SHINee Discusses First Solo Concert at Press Conference

Jan 03, 2011

SHINee held their first solo concert, titled “SHINee World”, on January 1, at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul. The day after, before their second performance, the boys held a press conference to discuss the concert.

Although the boys were tired, having to attend three year-end award ceremonies in a row and then rehearsing for their concert, Jonghyun stated that they were excited to spend the New Year with their fans. However, looking back on their first solo concert the night before, he admitted that he thought they could have done more to improve things. Key agreed, saying, “I find that nothing was satisfactory and there is only much to feel regretful of. I think I’ll have to make up for it today by trying really hard.” Onew joked that if he had to score his performance during the concert, he would have given himself “About 30 points… [out of]… about 300 points?” Ouch! Don’t be so hard on yourselves, guys. Your fans love you and they know how hard you’ve been working. However, Jonghyun assured reporters that it was a good thing. ” The lower we score ourselves, the more we’ll work harder to improve through experience so we’ll try to put on a better performance today than we did yesterday.”

In any case, we bet the concert went a lot better than these modest boys claimed. For his solo performance, Onew surprised fans by choosing an extremely difficult… opera aria! He sang the gorgeous “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot”. When asked why he chose such a difficult and unusual piece, he said, “I chose that song with the hope that it will touch people’s hearts greatly, [but] I went into a brief slump because I was doubtful of being able to pull it off. But I pushed ahead, thinking that I want to impress people and believing that I’d be able to move them if I sang it with my heart.” Minho and Key opted for a slightly more familiar route for their solo performance, pairing up with veteran performers. Minho rapped with Simon D. from Supreme Team, and Key covered 3OH!3’s “My First Kiss” with f(x)’s Krystal.

Since the boys debuted at a young age in 2008, they’ve had to grow up in the public eye. Reporters told Key that he seemed to have gained quite a bit of height during the past few months. Jonghyun teased him, asking what the secret was. Key responded, “Maybe because I eat a lot? Or eat well? It may also do with my staying in a good mood all the time.” The reporters also asked how maknae Taemin felt about turning 18 this year. Taemin responded that he would have to work even harder once he became a “real adult”, because people would no longer cut him slack by considering him to be a kid. We don’t think he’ll have any problems, considering that Onew stated that the rest of the group looks up to Taemin for his intense work ethic. Apparently the maknae of the group practices singing even after finishing his schedule at dawn!

When a reporter mentioned that SHINee appears to cry during every performance, the boys started joking and defending themselves. Jonghyun protested, “But we’ve only held a concert once!”, while Minho clarified that “There’s only one crybaby in our team.” Key admitted, “I am usually the first to shed tears in concert.” When Jonghyun began to chide Key and Onew for being too sentimental, Minho said to Jonghyun, “Wait, how dare you try to [escape blame for being sentimental]?” Onew addressed reporters worriedly. “I hope you don’t make too much of a fuss over us having cried so hard!”

We think the boys can be sentimental all they want! They had a great year in 2010, performing in front of over 10,000 fans and seeing their concerts in Japan and Korea get sold out immediately. But this is just one year of many. Jonghyun said, “It feels absolutely great to begin the New Year with our fans and it feels like we’ll do well in the year 2011 too.”