Atlanta FAN*tastics 1 Fan Account – by Nova

Aug 24, 2009 by wgchristine    6 Comments    Posted under: Wonder Girls  ■  12 views

CAUTION HUGE CONTENT

Once upon a time there were three giant Wonder Girls fans; Helen, Jeffy, and Nova. They had been hearing all the great things about the Wonder Girls on the Jonas Brothers Tour and decided that they had to go to the Atlanta concert for themselves. Helen traveled from Australia, Nova hopped a plane from Ohio, and Jeffy… walked a few blocks from his school to the arena.

We all basically met up and headed over to the Philips arena where the concert was being held super early. Our phones had been set up to tell us if the Girls tweeted for a Verizon bus appearance, but we never got any messages so we just assumed it was cancelled. W still decided to head over a few hours before the show started, mostly to hang around outside and see if we could see other Wonderfuls. The Philips arena was literally crawling with Jonas Brothers fangirls of all shapes and sizes and it was a little bit terrifying, but also really amazing. There were thousands of people there for a sold out show and Wonder Girls was going to be performing for ALL of them!

First we headed over to the Verizon bus just to see if there were any lingering elements of the Wonder Girls over there. The bus was graffitied into oblivion and there were no other WG fans, but we decided to get some pictures anyway. I pulled out my giant six foot long Wonder Girls banners and Jeffy took some pics of Helen and I holding the banners (‘witness the wonder’ side and ‘yubin is my homegirl’ side ) in front of the bus. We were kind of attracting a lot of attention for the epically huge banners and a Verizon employee actually came up to us and asked if we saw the Wonder Girls when they were at the bus earlier. We of course said no, since we didn’t think they were going to be there from their lack of tweets. Turned out the bus dance session was supposed to have been cancelled, but they decided to have one at the last minute and so they didn’t tweet about it. And we had missed it all. Gah!

It was disappointing for us, but we pulled ourselves together. Helen and I each slung one of the banners around ourselves like capes and Jeffy proudly held my Keroro Gunso doll that was to be my present for Yubin and we walked around the arena waiting for the show to start. We headed over to the stalls selling concert merch and they were offering a brand new Wonder Girls shirt (black shirt with the logo on the front and ‘I am a wonder girl’ written on the back in pink glitter) and Nobody posters. Of course we had to stop and buy a bunch of swag. After we were laden down with our new purchases we kept walking around the arena, getting a good amount of attention from Jonas Brothers fans due to Jeffy wearing a pink glitter ‘I am a wonder girl’ shirt and Helen and I wearing giant banners, and we attracted the attention of a staff member running a WG table. It was apparently the first night they were doing pre-orders for the US debut album. It was 20 dollars down and you got the album shipped to you when it was released. Plus since we were in the first group of preorders we would get an autographed copy and a free WG laptop case. SCORE!

So after we preordered our WG albums we headed to our seats. We all had to sit in different parts of the arena since the tickets in groups of three were already sold out. The seats were all decent though and we were only one section up above the floor. I gave one of my banners to Helen to wave and Jeffy held onto the Keroro Gunso doll for Yubin. As soon as I made it to my seat I explained to the Jonas Brothers fangirls sitting next to me that I would really appreciate it if they could help me hold my banner up when the Wonder Girls sang because it was just too long for me to hold on my own. They actually came through and held their end of the banner up when the Wonder Girls came out, which was fantastic cause I was too busy spazzing.

The Girls did a lovely job. Their English has really improved leaps and bounds from what it was when I saw them live back in March. They calmly lead the audience through a quick tutorial of Nobody and then started up the song. I tried to hold the banner and do the dance at the same time. Helen was having the same difficulty and eventually just gave up on the banner and just did the dance. A lot of the people near Helen and me were rather apathetic about the Girls, which was unfortunate. But over on Jeffy’s side of the arena a lot of people were dancing along. So I guess the high energy was contagious over there.

We basically decided it wasn’t worth the burst eardrums from the screams of the fangirls to stay in the arena for Jonas Brothers, so we all ducked out early and headed over to the preorder table again. Helen and I hung up one of my banners on the table for extra decoration and the guy thanked us. Once Jeffy escaped from the fangirl hordes we headed up to the Verizon bus for the FAN*tastics.

The area outside the Verizon bus actually had a lot of us FAN*tastics. The three of us had been searching high and low throughout the show for other fans, but there was at least a good 15-16 people for the team. And everyone was really nice. We all talked and were generally excited waiting for Hana to show up for us to go backstage. A random Wonderful walked up to me and gave me a bag of Korean food to pass on to the Girls and I promised I would deliver it to them. It weighed like a metric ton. After we chatted amongst ourselves for a while Hana showed up sporting her list of members and she said hi to everyone. Then she turned to me and was like “oh Alice I recognize you!” and she totally remembered me from the NYC dance and MTV back in March. It was really sweet. She lined us up, with me in front and Helen and Jeffy close behind and we all headed backstage.

She ended up taking us down beneath the stage to the practice basketball courts for the Atlanta team. They had it set up with a little cloth cubicle of sorts where we would get our meet and greet sessions with the Girls. Hana let us choose to go individually or in groups, so of course the Spec! trio decided to stick together. We spent a nervewracking few minutes waiting for them to show up. Jeffy decided to change his shirt to the white one so he could get it autographed. Helen tried to figure out all her gifts for the Girls (they were really awesome Australian bags with candy and personalized books and poems for the Girls). I was sort of standing off to the side with my banner and Hana caught a glimpse of it and told me she thought it was really awesome. She asked me if I could hold it up and stand near the preorder booth to pump people up. I told her that I in fact made two banners and one of them was already upstairs hanging on the preorder booth and that they could keep it if they wanted it. Her jaw practically dropped at this and she said, “seriously!?” and then ran off and grabbed other staff members (possibly including Rainstone PD? It happened so fast I’m not sure) to show them the banner and tell them that I had given them one.

Eventually we heard the clip clop of high heels on the wood of the basketball court and we knew that the Girls had arrived behind the black curtain. Most of them started lining up and getting ready to greet us, but Yubin started to head out from behind the curtain. The staff members told her to stay back, but she stuck her head out anyway and waved goofily at all of us. Basically all of us were totally jazzed, but Helen almost passed out on top of me from the shock of it. Quite hilarious. We were the first group to go in, so we headed behind the curtain to meet our idols.

Helen and Jeffy were in a state of shock and took a few seconds to even start talking to any of the Girls. I put the bag of food down on the floor and told the Girls that it was a present from a Wonderful outside and that it was Korean food. Sun Ye ran forward and said, “Korean food finally!” and was really super excited. I walked forward to Yubin and gave her my Keroro Gunso doll and she hugged it and said it was cute. Helen and Jeffy sort of stuck closer to the other end of the line and were mostly talking to the miso duo. Helen gave out her Australian presents and again Sun Ye got really excited for the food, especially the Cadbury chocolate. They all seemed really blown away by the fact that she came from Australia for this, so I don’t think they will be forgetting her anytime soon. Jeffy stepped forward and hugged Yubin (and wants everyone to know that she is really soft, his words not mine) and Helen got a Wonder Years CD signed for Kam. She even asked Sun Mi to make it out to panda alien which seemed to amuse the 4D girl to no end. I stayed on the other end of the line closer to the older three girls. Ye Eun sort of stared at me for a bit and finally said “I recognize you from your FAN*tastics video. You were the one that ran over the car and stuff to hand out flyers.” I nearly DIED. Just the knowledge that one of those views on my youtube video was the Wonder Girls was too much for me. Then Sun Ye and Ye Eun recognized me from the NYC stage dancers and gave me hugs for it. Yubin totally jumped in on that too. I showed all of them my Wonder Girls banner and then flipped it to the Yubin side and Yubin thought it was awesome. She got really excited and gave me the thumbs up. The staff members took our cameras and got some pictures of us together holding up the Spec banner. After they got group pics I got my video camera back and asked Yubin for a shoutout for Megan and she did an absolutely lovely one that I’m sure she will share with everyone when I get it off my camera.

In the end I got my banner signed by the Girls, 4 on one side and then Yubin solo on the side with her name. She said “I’m gonna write this super big,” and did a giant signature for me. Then she asked me for my name and put it on there too. At that point our time was basically up and we went to leave. Helen mentioned that she would see them again in Toronto and I said I would see them in Cleveland and this made Yubin really happy and she said she would see us there.

We all staggered, stunned, outside to wait for the rest of the FAN*tastics to get their stuff signed and whatnot. I feel kinda bad cause I think we got a lot more time with them overall than the other groups did, probably because we were first. But while we waited for everyone to finish up one of the other Wonderfuls organized us into doing the nobody dance while we all sang the English refrain to nobody. It was really awesome and all the Girls poked their heads out from behind the curtain and cheered and clapped for us. Sun Mi had her biggest 4D moment yet and started clapping like a seal with joy and then pretended to cry and ran off. Everyone who saw it was cracking up.

After that we headed upstairs and got the flyers to hand out to people post-concert. We grabbed giant handfuls and head outside. I held my banner up outside for most of it, but I tried to talk to Jonas Brothers fans as they were leaving. It seemed really 50/50 on whether or not they were receptive. Some people wanted nothing to do with anything that wasn’t 100% Jonas Brothers. But some people actively looked for the flyers and actually asked for extras for the rest of their family members, which was pretty cool. Jeffy and I ran out of flyers pretty quickly and had to go back inside for more. Helen had grabbed far more than us and kept braving the Jo Bros hordes to spread the Wonder Girls love. Once Jeffy and I got back to the booth we got roped into hyping up the people who were walking by or getting in line to meet the Wonder Girls. They gave a megaphone to one Wonderful and she was cheering on people and doing a really awesome job. I waved my banner around and the rest of the FAN*tastics handed out flyers and taught the Nobody dance. They ended up getting a pretty long line of people and a lot of them were really into it. They would dance and sing along and everything. There was a very positive reception! I also got the impression that we might have been more enthusiastic FAN*tastics than the usual bunches cause Hana seemed really happy about it all.

In the end they closed up the line before we could join it and get more pictures, but we were all kinda okay with that since we had already gotten our time with the Girls. They all started heading back to their dressing room and all us FAN*tastics sort of followed them quietly. When they reached the elevators to leave Helen yelled out “come to Australia!” Yubin waved back and said that she definitely would and all us Wonderfuls gave a last cheer for the Girls.

All in all, it was a great trip and well worth the journey (especially for Jeffy who only had to go a few blocks). Our mini Spec meetup was super fun and we had no regrets!

I’m sure Helen and Jeffy will have things to say as well that I might have left out. They should also post pictures too since most of what i got was video!

Geez, everything I write is so long…

Promoting the Wonder
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDzpZmv7M9Q

Meeting the Girls
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb1aA8QL3P0

Shoutout to sily52
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EE0t3g8mWA

credit: Novaforever @ WGSPEC