[DAY6 - Live & Meet in North America] Congratulations are in order for DAY6 at their #DAY6inLA performance > K-POP

Before the lights went off at La Mirada Theatre, fans could be heard saying, “I Smile because of DAY6.” And it’s not hard to imagine why. Despite the small venue, JYP band DAY6 brought forth charisma, energy, and smiles to the sold-out crowd of My Days that had waited in line for hours to see their favorite band play. 

 DAY6 kicked off their ‘DAY6 – Live & Meet in North America’ fanmeet/concert series, hosted by SubKulture Entertainment, in La Mirada, CA (Los Angeles stop) on October 20th. This marked the quintet band’s first appearance in the USA and a homecoming of sorts for member Jae, who grew up in Long Beach, close to the venue where the band played. The Live & Meet began with the VCR quickly playing a montage of the members, who appeared on stage one by one as their images flashed behind them. Without further ado, the band jumped right into ‘I Wait’ with red strobe lights encompassing the entire theatre, turning the theatre into a mini nightclub. The fans screamed in delight as DAY6 rocked out to the song to their hearts’ content. The quintet followed up with ‘Hunt’, ‘장난 아닌데 I’m Serious’ and ‘Man in a Movie’, each song upping the frenzied cheers from the crowd.  

Each member then introduced himself to the fans and in succession, they all mentioned how honored they were to be playing in LA. Jae drew the most cheers, which was not surprising to all in the audience given that Jae grew up in the LA area. Wonder what the ‘Meet’ meant? Fanmeet, of course, and the session started off with a few Q&A, which included Wonpil’s favorite childhood memory of biking over 4 hours to the Han River with friends, Young K’s 2017 favorite memories with all the members just doing everything together, Dowoon​'s English of how he wanted to be president when he was younger, Sungjin’s favorite time of day of 1AM since it allows him to think more and becomes more sensitive, and Jae’s non-answer of what he likes to do beside sleeping. 

Following the short Q&A session was ‘Game Time’ in which fans were given two options to guess the specific members’ preferences. Jae trolled everyone by choosing ‘shirt’ over ‘sweater’ and went into a long and detailed explanation as to why. Thanks to the graciousness of MC Danny Ahn, the round was deemed practice and everyone stood up once as the real game commenced. Fans scratched their heads trying to figure out what the members prefered - SUV vs sports car (Dowoon - he likes safe cars), toast vs pancakes (Sungjin), Wonder Woman vs Harley Quinn (Jae - does he have to explain why), The Notebook vs Avengers (Wonpil), and Hollywood Hills vs Academy Awards (Young K), to just name a few. In the end, one lucky fan won herself an autographed shirt, poster, and a hoodie. Fans were then treated to ‘Jae’s Cut’ VCR where the members were in awe of Hollywood and everything in LA around them.

As this was a ‘Live & Meet’, the rest of the time was spent towards a mini concert. The entire establishment shook from the thumping and jumping from fans as they rocked out to ‘에뻤어 You Were Beautiful’ and ‘Congratulations’, ignoring thoughts of whether the balcony could collapse from sheer excitement. Before ending the night with ‘놓아 놓아 놓아 Letting Go’, ‘반드시 웃는다 I Smile’ and encore songs ‘DANCE DANCE’ and ‘Free 하게), each member spoke up and shared their thoughts and feelings of being able to perform in LA. They shared similar thoughts, such as understanding why Jae had so much pride towards his home city, how they were touched by all the fans who came out from different distances to watch them play, and enjoying being in LA for the first time. Jae, however, spoke for much longer and spoke about his dreams, how he didn’t expect to be on the path he is on now, that his friends had encouraged him to pursue guitar and the journey he embarked on. He also shared pearls of wisdom, telling fans to never let anyone tell them otherwise and to just go towards their dreams. Perhaps this stemmed from his own experience and he wanted others to know that people only tell you that you can’t do it because they’re jealous: “Well, screw them; you can do it. Because you have a goal and they don’t. So moral of the story: just do it. Because if I can do it, then you can do it too.” 

Words to live by. And what a night. Congratulations, DAY6, for a successful first stage in LA. We hope to see more of you in the future! The 5-member band will continue their tour in Austin, TX (Oct. 22), New York, NY (Oct. 24), Detroit, Mi (Oct. 27) and Toronto, Canada (Oct. 29). For more pictures of the night, head over to our Facebook page located HERE. 

Thank you to the team at SubKulture Entertainment for extending a media invite to Korea.com to cover this fun and exciting event. We look forward to having the opportunity to cover more events organized by SubKulture Entertainment.

written by Korea.com’s Emily