Thought that the East coast had all of the fun on the night of April 3rd? Nah, think again. All the way from the land of Korea to the city of Los Angeles, the three veteran hip hop artists, MC Mong and Leessang (Gil & Gary) gathered alongside Jay Sean for Seoulful Concert 2010 at the Shrine Auditorium. Hosted by a Korean American stand-up comedian Danny Cho and Paul "PK" Kim, SeoulFul definitely quenched the audience's thirst for some live action K-pop. Although the auditorium was a quarter empty, attendees were encouraged to fill the unclaimed seats in front of them. (In my case, Row 29 ? Row 3. Holler!) Let's now cut to the chase and relive the event, starting with the opening acts. The curtains were lifted up and the spotlights engulfed the stage as the underground artist Soulace walked in to greet the crowd. After heating up the crowd with a couple of songs, the stage was then passed to Tier 2, Verseatile, Shin-B, Mike Geier and Sher Foundation consecutively. After a brief advertisement display in acknowledgment of the sponsors, the real show finally marked its beginning as the name Leessang flashed on the screen. Faint murmur of voices began to flow out from back of the stage, and instinctively, the crowd went wild. There they were, Gil and Gary of Leessang, plus a female backup singer. The instrumental started playing in the background by the DJ, however, was shortly interrupted by Gil's request. In Korean, Gil politely asked the operators to turn off the spotlights, as he could not see the eyes of the audience. To lighten up the darkened auditorium, he encouraged the crowd to take out their cell phones and wave them to the beat in the air. What a scene! The hip hop duo then decorated the stage with their hit tracks, including I'm Not Laughing and Ballerino, then encore stages Let's Meet Now & Girl Who Cannot Break Up, Boy Who Cannot Leave Her as encore performances. Gotta admit, Korean hip hop is not anywhere close to dead yet! The hype was immense and the screams were deafening. Time for the wild monkey. Amazingly blonde, MC Mong walked into the stage alongside his fellow dancers plus his longtime friend & feature artist, Janggeunee (???). Members of the crowd were blown away as MC Mong and his crew began to sing I Love U Oh Thank U, the star's major hit track back in the days. To get friendlier with the crowd, MC Mong grabbed the mic and began to talk about his feelings of being in Los Angeles after three years of absence. After singing Crazy, the stage then kicked right into Circus, perhaps one of the biggest breakthroughs MC Mong had in the music field. MC Mong had more than just a singing performance in store for the audience though. In middle of one of the songs, the monkey jumped off the stage, ran to the hundreds and high-fived the crowd! To triple the heat, MC Mong grabbed one of the neatly placed water bottles, opened it and treated the sweaty fans with a nice shower. Man, he seriously got some inexplicable charms. Since that concert, I've officially declared myself as MC Mong's number one fan... and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Before we go on, I'll first have to admit that I'm not as up-to-date as I should be regarding current American pop culture, being a hardcore k-pop follower. When I first encountered the name Jay Sean, I couldn't help myself but to ask myself who the hell he was. After asking a couple of my so-called "white-washed" friends, they connected the singer with the smash hit track Down. Of course, living in Southern California where KIIS FM dominates all cars and grocery stores around, I was more than familiar with the song. However, I was not as aware of the singer's popularity until the concert. Although a hefty portion of the population was Korean Americans, a notable number of Indian Americans were present on that day as well. When the stage was cleared after MC Mong's performance, the DJ finally put the record on for Jay Sean. After quite a delay, a silhouette of a man appeared, veiled by the artificial fog. It was none other than Jay Sean himself. Thought only kpop was intense? Not even. After singing two of his most popular songs, Down and Do You Remember, MC Mong popped out of the stage once again by high demand. To mark the end of the event, MC Mong opened up an encore stage of Ice Cream, and said his farewells to his Californian fans. This collaboration, under the concept of bringing East and West together (technically East and East actually, since India is part of Asia...), has definitely served as a milestone in the k-pop history. Because the concert was relatively small in size, the attendees were able to feel a true connection with the artists. [gallery link="file" columns="8" orderby="title"] Photography: Daniel Yoon