[Exclusive Review] Jay Park in Melbourne

[The following is a guest post by longtime Soompier and JWalker kathymon.!]

I’ve been watching and following Jay Park since his debut in 2PM to him becoming a solo artist. The thought of Jay finally coming down to Australia was unbelievable – I mean, no K-Pop artist ever comes to Australia or if they did, well… it was rare. Being one of the admins from JWalkerz Australia, I tried my best to help out the organizers in any way possible, whether it was going onto the streets to tell people about his concert, or spreading the word through social media.

In Melbourne, Jwalkerz started to line up at the crack of dawn. Some sat in line for twelve hours ready and eager to run to the front of the stage once the doors opened at 6:30 PM. To be honest, it didn’t hit me that I was going to see him perform live until the day of the event, until I sat down inside the concert hall waiting for him to come out.

Both the Melbourne and Sydney concerts (of course, I attended both!) were more than I could’ve asked for, as a fan. For one and a half hours, Jay Park performed over fifteen of his own songs, a few cover songs, and two unforgettable dance performances with his dance crew Prepix. He brought variety to each song and added his own witty and dopey characteristics into his performances. It was also really good to see him interact with the crowd – it made the whole concert a little more personal.

The Melbourne concert started at approximately 8 PM with Prepix opening the show. Jay came out minutes later greeting his fans in Melbourne with his “Aussie accent” and opened with “Nothing On You (믿어줄래),” followed by the English version of his single “Girlfriend”. He continued on and performed his title song “Abandoned” from his mini-album “Take A Deeper Look”.

Our friends at Melbourne Jwalkerz came up with a special project with which we helped. It was called the “Star Project,” where everyone in the crowd would hold up a paper star with the letters JP in the middle, when he performed the song “Star (별).” The whole process was long and stressful; countless hours were put in and none of us were sure if he would notice, but after his performance, he said, “I see y’all got the stars with the JP in the middle, that’s hot!” That alone made the whole project worthwhile.

For “Star (별),” “AOM&1LLIONAIRE,” and “I Got Your Back,” Prepix joined him onstage with electrifying energy. In between each performance, Jay would take a few minutes to have a quick chat with a few fans in the mosh pit and responded back with some witty comments of his own.

Jay soon slowed down the pace of his concert and performed a few songs from his albums “New Breed” and “New Breed Red Edition” which also included a few of his more mature songs. Jay apologized in advance to the guys who were in the audience because the next few songs were specifically for the girls! “Turn Off Your Phone (전화기를 꺼놔)” and “Do What We Do” drove the female crowd insane with Jay giving some insane body movements and even teased the crowd a little by pulling up his shirt. He soon slowed it down a little more with “I Love You” and “Carefree”.

Jay went offstage for a quick outfit change, but Prepix quickly occupied the stage with a special dance performance. He joined the stage once again and performed “Enjoy The Show” and “Wasted (훅갔어)” before moving onto a few cover songs “Down” by Jay Sean and “U Got It Bad” by Usher. Next, Prepix rejoined Jay back on stage as they performed “Up & Down”, a special remix of his title song “Know Your Name,” and ended the concert with “Body 2 Body.”

I could say that every performance was memorable and that would be completely true, but of course there were a few that stood out more. For me, one of those songs was “Carefree;” it’s a song not a lot of people know because it was released on a special edition CD. The song itself is a heartwarming song that just makes your heart melt, and his performance likewise was the same. It was one of those performances where you just wanted to stop whatever you were doing and just put your whole focus onto Jay. Another favorite would be “Know Your Name,” the title song from his latest album. Jay has been known to remix and prepare special stages for his concerts and “Know Your Name” was one of them. The song itself already makes you want to get up and dance, but he turned it up a notch for his Australian tour and made sure that everyone did get up and dance and jump around with him. Overall, Jay Park pulled off two amazing concerts over two nights. It will most definitely not be the last time the Aussie Jwalkerz will see of Jay Park in Australia!

Special thanks to kathymon., boka, and Soulmanna! Please also check our exclusive interview with Jay Park, held the same day of the Melbourne concert!