Standouts from the SBS Gayo Daejun

I stayed up to an ungodly hour to watch the 2011 SBS Gayo Daejun, hoping that I wouldn’t be disappointed, and I wasn’t. To be honest, the show was horrible. Most of the performances were boring or bad and overall it was a terrible show. But I found the horribleness of several performances so incredibly amusing that I regret nothing. Even though Justin already covered the show, Gil and I couldn’t resist slipping in our opinions as well. Hope you don’t mind.

Natalie: Do you remember the highly supervised school dances of your youth? Overlooked by adults and socially awkward? The boys didn’t know where to put their hands and the girls didn’t know how to interact with the boys. That is what this performance reminded me of. Super Junior and SNSD were trying to be sexy and inappropriate without actually being sexy and inappropriate. If you’re going to bump and grind, don’t half-ass it. Don’t put space between you and the person you’re dancing with or you’ll just look awkward, like little kids trying to mimic what the grown ups are doing.

Gil:  So true Natalie, so true. If a boy band and a girl band are trying to do a sexy stage, make it sexy! It looked so innocent I was disappointed. And I disagree with Natalie on the middle school part, have you seen those children nowadays? I’m pretty sure there’s more grinding and bumping in a middle school dance than I saw in this.

Gil: Alright, I am the generation of Old Disney, I used to drive my father mad by watching Lion King over and over again. So yeah, Tiffany stop singing. Stop ruining the memories of my childhood.

Natalie: I agree, Gil. There are some songs that should not be touched, Disney songs being amongst them. Aladdin and Jasmine were my favorite Disney couple as a kid – stop ruining my memories of them.

Natalie: Junsu and Davichi are talented people, with no doubt, but this was a horrible cover. “Empire State of Mind” is a song that requires attitude and flow, which neither Junsu nor Davichi have. They sang most of it, even the rap parts. You can’t sing rap! It was just weird. Glee did a better cover than they did, and that’s saying something.

Gil: No words can describe the disappointment I felt. I hope Jay-Z doesn’t get wind of this.

Natalie: SM’s segments were my favorite part of the entire show – because they were so bad. All the performances ran together, when one finished another would start. There was dancing one moment than singing and then this. It was one big, hot, sexy mess that was so bad it was good. Part of the large run-on segment was the orchestral performance of “The Sound of Hallyu.” All of SM’s artists were jamming out on some intruments, my favorites being Henry and Kyuhyun. Henry worked his violin like nothing I’ve ever seen before and the quick flashes of Kyuhyun with his harmonica were too funny for words.

Gil: I was happy to see my mochi, Henry and he did well in his violin solo but it the rest of the performance was all over the place. Kyuhyun, you adorable little thing, rocking your soul out to that harmonica.

Gil: I will pay SM to stop  SNSD rapping. Let them sing and dance to their hearts content but the rapping. No, just no. There is no one in SNSD that can rap so why are you making them do something they can’t? And the flute was really odd, it was pretty…until the rapping started then it just got odd.

Natalie: I’m with you Gil. We need to sign a petition or something. Tiffany’s little flute solo was cute but extremely random. Why is she dressed as a ballerina and playing a flute? She looks adorable but that was just out-of-place and weird. And I think it’s kind of cute to see SNSD act all “ghetto” – they’re just so bad at it.

Natalie: I am not a Taeyeon fan. A lot of people love her, but something’s always been off about her to me and she has always been my least favorite member of SNSD. Normally, I find her absolutely boring, but not this time. Although I’m pretty sure she’s lip-syncing at least the high notes (it’s very difficult to hit high notes and hold them when you’re hunched over), she actually looks like she’s in her element. She’s said repeatedly before that she hates pop songs like “Gee,” so it’s sad that that is usually what she has to sing. I think Taeyeon could’ve been a good rocker (no Joan Jett, though), given the chance. Changmin also did well, but I don’t think being a rocker comes as naturally to him.

Gil: Taeyeon isn’t too bad, but halfway in Changmin’s voice and Taeyeon’s just got really high. I know the boy can scream but that doesn’t mean he should always do rock songs. I listen to metal and hard rock so I found this performance to be cute. Look at them trying to be a hard-rocker, awwwww. I will say though, I thought Jungmo looked mighty fine . Om nom nom.

Gil: I love these U-KISS boys so I have to review their performance. I loved the first dance, the boys killed it but then it suddenly changes to 0330. Like Justin (omg we have a male?) said it was weird suddenly transitioning from powerful dance track to a soft ballad back to a upbeat dance song. The back-up dancers should not be wearing the same outfit as the main group, I had a hard time distinguishing the members. This is the best Eli’s hair has been since the debut, I need to hug his hairstylist. I also loved Soohyun suddenly having the need to go on his knees, it made me chuckle. You could have done that standing up.

Natalie: Yeah, I agree with you and Justin (holy chiz, it’s a guy): those sudden transitions were weird. Oh, U-KISS, I do love you (marry me), but I’m also having a hard time telling you apart from your backup dancers. I lost you in a sea of black suits. Add some color next time, OK?

Natalie: I have this theory where Exo’s Kai isn’t actually a person – he’s a clone of Taemin. What SM really has been doing is cloning and manufacturing idols underground for years, making them beautiful, dancing, singing machines that need no sleep, no rest, no rights, and no pay. They’ll soon take over the world.

I kid, I kid. But still: Victoria was awesome, Exo Planet’s Tao came in and flipped around a bit while waving a stick, then Taemin, Kai, and Eunhyuk made their entrance. I’m actually really impressed with this guy – he’s a newbie but he kept up with Taemin and Eunhyuk and danced fluidly. Still, there’s absolutely no proof of his singing abilities or even his stage presence – he backed up Taemin and Eunhyuk, not the other way around. Same goes for Tao. Tao is a good martial artist/acrobat but flipping around and waving a stick for a few seconds isn’t anything to go on for how good he sings, dances, performs, or raps.

Gil:  I have this bad feeling about Tao’s marital arts skills, SM is only marketing that so I feel that during their debut song in a dance break instead of dancing Tao is going to whip out his stick and wave it around. But I agree on Kai just being a back up dancer, I thought this was a debut stage showcasing their performance skills but instead I just got Taemin and Eunhyuk. On a side note, someone needs to stop giving these idols bowl cuts, no one pulls them off.

Natalie: This is one of the most weird covers I have ever seen. Of all the songs in the world, they had to pick The Pussycat Dolls‘ “Don’t Cha” for F.T. Island and f(x) to rock out to with guitar riffs, body rolls, rapping, and dancing. It was a medley of things that shouldn’t be. Still, I don’t think it was really bad, it was just weird. Next time, they should pick an actual pop-rock song to cover. There are lots.
Gil: Lee Hong-Ki irks me to no end so every time I watch his performance I just kind of glare at him…through the computer screen but yeah.  I thought “Don’t Cha” was just straight up weird. It was creative trying to make a rock ballad type (I don’t even know what the hell that was) but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.

Natalie: And here be one of the worst dance covers I have ever seen. Their dancing was out of sync at times and they failed to embody the girl power aspect of the song. These girls do not have Beyonce’s swagger. The only one that stood out was Hyorin, but the camera didn’t focus on her much. These ladies are amazing in their own rights but they didn’t deliver the intensity and ferocity this song requires.

Gil: Alright this was a valiant effort. These girls tried with this stage but it fell flat, it wasn’t fierce enough. This song is about female empowerment so I was expecting more swag and just straight up intensity. One example was when the  three girls got down on the floor, yeah they crawled but instead of that sexy vibe it just reminded me of an infant crawling. They got the dance moves down but the feel wasn’t there. Most of the girl’s faces were blank and the execution of the dance steps were dainty. I wish Kahi had danced to it.

Natalie: There was only one thing that stood out about this dance intro: how incredibly, highly, very similar it was to Beyonce’s performance at the Billboard Music Awards back in May. I mean, there’s no denying it, you can’t overlook it, it’s just so obvious that they ripped Beyonce off. So shame on you, DBSK and whoever else decided to put this dance together. Beyonce did it better, by the way (“Run the World” cover ladies, take note).

Gil: Well at least Young-Ji should be happy, Changmin covered his shiz up the whole time. Gayo Daejun seemed to be giving a lot of love to Beyonce and Jay-Z this year, first that horrendous Run the World cover, then the horrendous “Empire State of Mind” cover, then this. Seriously, Beyonce and Jay-Z are at a level that these artists can’t touch. Besides the fact that this stage was an obvious rip off the dancing seemed weak, usually Yunho has good stage presence but it didn’t show through in this one.

Natalie: I’m almost positive that the SBS crew just grabbed every rapper they could and threw them on stage, because this was a very awkward performance. The boys walked around stage, looking a little lost and unsure, as they tried to work the crowd. INFINITE‘s Hoya experienced problems with his mic, adding to the mess that was this performance. Excuse me while I rage for a sec: why was this event so poorly prepared? There were mic problems, my baby Dongwoo got burnt, apparently MBLAQ didn’t get their own room, fans got mistreated, and it sounds like the SBS staff were jerks. Seriously bro, WTF? But back to this stage. This stage sucked hard but luckily Tasha saw this travesty taking place and rushed to save the day. She DOMINATED the stage, everyone else just faded into the background. Tasha, you’re a BAMF and I love you. Gary, you did good too, you go Gary. Of all the idol rappers, I thought Junhyung did the best, though he faded into the background with the other idol rappers once Tasha entered. Taecyeon, you needed to GTFO.

Gil: I have a love affair with The Movement which includes underground hip hop artists like Drunken Tiger, Leessang, Tasha, Epik High etc. So for me most idol rappers are bleh. I started watching this hip hop stage with Mir, Junhyung, Taecyeon, and Hoya. I was like this -_____- the whole time they rapped, I almost fell out of my chair when Gary appeared (though Gil wasn’t there o.o) but he looked fabulous with his silver hair. Then dynamic duo came and had fun, the energy definitely increased when the three came in. Enjoying it, even if Taecyeon’s rap makes me unhappy. Then around 5:30, the Queen hereself, Tasha Reid (Yoon Mi Rae) descended like the goddess she is. Needless to say I fangirled. I was expecting her royal consort, Tiger JK to come in but I guess it was his turn to babysit tonight. By far my favorite stage of the night. The shots of the idol audience made me lol, mostly because it was awkward as hell and eunhyuk was grooving with his wreath.

So that’s mine and Gil’s thoughts on the Gayo Daejun. As an added bonus, I’m going to include the complete SM Family performance, as it was broadcasted:

It’s the best thing ever. I just can’t handle the epicness. It was one big hot mess and I was left dazed and confused by it. Also seen are Exo-M‘s Chen and Lu Han, who do a little singing. They’re pretty good! Wish Lu Han hadn’t lip-synced, though. Poor little dear looked nervous.

What are your thoughts?

(SBS1, SBS2, SBS3, SBS4, SBS5, SBS6, SBS7, SBS8, SBS9, SBS10, SBS11, SBS12)

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