Thirty years, one more time — Kim Jong Kook's Seoul encore

In three lines

• Kim Jong Kook holds encore performances at Blue Square in Seoul on August 15 and 16.
• It is the Seoul encore of the 30th-anniversary concert 'The Originals'.
• It follows the show held at the same venue last October.

An encore that returns to the same room

The run is two days, August 15 and 16. The venue is Blue Square in Seoul.

Item	Detail
Show	Kim Jong Kook 30th Anniversary Concert 'The Originals' Seoul Encore
Dates	Saturday, August 15 · Sunday, August 16
Venue	Blue Square, Seoul
Original run	Last October, same venue

An encore staged at the same venue is both ordinary and meaningful. Rather than scaling up and moving, it is a choice to keep the same size.

Blue Square is smaller than an arena and larger than a small theatre. For someone who has been singing for thirty years you could call it modest, but that is exactly why the voice lands close.

Thirty years as a unit

Thirty years is counted from the debut. In between there was a group, then a solo career, and long stretches of work outside music.

For a performer with that history, the setlist becomes a timeline. How many songs from which era go in shows how the artist sees those thirty years.

Concerts by long-running singers can also produce an audience with mixed generations. Someone who listened from the debut and someone who found the singer recently remember different moments in the same song. There are points where that difference surfaces in how the room reacts.

The title 'The Originals' reads in that light too. The original things, the first things.

How an encore differs from the original run

An encore means putting up a show that was already finished once. That leaves two directions: reproduce it as it was, or add what has been thought through since.

The conditions differ for the audience too. Anyone who saw the original run watches while comparing; anyone arriving for the first time sees the finished form from the start. The same stage reaches two kinds of listeners differently.

The fact that an encore is happening is itself a result of the response to the first run. It is a form that only exists once requests pile up. In that sense, something has already been decided in the seats before the show begins.

Before you go

Ticketing opened in June. At this point you are watching for returns.

Hannam-dong in mid-August is hot, and the streets around the venue get crowded on weekend evenings. Better to move with time to spare.

If a show leans on ballads, you spend more of it using your ears than your voice. Rather than preparing to sing along, go expecting stretches of quiet listening. A voice that has sung for thirty years shows its difference not when it goes loud but when it comes down.

With two nights, the two may not be identical. If you can only make one, neither is the wrong pick.

My bag's already packed.