About Us

Katherine's Las Vegas Report

First of all, I have to say that some of the concert might be out of order. I really can't remember the order in which everything happened. Second, I don't speak Chinese. If you can't tell by my name, I'm not Chinese, let alone Asian. (If you are wondering how I know who the heck F4 is, which people always seem to be curious about, than just read on.) Meaning I really don't know much of what was said at the concert. Maybe someone who was there and spoke Chinese could help. Also, I don't know the Chinese names for the songs. I usually give the English names for the songs just because I have a really hard time memorizing the names in Chinese.

I'll just start by telling about how I got to the concert. If you don't really care and want to know about the concert itself, just skip down two paragraphs. I have some important tips for people if they are going to the Connecticut concert... My sister (Andrea) and I had heard about the F4 concert in Las Vegas and in Connecticut when in October or November. I can't really remember for sure, whenever it was first really publicly announced. We joked around about going to the concert for a while, but we figured we would never be able to go since we live in Wichita, KS -- several hundred miles away from either of the concerts, neither of us had enough money to pay for everything, and neither of us really felt confident enough to travel to Las Vegas or CT by ourselves. (We are 17 and 19)

Anyways, sometime in early to mid December my mom asked us what we wanted for Christmas. My sister and I had just been talking about going to see F4 earlier, so as a joke we said "We want to go see F4 in Las Vegas!" Usually my mom would just roll her eyes at something like this, but instead she asked us when we wanted to go to Las Vegas. We told her February 1st, and she said she would be in Las Vegas that week for a business conference. She wanted to know where the concert would be, and we found out it was at the same hotel as her conference (Mandalay Bay). So my mom decided to let us go with her to Las Vegas, but she had to go on Tuesday Jan 28, and my sister, my dad, and I just met her up there on Friday the 31st. We ended up staying at the Luxor, which is right next to Mandalay Bay at the end of the strip.

Mandalay Bay's prices were too expensive the night of the concert, probably due to the boxing fight that was going on that night, it being a weekend, and it being the Chinese new year. We got to our hotel Friday afternoon, and I could look out our hotel window at the Mandalay Bay which has a big tv screen that plays various advertisements for events going on. It was constantly playing an advertisement for the F4 concert, and inside the Mandalay Bay there were posters for the concert. The thing I found odd about them though was they were all pictures from their Meteor Rain album. I would have thought they would have had newer pictures from their Fantasy Forever album, oh well, it doesn't really matter.

On Saturday we went down to figure out where the concert was, and we went to the back of the area that you had to wait outside off to get to the concert. I thought I heard something, and I told my sister to be quiet. We could hear the F4 practicing! We were so excited. ^^ At first we weren't sure if it was playing over the intercom or if we actually heard them. As we walked away though it faded, so we were pretty sure we actually heard them practicing, or at least a recording of them playing since some of what they sing is pre-recorded...Sorry for my constant rambling though, I'll try to get to the concert quickly, I promise! At 6:30 or so my sister and I went to get ready for the concert. I had bought a tattoo set a while ago from YesAsia, but never knew when to use them, and we figured now was as good of time as any. We put a very small glitter F4 tattoo on our face, and glitter tattoos of the F4 themselves on our hands. (Which I haven't taken off yet ^^;) We left a little before 7:30 for the concert even though it didn't start till 9.

When we walked up to the area that you had to wait before they opened the doors there was already a pretty good amount of people there. I would guess about 100-150 maybe. There were more boys than I expected there. Of course, I could tell many were there only because they were dragged along with their girlfriends, or they were a dad with their daughter. Also, all different ages were there. There were little kids with their parents and then adults in their 30's or older by themselves, but of course about 13-25 was the largest age group. They had everyone waiting in several lines, that were extremely unorganized (like many of the things at this concert seemed to be...) Someone walked through the lines asking if people had cameras and told people to check them if they had them. My sister and I had a camera of course, but even if we were going to check it, we had no clue where to do that.

They opened the doors at about 8, and people started cheering and charging for the door. Right around the corner when you got in was a souvenir stand. Another completely unorganized and crazy thing. It was just a big crowd of people pushing to get to the front. I was a bit disappointed with the things they had there. Nothing too special, almost all things I could get at YesAsia. Mostly the gifts that came along with their Comic Man photo book. They also had some glow sticks that they had put an F4 sticker on for a dollar. Earlier that day though my sister had bought an electronic key chain that had a blue flashing stick at the end, and took some of the transfers that came with my tattoo set and stuck them on the hand of the key chain, and used those instead of glow sticks. Other things they had at the table were the Meteor in Barcelona pb, Vic's pb, Jerry's pb, and the Comic Man pb The first Meteor Garden series on VCD and DVD, Vic and Vanness' solo cd and both of the F4's cds. That was pretty much it though. Still they managed to get $55 from me. I bought a pencil set, the Meteor in Barcelona pb, and Vic's solo cd (which I have been meaning to get for a long time now...)

The men running the stand really didn't know much about the items, so if you called them anything different than what they were labeled it seemed like they had problems figuring out what you were talking about. Also one of the guys got very annoyed with the people asking "What is this?" "How much does this cost?" because pretty much everything was clearly labeled. My sister ended up helping explain to people what everything was, because the man couldn't answer a lot of their questions. I would say to the people going to their other concert if it is anything like the Las Vegas one, know exactly what you are getting and how much it will cost before you get up to the front if you can. Once you do figure out what you want tell them loudly (because it was very loud there) what you want like it is labeled on the paper beside them, like the title says on the item, or explain to them where the item is and what it looks like.

For example when I told them I wanted the Make a Wish cd, I told them "I want the Make a Wish cd" the guy kind of looked around at the items confused so I said "Its the cd on the bottom shelve next to the Meteor in Barcelona photo book" He found it, I paid him the money, and got out of that area as quickly as possible. Next my sister and I went to go find our seats. We had bought tickets in the $188 section, and we were in the second section over from the stage in the third row to the right of the stage when looking at it (Left if you were looking out from the stage) This is important later on. Hope you are on the opposite side if they do the same thing at the CT concert as they did in Las Vegas. I'll get to that later.

My sister and I sat down in our seats, which were pretty good. Better than we thought they were actually. As a whole, the area was smaller than we expected. The girl sitting next to us was very nice, and asked us how we knew who F4 was. We explained to her that we had liked Hana Yori Dango a lot, and had seen a press conference about Meteor Garden when it was first announced and we were instantly interested in seeing the series. Then she asked if we spoke Chinese, and we told her no, because we only know a few very very small phrases we picked up from watching Meteor Garden. I pulled out my Meteor in Barcelona pb and was looking at the calendar in it, and the girl asked us who our favorite was. It was open to Vanness, and she asked if we like him because he spoke English. ^^ Vanness is my sister's favorite, but I said I liked Vic best. The girl was very excited because she is a huge Vic fan too! I was very happy to have such a big Vic fan sitting next to me.

They had three large screens sitting up around the stage, and the two on the side were playing various clips from tv shows. Every time a member of the F4 would come on the scream someone would scream. My sister decided to take a picture of the stage before the concert started, and the girl next to us leaned over and told us that you couldn't take pictures in the concert. I found this really funny, because once the concert, he boyfriend pulled out a video camera and started recording the concert, and I think she had a camera that she used to take pictures herself. A lot of other people were also doing the same thing. I don't think there was anyway though could have stopped everything. They didn't seem to care much. We sat there for a while waiting for the concert to start, and my sister and I kept looking around and thinking about how empty the whole place looked.

It was after 9 when the concert was supposed to start and people were still slowing coming into the concert. About 5 minutes before the concert started, they made an announcement in Chinese. My sister and I couldn't understand it, and it seems many people missed the announcement. But as soon as they made it people started screaming and people started rushing towards the front of the stage. It turns out they had made some sort of an announcement telling people to fill out the empty spots up front!! By the time we had realized what had happened all the spots up front were taken, so the row we were in just moved down some closer to the stage. Some of us were talking about how this was unfair because we had paid so much to get our tickets, and the people that paid only $48-$78 for their tickets got to move up to the $188-$288 seats.

So to the people in CT, if it looks kind of empty, I might be prepared for them to make a similar announcement. Shortly after they had made that announcement a girl showed up that had a seat for our row and didn't understand why everyone was in her seat. The people sitting there were trying to explain to her what had happened, and they tried to get people to move down one seat, but the row was completely full. One of the ushers came over and said that she technically owned the seat, but then after looking at everyone's tickets saw we were all in that row so he didn't make us move. The girl ended up sitting in about the same spot only one row back. She got really mad at the people who were in her seat, and I felt a little bad for them, because they had tried to get people to move for her. I just wonder why she came at 9:30 for a concert that started at 9...

Finally to the concert itself! At 9:30, it got dark and music started playing. The music was soo~ loud. Between the loud music and the screaming I couldn't understand what was being said a lot of the time. 4 girl dancers and 4 boy dancers came out on stage dressed in fancy 1700's type dress. The girls had the tall white wigs and large white dresses on. They did a little dance for a few minutes when the F4 showed up, they flashed some bright lights, and they started to sing Ask For More in white outfits and blue sparkling belts. Afterwards they said a few words, and ran off stage. Much to my sister and my disappointment, they spoke Chinese through almost all of the concert. We were hoping Ken and Vanness would try to talk a bit more in English. Vanness did talk quite a bit in English, but probably more in Chinese. Ken said some things such as Nice to meet you etc etc.

As expected Vic only said Hallo~ My sister and I like the joke about how he always says hello like Hallo~, and he says it exactly the same way each time, cute cute ^^ We predicted that Hallo~ would be the only thing he said in English, and we were right. I don't remember Jerry saying anything more than Hello either. After Ask For More was sang Jerry changed very quickly into an Indian like outfit (Not Native American like, Indian as in from India) and did a dance with the dancers. After that Ken came out and sat on one side of the stage (our side for once actually) and sang "Here We Are" while playing his guitar. He did very very well, and I was very impressed. He looked very cute while singing it and playing his guitar. Next they pulled up two chairs, in one they sat down a very large Mickey Mouse doll and Ken sat in the other chair facing it and sang to the doll. (Which many of the girls kind of giggled at) He sang a cover of the English song "Desperado" and at the end went down and gave the Mickey Mouse to someone.

Later on, my sister and I figured that this was probably someone from Vanness' family though. We were pretty sure they were in the audience that night. After Ken was done with those two songs, I'm pretty sure that Vanness came out next and did a dance with red armor on. I've never seen a guy do so many body rolls in my life...He's such a good dancer. I already knew that, but I was still very impressed. Then he sang an English song, which I think is called "Never Gonna Stop" or "Never Gonna Let You Go" I was trying to figure out what the song was called and who sang it the whole time, but I still haven't remembered. He also sang Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You", and a Chinese song. I can't remember which one though. I'm having a hard time remembering the order of the whole concert. So after this, the concert is going to be out of order until the very end.

^^ Sorry. Vic came out and sang 3 or 4 songs. He of course sang "Make a Wish" which caused the everyone to scream very loudly when they heard the music start to play. The girl next to me and I kept screaming Zai Zai! really loudly throughout the concert. The girl next to me would even scream Zai Zai when he wasn't on stage! Next he sang A Gentile Goodnight. He also sang his solo song from the Meteor Rain cd. I can't remember if he sang another song or not. He might have sang "With you & me" from his solo cd, but I'm not sure. Through out the whole thing he would go to the opposite side of the stage from me. The girl next to me and I wanted him to come over by us!

^^ Vic was on that side of the stage through out most of the concert actually. At the end of one of his songs Vanness came out and started singing it with him. After that all of the F4 came on stage and Vic made a quick costume change. They sang the opening and closing song to MGII, talked for a little while, and I think they sang another song from their first album. I remember them singing another song, I'm just not sure what it was...Then I believe they had another dance scene. The next song that came on was "Show me your love" which was one of my favorite songs from the Meteor Rain cd. Ken came down through the audience surrounded by a large group of people trying to block fans, which didn't work very well. Of course, this was on the opposite side of the stage also. Afterwards he sang a very good cover of "Can't Buy Me Love."

Either F4 or Vanness came on next. I can't remember if the F4 sang the next group of songs in one big bunch, or if they were broken up. I'll just put them all together at the end. Vanness came out again and sang several more songs. He sang a few slow songs at first, and handed a rose to a girl. Then he said that was enough slow songs and sang several more upbeat songs. He asked if the people there spoke Chinese or English and my sister and I screamed English loudly in hopes that he would speak more English. He kept switching between the two though. I believe he switched midsentence several times too. After singing some songs off of his album and covers of various songs he talked to his family a little, and said something like "Mom, I hope you are proud of me" Very sweet. He then sang "Amazing Grace" which he said was a favorite song of his. At some point, Vanness ran through the audience (Of course on the opposite side of the stage from us) and threw what I was pretty sure were red envelopes out to people. If he would have been on our side he would have ran right passed me.

Backtracking a little, through out the concert members of the F4 would occasionally go through the audience. People started gathering on my side like someone was going to come through, which many people seemed to notice. The ushers kept talking about if it was too dangerous or not. In the end they decided to go for it. It was Jerry's turn to come on stage, and he sang his solo song from Meteor Rain. He started to come from the back. I was so excited because he would walk right passed me. At this point in time my sister and I had jumped seats to a row ahead of us because so many girls just ran up to the front of the stage and didn't come back to their seats. The girls in the front row and just done that, so I prepared to jump another row when he came by. But so many girls started crowding around that he couldn't get through! Ushers kept pushing them out of the way so he could get through, but they kept moving back. In the end he had to go back and didn't come by me. I was so upset! I really wanted someone to come by me, and just when it was about to happen it got ruined. Jerry finally got around to the stage and finished singing his song. He talked a little in Chinese, then picked a girl named Joyce to come up on stage with him while he sang the next song, which I couldn't figure out what it was.

A lot of the people were singing along with it so it must be a popular song. One thing I noticed is that a lot of the people didn't sing along, even when they would hold the Mic out to the audience as a sign for them to sing along. My sister and I were singing to many of the songs, or at least attempting to sing them...We usually try to sing something close to the words. Sometimes we are completely off, and sometimes we know we are singing the right words, but we really didn't really care. ^^; I'm surprised someone didn't laugh at us. At least that we noticed. I wouldn't be surprised if there were people laughing at us that we didn't notice. We stood out so much in the crowd, and then plus we were trying to sing along with words even though half time we had no idea what we were supposed to say. Some the dancers came out in Hawaiian outfits next, making it very clear that the next song they would sing was "Can't Help Falling in Love"

Then F4 came out wearing these red-ish orange outfits and started singing. I'm pretty sure it was in this song that Vanness started to sing some of Vic's lines. It was so funny really. Vanness just was so into singing he kept singing, and didn't stop until about halfway through Vic's line when Vanness started to crack up. This was earlier, but I forgot to add it, but the F4 sang a cover of Harlem Yu's song that was the opening for MGI (I love this song) Everyone started cheering very loudly of course when this started playing. During the middle of this song I believe they threw out something to the audience with seemed to be tennis balls, or just rubber balls...I really couldn't tell. I tried to run up and catch one, but didn't get one. I wish Vanness was on my side at the time. He could throw them so much farther than the rest. Any ways, after Can't Help Falling in Love, they talked some, sang a few more song. I can't remember which ones. They sang one of the songs from Meteor Rain, which I can not remember what the name of it is. Its the one that Vanness opens up speaking English saying something like "This goes out to all the females..." If that helps at all.

Then they went off stage for a minute before coming back on and singing Meteor Rain. Then that was the end of the concert. It didn't seem real to me though a lot of the time. I enjoyed it so much though, even though I did have some complaints. Even though I had to go through a lot of trouble and send a lot of money to go see the F4 I think it was worth it, and I would do it again!

Sorry this was so insanely long. I like to ramble on about things, and I was giving out just about every little detail in the concert that I could remember. I will be able to post pictures soon if they turn out well.