After work on Friday, I caught the slow train up just in time to grab a burrito for dinner and then head to the venue, which was a small basement accessed through a hole in the wall called Channel 1969 near Hongdae. My boy was playing the drums again, this time in his other band. (You can check them out here. Warning: MATH ROCK ALERT!)Their show was fairly succinct, as they were opening for a Korean band called Dabda. I can't find any additional info for them, but it was clear that most of the people in the audience came to see Dabda judging from the reception they received. I guess it didn't help that my friend's band is based in Daegu and they were playing to strangers in Seoul.
After the show, the night carried on into late-night barbecue with both bands, coupled with waaayyyyy too much soju and beer. There was a mart stop at some point, and then a continuation at our AirBnB, where some strange dude and one of my dudes got into a heated argument about fascism. I got involved, as did another of our group, but it was working on 4 AM, everyone was drunk, and no dents could be made in the steel walls we'd all put up behind our glazed-over eyes. I went to bed before the others had finished their slurred arguments.
Saturday morning/afternoon was pretty rough. We got lost on the way to breakfast/lunch/early dinner, but meandering through the rolling hills of Seoul was nice. The neighborhoods look slightly different than in Daegu. There are more hills. The buildings butting against the street are arranged a little differently, a little more dilapidated in general. Seoul has a few more wrinkles on its face, some from laughter and some from sorrow, like its highs were higher and its lows lower.
We ate some bomb Indian/Nepali food at this place called Everest. The tea, the samosas, the momos, the curries--everything was awesome. We overdid it though, and spent the next couple of hours in a Starbucks blowing up their bathrooms and recovering.
The main reason we came up for the weekend was to attend a concert. We were seeing Tricot, a Japanese math-rock band playing their first show in Korea. I was introduced to them the first time I went to my drummer friend's apartment for a small gathering. He had their DVD playing on his laptop for background noise. They were immediately noticed--tight, urgent, energetic, technically proficient. I still have no idea what they were singing about, but it doesn't matter when they put on a show like this.
It was even better seeing them in person (and so close, too!). These tiny Japanese girls jumping around in front of a tiny Japanese dude just destroying it on drums, nary a mistake in sight or sound in any of them. It's hard not to move your body with such contagious energy spewing from the stage. I'm glad to have experienced it.
The other highlight of the night was this bar that was hidden, signless, in the basement of some apartment villa. It was amazingly decorated with homemade art and wood and amazingly soundtracked to create an amazing atmosphere. (Why didn't I take a picture of it!?) I feel lucky to have found that gem. It was definitely a good day, despite the hangover.
Sunday was much more bittersweet. My friend started it off right by pushing the wrong button in our high-tech apartment, prompting some loud emergency alarm to go off incessantly. We couldn't turn it off, so we just left. Nobody seemed to respond or care or maybe it was attached to nothing. That's Korea for you.
But the thought crept back into my brain in the taxi ride to the station: these were my final moments in Seoul for a very long time, perhaps forever. With that sort of finality, I thought of all the mixed feelings I've had for that city over the years I've known it. The things I caught a glimpse of but didn't fully experience, the things I experienced too much of, the things that were once there but are now gone, the things to come that I won't be around to experience. I don't think I've ever really felt that way before. I was genuinely sad to leave it.
I felt like if I had it all to do over again, but with the knowledge and experience I already have, I'd live in that concrete mess. I've had a lot of fun in the random corners of that city, most of it forgotten or weathered away by time, incapable of being replicated ever again. I felt nostalgia, I felt sad at aging and life changing in the way that it always does. I wanted to trap that city in a snow globe that I could visit whenever I want. But that's not how it works. I just have to look back at what little I've written about it and visit the fuzzy pictures I took and try to transport myself for a moment back in futile hope. It's like a form of heartbreak, isn't it? Till we meet again, Seoul.
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