Page 42 of K-Pop Double Life

The interior felt enormous and empty, and the rows of seats disappeared into the darkness. Only the work lights were on, and every footstep echoed. The emptiness was ominous to me, but didn’t seem to bother the group or the staff; they were probably accustomed to this kind of empty space.

A woman with a headset directed the crew and talent to the dressing rooms, the technical engineer and the music director backstage, and she called a security guard to show Jason, Liam and me around the building. “We’ve set up the stage as you requested,” the security chief said to Jason.

“We’ll be testing out the LED wall later,” Jason said to us, pointing to the rear of the stage. “As you’ve seen in Paris, no live orchestra. Everything is synched to the background track, which Choi Min-jae manages at each venue.” He pointed at the straight stretch out into the audience. “That’s the runway,” he said. “The circular part at the end is the B stage. It allows the performers to spread out and do different kinds of movement instead of standing in a straight line. Melissa, the choreographer, will rehearse special moves with each of them.”

“That open area along each side of the runway,” Liam asked. “Is that ticketed separately? Or do people leave their seats to crowd up there?”

“That’s the pit area. Yes, that’s ticketed separately. We let those ticket holders in first so they can secure the best positions.”

“In Paris, I saw Jin leaning down to talk to the audience and touch their hands,” Liam said. “Will he do that here, too?”

“Unless you think it’s too dangerous,” Jason said. He nodded to the security chief. “Willem tells me they have very strict security at the entrances so no one can come in with anything that could hurt the idols.”

“People who buy tickets in the pit never have assigned seats,” Willem said. “Pit ticket holders arrive much earlier than everyone else, because it’s first-come, first-served within the pit. Those people will start lining up tomorrow morning to be right in front. Sometimes even before sunrise.”

“And they just...” Liam pointed toward outside. “...stand there?”

“All day.”

“What about food?”

“They take turns.”

“The restroom?”

“Their friends save their places.”

Liam looked horrified, and I had to laugh. My big strong Navy SEAL husband was appalled at standing in line all day. “And if they come alone?” he asked.

Willem shrugged. “They pray they can make a friend.”

Everyone laughed. Then Willem added, completely deadpan, “On some of the fan sites, they compare adult diapers. Which ones are best so they can stay in place.”

“You are joking,” Liam said.

“I am not.”

Liam stared at him. “I’m really getting an understanding of fandom.”

“Wait until tomorrow night,” Willem said. “Even if they don’t know a word of Korean, many fans will have memorized the lyrics to every song. And most Dutch people speak English, so everyone will join in at the chorus.”

I’d learned a lot about K-Pop music from listening to rehearsals and shows. The songs often began in Korean, then switched to English for the chorus. In some cases, particularly Jin’s solos, everything was in English, and I understood not just the words, but the emotion behind them. Especially in the middle of one song, when I noticed he always looked offstage for a moment, finding Sang-hoon.

“Behind the pit, there’s a security barrier,” Willem said. “Dutch fans, even the most obsessive ones, will be polite enough not to try and crash through. Even so, we’ll have security staff standing facing the audience along the barrier.”

Jason and Willem left to go over more security protocols, and Liam and I climbed the stairs to take seats in the first mezzanine level, where we could have view of the whole room. The building almost felt haunted because it was so empty.

The group members filed out onto the stage, taking their places. Sang-hoon and Mina had them all in comfortable rehearsal clothes. Black cargo pants, T-shirts and sneakers. Woo had managed to get hold of one of the T-shirts sold to the crowd in Paris, with each of their faces in a circle surrounding J’aime Pryzm in red letters. Red hearts were sprinkled around. Jin’s hair was clipped back and his T-shirt was a brilliant white.

From the side of the stage, a stage manager called “Cue twenty-seven.” The house lights faded, and the first bass note rolled through the room but instead of being accompanied by twenty thousand screams, it echoed. The LED wall came alive and a spotlight found Jin, in the middle of the group, all of them standing still.

Jin raised his right arm in a robotic movement. Then his left arm, right leg, and left leg. Quickly the other members were mimicking his moves as they sang along to a backing track.

Everything was so repetitive, as the lighting direction, the lead camera operator, and the video director needed small adjustments. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be to go over the same moves and the same melodies over and over again until everyone was satisfied.

As I watched them run through the pacing for that number, I realized again that the polished performance fans saw was built on hours of disciplined, unseen work.

“So far so good,” I said to Liam.