I failed the ticketing war for the inaugural Super Junior D&E concert in Seoul. As a result, I had to look for some other date to try catch “The D&E”. A few options came up, 4 May in Shah Alam, 24 May in Bangkok, 23 & 23 June in Taipei or 29 June in Hong Kong. As I tallied the dates with my calendar, I realised that the only date I could do was 4 May 2019 in Shah Alam.
Honestly, I debated for quite a while if I should head up to Kuala Lumpur for “The D&E” or not. I’m absolutely not keen that the venue is in Shah Alam. It’s a nightmare to get there from a transportation perspective. There is no easy way to get to that venue except via a taxi. The nearest bus stop is about 1.2 km way. LOL. No way I’m walking in that heat.
I preferred the Bangkok venue because it was within the city centre with access to the BTS sky train. However, it was the day before the Hallyu Pop Fest in Singapore where Super Junior as a whole is going to perform. I would need to adopt the kidol schedule, except that I have no minders and I’m in cattle class.
Taipei would have been the most fun but unfortunately, I would have just returned from UK then so non-work trips immediately upon return is just going to be asking for trouble. So yeah, pass.
In the end, I decided to go to Kuala Lumpur/Shah Alam for “The D&E” because I found out that James Lee is going to have a showcase in Berjaya Times Square a few days before. I extended my weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur to include James’ showcase in Berjaya Times Square. In hindsight, it was an excellent decision I made.
Stadium Malawati
There is absolutely nothing at Stadium Malawati. It was nice that the organisers put a couple of food trucks there but the food trucks was unable to properly cope with the crowd.
Also, the merchandise booths started at 9.00 am. By the time I arrived just before 1.00 pm, almost all the merchandise are sold out. So I can imagine that some fans probably arrived at 7.00 am or 8.00 am for the merchandise and have been hanging around until the concert started at 4.30 pm.
Before I went to the venue, I did a bit of research on Google and found that there is a mall, AEON Mall, across the road or so. That short distance on Google Maps is deceptive; it’s a good 20 minutes walk if you managed to cross the road. Furthermore, it is not particularly walkable between Stadium Malawati and AEON Mall Shah Alam right now due to roadworks. In fact, we booked a GrabCar to go back to the Stadium from AEON Mall. LOL. #truestory
So if you are thinking of getting food before a concert/event at Stadium Malawati, you’d be better off going to AEON Mall first, eat, then walk/take Grab to the stadium. If you plan to walk, give it 30 minutes one way to buffer for the traffic conditions to cross the road.
The D&E
The approximately 2 hours and a bit more concert started pretty much on time at 4.30 pm and ended just before 7.00 pm. This is also the first stop of their Asia tour outside Seoul.
The vibe of this concert is so different from their -Present- concert that I watched in Taipei back in 2015. This time around, the concert is so much more dark, matured and a lot less bantering from D&E. Back then in the -Present- concert series, D&E were way more cheeky and mischievous. Both of them also talked so much; they easily spend like 10~15 minutes just talking hilarious shit on stage.
Regardless, this is part of the Super Junior brand that we are talking about now right? There definitely has got to be a bit of mischief going on at some point. During “Dancing Out”, D&E walked down from the stage and were using a water gun to spray water at us. Luckily, the water didn’t get to me.
Unfortunately for D&E, they didn’t know that the staff had distributed water to us in the standing pens before the concert started; we had ammunition. LOL. So when both of them were strolling around and with their water guns and tiny water sprays, some fans started to splash water on them big time. LOL. That surprised look on D&E’s faces were priceless. Then their expression changed into a look of cheeky need for revenge. LOL.
Most of us in the standing pens are not teenagers but for that 3 minutes, it felt like we were all being kids, splashing water at each other and trying to get revenge at the playground. Hahaha. It was super fun. And those were the days of our innocence.
Anyway, D&E have really grown up and are now men but still with that childish streak in them. And I’m pretty sure that is what most if not all of us love about them.
I’m not going to share too much of the concert details so as not to be a spoiler. However, I’d still like to say that we should go to a concert with the mind to live in the moment and not be so focused on taking photos and videos with your smart phone. Taking a couple of photos and/or videos is fine but I did see some people around me basically, video recording almost the entire concert; like what is the point of going to a concert even?
Enjoy the show and put all the smart phones away people!