Epik High made a stop in the New York—aka the "Big City"—for their 2015 North American Tour last Friday and Saturday.
A few of us at the allkpop office were lucky enough to attend the Friday show and get the chance to watch the hip hop trio perform up close and personal. So close, in fact, that the water bottle Tablo so carelessly tossed across the stage at one point nearly struck me (Oh, the glory!). My poor phone was no match for the thundering bass that pounded on mercilessly, which was deafening enough to distort my video capture's sound and image; I actually couldn't discern which was louder, the bass or fan shrieks. But hey, a concert wouldn't be a concert without passionate, screaming fans and a booming bass that will make your eardrums numb, right? Right. Partially losing your hearing seems a trifling sacrifice, especially if it is for the sake of seeing one of the biggest acts in Korean hip hop. So I, along with hundreds of others at the Best Buy Theater Friday night, blissfully experienced Epik High perform in the flesh, unconcerned with the possibility of waking up deaf the next day.
Around ten minutes after 8pm, the intro to "Encore" began and DJ Tukutz sauntered to the center of the stage where the turntable stood. My feet forgot they were hurting as my body now concentrated with all its might on every little thing DJ Tukutz did. I noticed his teeny camera clamped on top of a gopro stick, which he gingerly placed at the very edge of the turntable. He then rumbled into his mic, "What's up New York?" and the crowd went hysterical. Four simple words were all it took for the crowd to go ballistic.
Tablo and Mithra didn't make the grand entrance that I was expecting; they simply walked casually to the center and stood beside DJ Tukutz, with Tablo on the right and Mithra on the left. Several people welcomed them by bursting into screams, but most were too awed by the group's presence to even properly express their excitement. Tablo broke the brief wave of silence with, "What's up New York City?" and beckoned the audience to sing along, which they obliged with reckless abandon.
The relatively calm start to the show was just a farce that Epik High enacted to fool the unsuspecting fans. The trio's true personas irrevocably emerged as the show dragged on. Tablo's hilariously mordant (or mordantly hilarious?) remarks on just about everything, Mithra's hidden agenda to "spread the Korean language in America," and even DJ Tukutz's inner idol surfaced as he danced with surprising agility and rhythm to GD and Taeyang's "Good Boy."
The group didn't forget to indulge the crowd with their favorites, performing their chart-topping essentials including but not limited to "Fly," Umbrella," and of course, "Love Love Love." During "Fly," Tablo and Mithra cavorted all about the stage, bouncing up and down on their feet, all the while managing to rap with perfect precision. After "Fly," the group introduced themselves with exaggerated theatricality and grandiosity, with DJ Tukutz and Mithra bowing so low towards the audience that their heads almost touched their feet and Tablo declaring that with a pair of kicks and sunglasses, he transforms into a rap mogul from the doting "Haru appa (father)" that he is on "boring mundane Mondays." Several songs from their new album, 'Shoebox,' were part of the playlist, as well, with the bumping "Burj Khalifa," soulful "Rich," and hauntingly mellow "Happen Ending."
The show was interrupted by a brief intermission in which Epik High delivered a heartfelt letter to fans, their voices ringing out from a stage that was shrouded by complete darkness. What started out as a somber appreciation fans' adulation and support soon turned into an appreciation of an entirely different kind as the members started listing everything and anything "American," from novelists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway; Shake Shack; rappers such (both old and new) as No I.D., 2pac, Wu-Tang, Drake, and Jay Park; Shake Shack; search engines such as Yahoo! and Google; Shake Shack; CNN; Starbucks; Justin Bieber; and oh, yes, Shake Shack. Did I mention that they mentioned Shake Shack? But out of all those things and Shake Shack, Epik High concluded, "We love all these things, but most of all, we love you." Awwwww.
Not long afterwards, the fun was cut short as some of the allkpop crew (a few went to the after party at Stage 48) had to return home since, you know, New York traffic and because some of us had to catch the public transportation before they stopped running. But we won't forget the experience, that's for certain.
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