Megadeth and other stories...

MEGADETH: UNITED ABOMINATIONS TOUR, SEOUL OLYMPIC HALL, OCT. 28, 2007

This past weekend was a good one. I went up to Seoul to meet my buddy Konrad for a weekend of drinking and metal music. Megadeth played Seoul last Sunday, and Konrad managed to score some tickets. I was pretty psyched because it'd been almost three years since I last had a chance to see a real concert.

Since the concert was on a Sunday, I figured I'd make a weekend of it and head up to Seoul the Saturday before. I rarely go to Seoul, so I was thinking I'll have a fairly relaxing party weekend. I had forgotten, however; that it was the weekend before Halloween, so when I got up there, I found all the hotels in and around Itaewon were booked solid. I'm not into the whole Halloween craziness, so I went and got something to eat and pondered what I was going to do since the bars I usually go to in Seoul were going to be packed full of drunken lunatics. Fortunately, Konrad called me and said to meet him at a bar called Dolce Vita, which turned out to be a mellow little pub off the Halloween bar circuit. We stayed there for most of the evening playing pool with the owner, his wife, and a few of the regulars, drinking Jaeger Bombs (Jaegermeister & Red Bull), and generally having a good time. Around 2am, Konrad and I headed to another bar on what is known, for the obvious reasons, as "Hooker Hill". One of the problems with Itaewon is that everything there is uphill. It seemed to drunker Konrad and I got, the steeper the hills became (my legs are still sore). Finally, around 3-4am(?) we staggered off to this guy Jim's house - of one of Konrad's friends - to crash. This guy's apartment is at the top of a road which I swear is at an 75 degree angle.

I woke up the next morning on this guy's floor hungover as stink and feeling like the entire 6th Army had marched over my tongue. The three of got up and showered and headed down the hill for some breakfast. At the restaurant, we met up with Konrad's girlfriend who dragged him off to church after the meal was over. Left to my own devices, I headed back into Itaewon and ended up at the Seoul Pub, which is a great place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon. Given that breakfast had not helped my hangover in the least, I figured a little hair of the dog was in order. So I sat there, drinking pints and listening to the retired military guys tell their stories and trying desperately to get rid of my hangover.

I met up again with Konrad around 5pm and we headed off to the show which started at 6:30. The opening bands were pretty bad, so Konrad and I sat outside smoking cigarettes waiting for Megadeth to come on. Finally around 8pm, Megadeth started their show. The crowd was relatively small, only about 3,000 people (maybe a third westerners), but very enthusiastic. Megadeth played for close to two hours throwing in a great mix of new and old material. About the only problem I had was that Dave Mustaine's vocals were often drowned out by the music, but other than that it was a kick ass show. At one point Mustaine comes up and asks the crowd, "How many of you have seen Megadeth before?" About half the crowd roars. Then he asks, "How many are here for the first time?" Part of the crowd roars. "How many non-Koreans are here?" Westerners put up a shout. Finally he goes, "How many of you understand a single word I'm saying?" Roar from the crowd with a lot of laughter from the waeguks (foreigners).

The show ended around 10pm, and since I needed to get back to Daejeon that night, I hopped on the subway thinking I had plenty of time to grab a train back. However, much to my dismay, I got to the train station only to find out the the trains stopped running at 11:00 (it was 11:15 a that point. Ok. No problem. I'll head to the bus station and get home that way. I hop in a cab and get to the bus station at about 11:50. The last bus for Daejeon left at 11:45. So there I am, sitting at the bus station at midnight wondering how the hell I'm going to get back home. My first class on Mondays is at 6:50 am, and I couldn't miss it without causing more aggravation than I was prepared to deal with. I finally found a cabbie to take me the 400 km to Daejeon which cost me about $140! Fortunately, the guy drove like a bat out of Hell, and I made it home by 1:30 exhausted but content.