FT Island 1ST LIVE IN MALAYSIA 2008
Press Conference
Friday 28 March 2008
IZZI Restaurant, Bukit Bintang - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Program:
10.30am – Registration
11.00am – Arrival of VIPs
11.30am – Press conference
12.30pm – END // Refreshments
Credit: ssusita.livejournal.com
PHOTO
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| FT Island: ‘Apa khabar Malaysia (How are you, Malaysia)? It’s really hot in here, huh?’ |
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| Funny: Jae-jin speaks while Jong-hun (right) and Min-hwan laugh at his remarks. |
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| FT Island boys with the sponsors. The boys are each holding a mini wau (traditional Malaysian kite) |
FT Island press conference in Malaysia (1) by n3ao7acaa
FT Island press conference in Malaysia (2) by n3ao7acaa
FT Island press conference in Malaysia (3) by n3ao7acaa
After a successful concert tour in their native South Korea, FT Island has now descended upon Malaysia to give us a taste of their music in the FT Island 1st Live in Malaysia concert.
The concert will be held tomorrow (March 30) at the Sunway Lagoon Amphitheatre.
The boys debuted in June 2007, but have already scooped up numerous New Artist awards back home. They won at the 2007 Asia Song Festival, 2007 Mnet Music Festival and the 2007 Golden Disk Award.
While the conditions surrounding the PC with FT Island in Malaysia on March 28 was a nightmare, the boys still mustered up enough chutzpah in the suffocating heat to answer all the questions thrown at them.
Q&A session:
Q. How do you like Malaysia?
Hong-gi: The weather here is nice, and the people are warm and friendly. It’s also a very clean country and we are very happy to be here.
Won-bin: The weather is very nice, the people are very warm and yes, the country is very clean. If we get another chance, we would like to visit (Malaysia) again.
Min-hwan: It’s a very interesting place and there are many things to see.
Jong-hun: It’s my first visit here, but I’ve actually wanted to visit Malaysia before. We really appreciate being here and hope that the concert will be a success.
Q. What can we expect from the FT Island 1st Live in Malaysia concert on Sunday (tomorrow)?
Hong-gi: First of all, I hope that the concert will bring us closer to the Malaysian fans. We will be using a little English and Bahasa Malaysia during the show. Also, the repertoire will be slightly different from the Korean concerts…watch out for it.
Q. What do you think about the support you get in Malaysia?
Hong-gi: We are very thankful to the media for supporting us and we are happy that many people recognise us. We really appreciate it.
Q. As the Hallyu spreads, you have become ambassadors of South Korea. What would you recommend foreigners who would like to visit your country one day?
Won-bin: I would say Apgujeong, the fashion and shopping district in Seoul.
Hong-gi: I’d recommend the tokpoki (떡볶이, which is rice cakes seasoned with gochujang/ Korean chili paste) in Shindang-dong. It’s very famous and it’s probably one of the best in Korea.
Min-hwan: I suggest one of the best holiday spots in Korea – Gangwon-do, which has fresh air.
Jae-jin: I would like to recommend Hongdae street where the younger generation usually hang out and enjoy themselves.
Jong-hun: I’d recommend Dongdae-mun.
Q. Malaysia is well-known for its wide variety of food. What have you tried?
Jong-hun: We’ve tried Nasi Lemak and Satay and we like it. I would like to try other Malaysian dishes, but not all of us can take spicy food.
Q. What would your message to your Malaysian fans be?
Won-bin: Thank you to all of you who greeted us at the airport and we’ll try our best to return the love and warm welcome shown to us at the concert.
Hong-gi: Yes, well said (laughs). Also, thank you to everyone who bought our album. We hope that you’ll continue to love our music and we promise to always make better music.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Won-bin: Thank you for being here, we’ll try our best to return in the future.
Hong-gi: We’re glad to get the chance to talk to so many people and please, come to the concert and enjoy it.
Min-hwan: Thank you for loving the song Until You Come Back. There are many more songs in the album (The Refreshment), and I hope you’ll love them as well.
Jae-jin: Thank you for the love throughout and we hope to see you again.
Jong-hun: We’ll give our best at the concert.
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| MC & translator: They didn’t introduce themselves formally. On the right is MC of the event, 98.8FM radio DJ Simon (I think) who asked all the questions and the lady is the English translator. It was a nightmare transcribing the recording of the event as the translator did not E-NUN-CI-ATE her words. She spoke really fast and slurred her speech, and the horrible sound system didn’t help either. |
Source : k-popped.com
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F.T. Island in Malaysia
Orchid and Liz got all hot and bothered in an enclosed room with the F.T. Island boys this morning.
Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all. The extremely flawed organisation of F.T Island’s press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia left many disappointed. (We really hope the concert this Sunday turns out well).
The press arrived at the appointed time of 10.30am on March 28 at Izzi Restaurant, Bukit Bintang for registration. We were notified that the F.T. Island boys would appear at 11.30am. Sweet.
The venue: Izzi Restaurant has a conference area on the 3rd floor. The air-cons are faulty, though.
Unfortunately at 11am, the air-conditioners in the room – which by that time was filled with about 100 people – died on all of us.
No joke. The air gradually filled with CO2 and everyone started to suffocate. We were all “treated” to a sauna that we didn’t sign up for.
One hour later, at 12pm, still no F.T. Island. Worse still, the sauna became unbearable. It turned into an oven and everyone was gradually roasting their kidneys away in the stifling heat.
Some mainstream reporters and photogs were livid (time is of essence to these people as they’ll have to rush off for another assignment – work is work, no?) and jokingly suggested that the press should just boycott the event.
I got a little light-headed and had to step out onto an adjoining balcony for much-needed fresh air. Before dashing out of the room and gulping in the rather polluted air of Kuala Lumpur, I took a peek at Orchid, my trusty photog for the day, who had turned red in the face because of the heat.
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| FT Island in Malaysia!: The set up before the five boys appeared before the press |
With nothing to do but slowly die in the enclosure, everyone started fanning themselves while straining their necks to find out what the heck the organisers were up to. The organisers seemed all flustered and bothered…the heat (and much more, I bet) got to them too.
At 12.27pm sharp (yeah, I took note of the time – a TWO hour wait, I could’ve watched a movie with that amount of time), the Five Treasure Island boys appeared, looking all dashing and cute. Poor guys, they must have felt the heat too. Lead vocalist Hong-gi didn’t look very happy.
And after all that, guess what? The microphones didn’t work properly during the press conference and the sound system sucked…technical glitch? You don’t say!
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| The sauna/ oven: This conference area turned into an oven after the air-cons stopped working. Everyone was perspiring. |
Oh, and here’s the best part: the MC of the day – who by the way was pissed with the whole situation as well – didn’t open up the Q&A session to the floor.
Yup, he asked all the questions (some were repetitive) and the press at large was not given a chance to present our questions to F.T. Island!
What kind of a press conference was that? C.I. Entertainment seriously needs to have an internal post-mortem meeting after the dust has settled.
First-time organising flaws aside, K-popped! still has some juicy F.T. Island insights to share with all of you. Yay!
Look out for our exclusive take on the F.T. Island press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia soon…very, very soon.
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Source : k-popped.com
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