect to his personality a lot more in settings where it's just him and fans.

For example on Saturday night Jonghyun came to the 'last' song and said: 'Now it's time for the last song' and the girls immediately started groaning and moaning in disappointment and Jonghyun's response was: 'Why are you all acting so disappointed? You know it's the last song, it's the same every time guys, You want to just keep going with no end? Aren't you tired?' All said like he was complaining and scolding us all at once and ending with a cheeky smile. Before introducing his song 'Maybe tomorrow' he asked the audience for volunteers. The scenario changed every concert but at my concert he asked for someone who had broken up recently. A girl put her hand up and he asked the staff to hand her the mic but not before eyeing her suspiciously and making sure she wasn't lying(a lot of fans would just put their hand up because they wanted to speak to Jonghyun). He asked her how long she dated her boyfriend and she said 3 months and Jonghyun immediately snapped out: Fail, sit back down~ next person. The way I wrote this it sounds really snappy and almost a little rude, but Jonghyun's got such a casual easy-going way about him that he comes across as very sassy and alive, rather than cocky or rude. I don't think any of the girls he sassed were at all offended or upset. One girl admitted to having broken up with her boyfriend after 2 weeks and when she said she was 16 Jonghyun was completely horrified and freaked out a little. Was very very cute.

During the segments where Jonghyun reads out a fan comment and speaks to that person in the crowd, a 20 year old University student who wanted to thank her friend for being with her always was picked and as soon as she stood up and took the microphone Jonghyun was cooing and calling her cute. He did this quite a lot to the girls he spoke with over all 17 concerts and he steered the conversations very firmly but was always kind and playful. I don't think I can adequately describe how charming and humbling it was to see the way he interacted with his fans. He sometimes became flustered when fans spoke of their love for SHINee though which was really cute. There was an elementary school teacher who was a huge fan of SHINee and was wishing SHINee and Jonghyun all the best in the future very sincerely. She seemed to have a little speech prepared full of praise and love for SHINee and Jonghyun was really smiley and flustered by it. For an Idol of almost 8 years, the fan's sincerity still has the ability to get to him.

It became quickly obvious that Jonghyun was very aware of the audience he was performing for. By the time he got into the Epilogue series Jonghyun was pretty much operating the concert on the notion that everyone in the room had been at least once before. And it's true. A friend that went to the Friday night Epilogue concert told me that Jonghyun asked who had been to the first run of the concert, who'd seen it over 5 times (I think? something like this) and who'd seen every single show. There were girls who had been to all 13 shows at that point. Not many granted, no doubt because getting tickets was very very hard, especially the first round of concerts, but there were indeed girls who in the end attended the concert all 17 times. Everyone I know went at least 3 times and the way he combated this during the first concert was by having different guests; Jonghyun would sing small requests from both fans and the guests so that every concert was different and new and fresh in some way. During the Epilogue Jonghyun actually sung different songs depending on the fan that had been chosen from the audience to speak with. At the concerts I attended he sung 02:34 for the girl who was thanking her friend and on Sunday he sung Happy Birthday for the Elementary School Teacher's friend who's birthday was coming up.

I mentioned earlier that there was a lot of audience participation and including the sections where Jonghyun spoke with fans in the audience about their personal experiences, he also included sections where he taught the audience how to play both the castanet and the kazoo, he taught us where to sing ad-libs/fanchants in Like You and U&I, and he had us sing as loudly as we could to a rock version of Crazy and as the concerts progressed fans quickly began making more and more interactions and fanchants. By the time SHAWols were a few concerts in they'd basically improved adlibs during No More, Play Boy, Red Candle, Fortune Cookie and I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting. 

It was during these kinds of moments where the whole concept of fandom is suddenly worthwhile. Fandom as a concept is this weird double edged sword, because there's tonnes of bullying, fighting and attacking going down sometimes to the point it feels like there's so much drama it's not even worth it. But then I go to these concerts and I'm reminded that for all that I complain about fandom, I've met all of my closest friends because of SHINee, I have the feeling of being a part of a community and something bigger in those moments. When you're screaming or singing fanchants in a room of people you've never even met for the most part, but you all know the same words and you know exactly what to say and when. We could also make a mean scat crew now thanks to Jonghyun's attempts to teach us the Kazoo.

Of course Jonghyun also showed that he's certainly listening to fans by including Monodrama and Neon to the set list. These were both the most requested songs by fans at the last concert and Jonghyun was always a little reluctant to perform Monodrama, because it's a bit of a sad song and he didn't want to drag the mood down. Just look at these lyrics:

I’m always in my room alone, imagining that we are in love

I confess then we break up, the reason it’s a sad mono drama

The mono drama of being in love alone

Thus rather than adding another sad song to the ballad section, which was already brimming with slow, emotional songs, Jonghyun rearranged Monodrama so it was a little more rock/upbeat. I'm not a music person so I can't adequately describe the changes made, but the addition of a choreography and a solo dance break for Jonghyun meant that it was more upbeat than the original. He also sang the infamous Neon which was possible one of the most well-recieved songs of the concert. That one line: Chamomile~ or milk tea? was just beautiful to the ears and Jonghyun danced a little duet with the female back up dancer, flirting and romancing her with the song itself. I have to admit I nearly collapsed in helpless charmed little giggles when he did a little sexy dance with the female back up dancer because he was meant to wrap his arm around her and hold her waist and peak out the other side, but they were exactly the same height so it was helplessly cute. Again...don't listen to me. I think all the girls in the room were screaming and freaking out because it was sexy, there's just something wrong with me.

Of course anyone who's read fan accounts about Jonghyun's concert knows that the highlight of the concert was possibly the ballad portion of the concert. For the Epilogue Jonghyun performed Elevator, I'm Sorry, Day's End and Skeleton Flower (Diphylleia grayi). Originally Elevator wasn't included in the first concert series because it wasn't released at the time and honestly the original line up was already pretty brutal. I say this not because I'm exaggerating in my usual fangirl-y penchant for the over the top, but because...well I think this concert was a major investment in my emotional education.

This ballad set was honestly like going to a particularly rough session of therapy. You know those conversations you have every once in awhile where all your bottled emotions come out and you're spilling all the things you never knew you needed to say and by the end of it you've discovered a slew of things about yourself and your eyes hurt from crying and you feel lighter but completely exhausted. That's how this series of songs made me feel every. single. time. Jonghyun has the lights dimmed and the light sticks turned off and you're sitting in the dark and you feel like it's just you and his voice. There are literally hundreds of girls in the room who do not understand anything Jonghyun is saying at all. Jonghyun has fans that don't speak any Korean, but that completely doesn't matter when the person singing is able to convey the amount of raw emotion Jonghyun is capable of.

For me listening to Jonghyun sing was actually extremely painful at times. I feel like the lyrics for Elevator are devastating in how painfully easy it is to relate to them. The fear of being alone, the feeling of being completely worn down and lonely and lost. I'm Sorry, which Jonghyun struggled not to cry through all throughout the first run of the concert and, in my case, makes you think of all the people you feel sorry to in your life for how you've treated them. Day's End, which I think is the kind of song everyone comes home to after a bad day and curls up to for a good cry. I always feel painfully undeserving hearing from someone so accomplished and hard-working the words: You've worked hard, You're my pride. Ironically there's a lyric from Monodrama that comes to mind: 

I want to resemble you, I want to hug you

But it’s too much to even linger next to you

I know it’s funny to compare myself to the great you

And of course, Skeleton Flower which is just so hauntingly beautiful.

I talk about fans crying and being prone to dramatics, but in this case the tears and the emotion in the room was really something so very real. Jonghyun's talent is the ability to emote so profoundly that everyone listening has no choice but to just hold on for dear life under that tide of emotion. His voice summons all your greatest doubts and regrets and insecurities in those quiet moments sitting in the darkness.

After Jonghyun has finished shattering you there was a short, adorable VCR and everyone in the room took the time to fish out tissues, wipe their faces, hand tissues to their neighbors. Before the ballad portion even started the girl next to me, who I had never met before, was handing me a wad of toilet paper in preparation. Throughout the section whenever there's a quiet moment in the music you can hear sniffles and muffled sobs. I don't know whether it speaks to the power of music or Jonghyun or the concert director, but I don't think there were many people who left that concert without taking the emotional roller coaster out. It was really beautiful, like a pocket of time where we got to ascend into something surreal and special. A little painful but mostly just amazing.

Thankfully Jonghyun possesses a particularly compassionate soul and following the ballad section the rest of the concert was a clear attempt to bring the mood back up. Like You, Fine and Crazy were upbeat and fun and honestly a little unfair. Jonghyun has given away his love for gorgeous sexy little ENGLISH adlibs well and truly throughout these concerts. He likes throwing out random shit like: 'I love you, Baby' 'Show me, baby' in extremely gritty, sexy tones. I was fanning myself, hiding my blushing face in my hands and making a noise so high pitched only dogs could probably hear it every time. Jonghyun sings Fortune Cookie during the first encore when fans hold up little signs every concert with a different message. He struts out on stage in his little casual hip hop outfit with a backwards cap on and cocks his finger at the audience, smirking and murmuring 'Show me, baby' to the girls in the front row while he tries to read the text. On one particularly traumatic night he couldn't read the page throughout the song so when it was over, with no music or warning, he leaned forward, pointed at one girl in the front row, made a come-hither finger and said 'Show me baby' to her directly with a sexy little grin. It was completely and totally unnecessary and I think that girl might be dead now, but lord was it sexy.

In the new concert series Jonghyun made the addition of a second encore stage where he wrote a new song titled in English: Warm Winter. This was something Jonghyun wrote and completed not long before the Epilogue concert started and there are a tonne of translations of it on twitter. It's a really beautiful, soft, warm song and the lyrics, from the perspective of a room full of fans, were particularly meaningful. Like Jonghyun was acknowledging everyone's feelings and dedication. A lot of people from the outside might scoff at Jonghyun writing such a song and singing it to his fans, but throughout the concert Jonghyun kept saying: we're friends right? You guys are like my friends. We've become like friends. A few girls cried, overcome with emotion. Check the lyrics out and you'll see why. Jonghyun actually saw some crying faces in the audience one of the nights and he was like: aw, you cried? wow wow. It was a beautiful shared moment and the perfect ending to a perfect experience.

I guess the tldr of this post is this: Jonghyun is really one in a million. He's not only wonderfully handsome, passionate and talented; he's also capable of an emotional maturity that seems well beyond his years. He takes that wonderful emotional range and he injects it into his music in ways that I really wish I could explain. He's already a talented and accomplished lyricist and musician and after this concert it takes my breathe away to even imagine what he will produce in the future. I think he's only going to get more talented as a song writer, especially since he already has the spark and charisma of a truly amazing performer. 

On a more personal note, I feel like every time I see Jonghyun and SHINee on stage I find myself wanting to be a better person. They're human beings and I know a lot of people would argue that they're flawed and not perfect and that's true. But SHINee and Jonghyun in particular in this case are so exceptional among human beings. They make me want to be the best version of myself I can be. I always feel inspired to do better by myself, study, sleep more, eat better, and exercise and practice art and a slew of other things. This has been the case for about as long as I've been a fan of SHINee and their work. The case recently is that I feel like Jonghyun's work is a kind of emotional education. I enjoy being confronted with feelings and emotions and concepts and intellectual paths I never would have considered otherwise. This is the amazing ability Kim Jonghyun has as an artist and a singer.