It snowed inside the Rockhal: my first K-pop concert, with Jay Park and LNGSHOT

It is a quarter to eleven on a Thursday night in Belval, and it is snowing inside the Rockhal.

White confetti pours from the ceiling and turns slowly in the spotlights, settling on shoulders, on hair, on the phones held up to film it. On stage, Jay Park, LNGSHOT and the dancers stand together for the last song. All around me, people are singing, and so am I.

Until Thursday, everything I knew about K-pop fitted into three letters: BTS. Three hours earlier I could not have named a single song in this room. Now I know McNasty, MOMMAE and Gimme a Minute well enough to sing along.

Seven o’clock, under the blast furnaces

The invitation had arrived a little over two weeks before: Jay Park’s world tour, LNGSHOT as special guests, and a place on the guest list for I Love Belval. Nobody had ever put this site on a guest list before.

At seven, the square outside the Rockhal has already disappeared under the crowd. The blast furnaces stand black against a sky sliding from blue to ink, the lights of Massenoire are on, and the queue packs in under the Rockhal’s canopy, waiting for the doors.

Here is the honest part. My first ever guest list begins, fittingly for a K-pop beginner, without my name on it. I get in touch with the tour’s production team from the box office, and within a few minutes everything is sorted: two tickets, standing, Main Hall. If it ever happens to you, keep the invitation email to hand, and breathe.

The lights go down

Inside, the Main Hall glows blue. The tour’s name fills the giant screen in black and white, and the floor fills up beneath it.

At eight, the hall goes dark and one word appears in white: LNGSHOT. It fades, and for a few seconds there is nothing but darkness and a room full of people waiting. Then the screen bursts into purple lightning, and every phone in the hall goes up at once, a field of small bright windows.

LNGSHOT are the first boy group on Jay Park’s own label, MORE VISION. They only debuted in January, and this is their first tour of Europe. You would never guess it from the forest of phones raised towards them.

Then the room turns red

Half an hour later, a yellow shape starts to grow across the screen, wider and brighter, until the whole Rockhal turns red. Confetti bursts over the crowd, and behind it, in giant letters, the name of the tour: Serenades & Body Rolls. Jay Park has arrived.

If you have never been to a show like this, nobody warns you how much of it happens on the screens. At one point the screen becomes his Instagram profile, live, with “CEO Park in the house!” running along the bottom, while the real one performs underneath. For Candy, the lyrics go up karaoke style and the whole hall sings them back to him. Then everything drains to black and white for a quieter song, and for a few minutes a hall this size feels small.

Then comes the part I did not see coming. First he takes the room back to the nineties, with the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way and a nod to Boyz II Men, and for a few minutes a K-pop concert turns into the best kind of nineties party. Then the hall goes dark, two white beams fall on a single figure in a hat, and Jay Park becomes Michael Jackson for Billie Jean: the moves, the footwork, the attitude, all of it. Honestly, it is one of the most amazing things I have seen on a stage.

And still there is more: dancers, his DJ, Wegun, behind the decks all night, with a solo moment of his own in the middle of it all, a sunset across the screen, and streamers raining over the crowd during Gimme a Minute while hands reach up to catch them. Sunkis, a rising R&B singer, steps out as a guest and tells the hall it is his first time ever performing in Europe. Near the end comes McNasty, then MOMMAE, which I have since learned is one of Jay Park’s biggest hits. Somewhere in there I stop trying to learn the songs and start singing them.

Belval in the picture

Just before ten, the Korean flag fills the screen, red and blue rippling under the lights. I have an I Love Belval card in my pocket, and this feels like its moment. Of every stop on this tour, Esch is the only one in Luxembourg, and I want Belval in the photo.

Snow at a quarter to eleven

Which brings us back to the snow. The last song, the whole cast on stage, white confetti falling and falling, and phones up one last time to keep a piece of it.

Watch the night

Photos only tell half of it. I filmed the night, confetti snow included, and the videos are on my channels. Pick your platform, press play, and if one brings back your own Thursday, leave me a comment there.

• My first K-pop concert (the whole night in 36 seconds): Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Facebook · LinkedIn
• K-pop for beginners (five things I learnt): Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Facebook
• 30 seconds at the Rockhal (the night in light): Instagram · TikTok · YouTube
• From Backstreet Boys to Billie Jean (the nineties moment): Instagram · TikTok · YouTube · Facebook
• The photos (swipe to the end for the snow): Instagram · Facebook

More videos from the night are coming this week, including Jay Park’s nineties moment. Follow or subscribe so you don’t miss them.

Why I am still smiling

I walked in knowing one K-pop name and walked out knowing three, with a few choruses I will be humming all weekend. Mostly, I walked out with the feeling you only get after a night when a whole hall of strangers spends nearly three hours being happy in the same room.

If you were there, tell me your moment of the night, in the comments on Instagram or by email. If you were not, keep an eye on the Rockhal: nights like this happen a short walk from your desk, your lecture hall or your train, and the next ones are all in the I Love Belval agenda.

Thank you to the tour team for the invitation, to the Rockhal for a brilliant night, and to Jay Park and LNGSHOT for turning a beginner into someone with McNasty stuck in his head.

I went as a guest of the tour. All the photos were taken on the night, by me and my plus one.

Where it happens

The place in this story, on the map of Belval.