Still Stray

This weekend Alaina experienced the most anticipated event of her life: Stray Kids live in Seattle!

Alaina has been a big fan of this K-pop group for about a year and a half. It was actually Janae who first encountered them while watching a video where Taylor Swift was reacting to their performance (Taylor obviously thought they were pretty good!). Janae started seeing reels of one of the group members (Felix) dancing and being funny, then showed these to Alaina. The girls started watching videos of their dancing then listening to their music, and I started seeing pictures of Felix, Hyunjin and Lee Know on their phones. 

When Alaina first played a Stray Kids song for me, I did not see the appeal. The lyrics were mostly in Korean, and the style seemed a little too harsh/aggressive. But one day Alaina and I were both sick with colds, and while we were stuck at home, she taught me all of the group members' names. She showed me their baby pictures (which were pretty adorable), and we watched their music videos so I could learn to identify each of them. Some of their songs had more English, some were beautiful ballads--and their dancing was amazing. Alaina set it up so that I followed all eight Stray Kids on Instagram, so I started to see even more of them. 

Before long, I became pretty knowledgeable about the Stray Kids. I had seen everything from their earliest videos like "N/S" (where there were 9 of them with just "skinny jeans and a dream") to their latest album. 

I could put them in order from oldest to youngest, and I could easily tell them apart. Sometimes I could even tell who was singing which part in a song when we were just listening in the car! I made Alaina a Stray Kids birthday cake in September, and we visited the K-pop store in Vancouver a couple of times.

Although Alaina had become the Stray Kids' #1 fan, she thought she would never be able to see them live because they rarely toured in North America--but this was still her dream. So, you can imagine how excited she was one morning during early morning seminary when a notification came up on her phone that the group was coming to SEATTLE.

The day pre-sale tickets came out, Alaina had to go to a drama troupe workshop, but Janae and I were by the computer, getting onto Ticketmaster an hour in advance so we could keep refreshing the page to eventually reserve our seats. Although 10,000 people were ahead of us in line, we were able to secure three tickets. This was back in November, so we had to wait six months for May 24.

In the mean time, Alaina made me a playlist of songs likely to be performed at the concert. She made Stray Kids cutouts that have appeared around the house every so often--even on our Christmas tree ("Stray Kids everywhere, all around the world," you might say).

Shortly before the concert date, we started having concerns about crossing the border into the U.S. Canadians had been advised not to visit due to a trade war between the two countries, and many Canadians had cancelled vacation plans in America, sold their American properties and boycotted American products. We had heard horror stories about people being detained at the border or denied entry to the U.S. for no reason, people being questioned about their political views, etc., and I was pretty nervous about driving down. 

I was also nervous about being in a large crowd and worried about going to a concert in case it was unsafe (violence, drugs, etc.). I had never been to a big concert, but Alaina assured me that a K-pop concert would be safe. 

Then I was worried that our mobile tickets wouldn't work or that we wouldn't be able to find parking near the stadium. I was worried about what time to arrive (our email said people could start lining up at 8 a.m., but the concert didn't start until 7:30 p.m.), about getting split up (if someone needed to use the washroom and another didn't want to leave the concert), about whether or not we'd need ear protection, about what to wear, and so many other things.

As it turned out, none of these were a problem. The border went smoothly both ways, and we had a nice time staying with Anita, Mike and Summer, even going to a Mexican restaurant Janae had been wanting to visit. 

The concert goers were also friendly and nice (and easy to identify--many dressed in red and black), and the entire event had a really positive tone. Janae got lots of compliments on an anime jacket she was wearing (which she had painted herself), and fans were giving each other free stickers and photo cards. The performance was so fun to watch with all the dancing, humor, familiar songs and Janae and Alaina so happy and excited. At the end, Alaina was crying because it was over and Janae was saying she wanted to marry Bang Chan (the group's leader).

The only negative was waiting in line for shirts. We got in line as soon as we entered the stadium (around 6:00), but it was the longest, slowest line imaginable. At 7:00, I suggested we abandon the idea and go to our seats, but Janae really wanted Alaina to have a shirt. At 7:15, we still had a long way to go in line, so I sent the girls to find our seats and said I would wait. This alleviated some of my stress (I didn't want Alaina to miss the Stray Kids coming out on stage!), but at 7:30, when I heard the concert start without me, I was pretty sad. Finally, at around 8:00, it was my turn, and I discovered that the baseball jersey Alaina wanted had sold out. They still had the sleeveless basketball jersey, but I got her a plain black Seattle concert shirt then ran to find our seats.

Alaina had wanted me to record the concert, so I spent the next few hours doing that while the girls sang, waved their SKZoos and light sticks, and admired the eight performers. Alaina's light stick (which featured Lee Know, her favorite) had lit up when we were in line for shirts and changed colors with the rest of the crowd--all controlled by the concert. We saw fireworks, lasers, exploding streamers, and other props, making the concert pretty spectacular. At one point the group was even on a platform that circled the stadium, so everyone got to see them pretty close up. The concert ran for about three hours, including two encores ... and then when we thought they had really finished, they came back out for two more songs :) They were all amazing performers and so great to see live (Here's a 20-second clip: Clip from Concert).

After the concert, Janae wanted one of the black basketball jerseys (the Stray Kids were wearing both the white and black ones for their last series of songs), so we got into what looked like a fairly short line to a different T-shirt station to try to get one. Alaina was also hoping for one of the white jerseys (even though I’d already got her the black T-shirt!). 

A full hour later, we found out that the black jerseys were sold out, but Alaina was able to get a white one. Then we heard someone say there was another merch line that was really short, so we ran over there.... The black jerseys were sold out there, too, except for the one on display. Janae asked if we could buy it, and the person working climbed up on the table in front of it to get it down for her!

Then we had to find Jason and Mike, who had dropped us off for the concert (and gone to a retro video arcade in Tacoma). We walked through a pretty scary area (actually pretty terrifying), but eventually we found each other and made it home to bed by around 1:30 a.m. 

Now it's all over! 

Alaina is hoping that the Stray Kids will come back and that she'll get to see them again, and I'll admit--I'd see them again tomorrow if we could. It was so fun to be there with Alaina and Janae--even just as the videographer and the shirt buyer. But next time I hear "I'm still a stray" or "Stray Kids still gonna rock" I'll probably be singing along, even if I'm a little older (and less obsessed) than the average fan :)