Chapter 84
Choi Gihoon was a pitiful developer in the IT industry, commuting to work in Gangnam. He lived a life that had little to do with music.
His day was ordinary. He left around seven-thirty, arrived at work at nine, left around seven in the evening, and got home around eight-thirty. He played with the children his wife had brought home and was looking after, did the housework, took care of this and that, and before he knew it, it was time for bed.
Because of that routine and the strain of raising children, Gihoon usually tried not to go to work on weekends. But this Saturday, he had no choice but to head out in the morning. He needed to make thorough preparations for the service launch the following week.
“Ah, I really hate this.”
Gangnam Station was still crowded despite it being the weekend. Was it really possible for there to be this many people when it was almost ten? Thinking that, Gihoon passed Exit 9 and walked toward work. As he did, he heard music and applause.
“Wow~!”
He turned to look without thinking and saw a handsome, well-built male band performing. There were cameras trained on them, along with about thirty people who seemed to be taking notes.
Nearby, four or five people were enthusiastically cheering for the band. “Aketeria, you’re so good~!” “I love this song!!” “You’re handsome, Choi Jonghun!” The band played energetically, responding to the cheers from time to time.
‘Is this some kind of television shoot?’
Thinking that, Gihoon took out his phone. He searched for [busking broadcast], [band busking], and [Gangnam Station busking band]. After looking through the results, he learned that what was happening was the live preliminary round of the audition program [Invasion from Seoul].
There were sixty bands participating in total, and thirty of them would advance to the main competition… Gihoon thought a two-to-one ratio was fairly generous. Weren’t audition programs usually hundreds or even thousands to one? Even for a band, two to one was certainly competitive enough.
In any case, he stopped walking and listened to the song. It was something he normally couldn’t do, but since he was heading to work on a weekend, he had that much time to spare.
‘They’re pretty good.’
Gihoon thought that as he listened to the song.
Gihoon didn’t know much about music. All he knew were groups like SG Wannabe, Buzz, Girls’ Generation, and Wonder Girls—the sort of groups that kids these days might hear about and say sounded like old people with dentures. It wasn’t that Gihoon disliked music, but he wasn’t the type to seek it out, either, so his musical knowledge had stopped there long ago.
And to his uneducated ears, the band in front of him was making fairly decent music. The high notes rose cleanly, and the guitar, drums, bass, and everything else were keeping good time. They didn’t seem bad.
But… they weren’t good enough to make him scan the QR code on the signboard, investigate all sorts of things, and cast a vote.
‘Aren’t bands supposed to be at least this good?’
He sincerely thought so.
They were good, but was it really worth spending several minutes of his time to vote for them? He thought it over carefully and came to a conclusion. Probably not.
They could sing well, but it wasn’t his taste. Besides, “singing well” was only by an ordinary person’s standards. If he imagined those kids standing onstage at a rock festival… he didn’t think he would be satisfied with their performance.
Thinking that, Gihoon gave a slight shake of his head and started walking toward work again. The eyes of the fans who had briefly found hope at the sight of him remained forlorn in that spot.
It was around 7:27 p.m. when Gihoon left work and once again began walking toward Exit 9 of Gangnam Station. It was getting dark now, and quite a lot of people were coming and going.
Gihoon glanced over as he passed the place from earlier. He wondered if they were still filming something. According to the article he had read earlier, the shoot was supposed to last quite a while.
And there was a scene spread out before him that did not betray his expectations. The people and cameras were still gathered there. The difference from before was the lighting shining on the band and…
‘Are those people still there? No, they’re different. Girls?’
The performers who had taken the stage.
Four women had climbed onto the stage, and yet they weren’t idols. Even to someone who had built a wall between himself and music, it was a remarkably unfamiliar sight. The fact that each of them was holding an instrument was just as strange.
“Thank you.”
But their outfits slightly reminded him of the girl groups that appeared in the YouTube videos kids watched these days. They wore stylish, predominantly black streetwear. He hadn’t even heard the music yet, but Gihoon found himself edging toward the front of the stage without realizing it.
“For our next song, we’ll perform a cover. It’s ‘Private Girl’ by A.R.B.”
With quite a large crowd gathered, the girl holding the guitar said that. A moment later, she opened her mouth as a guitar sound that was unmistakably rough and heavy burst forth.
The music was simple. There was a guitar playing a straightforward melody, simple drums, a bass thudding out low notes, and a keyboard handling the background.
The performance wasn’t flashy, but its fundamentals were solid, and even Gihoon, who didn’t know much about such things, found it quite good. As he continued listening, he realized that he was unconsciously taking one step after another toward the stage.
Was this what people called drawing power? He had never heard the lyrics and didn’t even know what the sounds meant, but the people around him liked it, and he kept listening too.
He had to go home now if he wanted to see the kids. He had missed playing with them the night before because of a company dinner, so he had promised to get home early today.
Even so, why couldn’t he bring himself to leave? There could have been many reasons: because the girls were pretty, because he liked the song…
But Gihoon instinctively felt that the biggest reason was that this was music he would have trouble hearing anywhere else.
The voice that seemed to be pleading with him stirred emotions he didn’t understand. He didn’t know the lyrics or what they were about, but he remembered the time when he had been dating his wife.
Love that had not been returned, feelings and expressions that had missed each other. Even amid the lively instruments, he could feel a single thread of sadness. He was happy now, but he had lived through days like that once, too.
“Thank you.”
Applause poured out once again. Gihoon clapped as well, then forced himself to turn away. He really had to leave now. What he saw was a signboard with a QR code attached to it.
‘A few more minutes should be fine…’
If he played with the kids with all his strength, they would be fine. He could simply say that he had left work a little late, couldn’t he? Comforting himself with that thought, he filled out the survey.
* * *
The final preliminary judging room.
The final preliminary evaluation consisted of the judges watching the footage from the preliminary performances held the previous weekend. The videos weren’t set up well enough to perfectly recreate the performances, but they had been recorded at a level that allowed for a reasonably objective evaluation.
But perhaps Donguk found that too boring, because he had hurriedly added another stage to the judging process a few days earlier.
And the judges hated it.
“I only agreed because they said they’d pay us, but isn’t PD Yoon a genuinely insane person?”
“He has to be crazy to come up with an idea like this.”
The middle-aged composer judge said that with a deep sigh in response to the female singer-turned-judge. For heaven’s sake, they were supposed to play the recorded footage, bring the band members in, judge them while watching it together, and point out everything they had done wrong.
‘The old auditions at least weren’t this repetitive. This is telling us to publicly execute them while the footage plays.’
The composer thought that was probably the picture PD Yoon Donguk was aiming for. ‘Professionals tearing apart bands that challenged them without even knowing their own level.’ That was the kind of setup he wanted.
“Still, it’s a relief that they told us to focus on praising the kids who show potential.”
“Who knows…”
The composer shook his head at the former idol producer’s words. He thought the instruction was meant to sharply divide the “substandard bands” that would be torn apart and eliminated from the “promising bands” that would receive praise.
It was a truly cruel motive, but they had no choice if they wanted to get paid. What else could they do? That was simply how the entertainment industry worked.
“Wow… that’s harsh.”
At Iseo’s words, Myeongjeon turned his head. This was a waiting room where they couldn’t hear every word clearly, but could at least tell that the members of another band were being humiliated in the judging room.
The members of all the other bands were sitting around and waiting their turns, whispering among themselves. Everyone had been tense at first because of the cameras filming them, but now they seemed to have relaxed.
“Isn’t it? Do they really need to push them that hard? The production crew is being too harsh too…”
“You probably shouldn’t say things like that.”
Just as Myeongjeon was about to speak, since he felt the same way, Hyuna whispered to Iseo. Iseo flinched at the words. Myeongjeon looked at Hyuna with much the same feeling.
“Why… why?”
“I think the cameras are filming right now to capture our reactions to those bands being scolded. It’s probably the same reason we can see what the other bands are doing from here. Audition shows are always like that. They maliciously edit things and make it look as if people did things they never did.”
Iseo fell silent. Myeongjeon stared at Hyuna in disbelief. When his eyes asked, ‘Is that really true?’, Hyuna answered with her eyes that it was.
‘This is ridiculous.’
Did they really have to go that far? Myeongjeon scratched his head, then forced his face into an expressionless mask. He felt as though he ought to recall the Buddhist scripture he had seen as a child. The Heart Sutra: “Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, practicing profound prajnaparamita, clearly saw that the five aggregates are empty and crossed beyond all suffering…”
“So, what do you think of this part?”
“Uh…”
“I definitely listened to the original track you released. But this live performance is very different, and it isn’t even better than the original. Can’t you even reproduce the song as it is?”
The band immediately became dejected. The guitarist repeatedly raised his head as if he had something to say, only to lower it again, but the judge didn’t seem to have any intention of letting them speak.
“The rhythm is completely off too. If you skip through the performance footage, even the audience can tell. How are you going to perform anything like this? A performance, my ass. If you can’t keep time, I’ll have you all leave.”
The criticism passed to the others. The singer-turned-judge pointed out problems with the vocals, the composer criticized the song itself, and the band member criticized the performance.
“Anyway, we enjoyed your performance. Good work.”
The band left with their heads bowed. The instruments set up beside the judging area went unused again. PD Yoon Donguk had asked them to film scenes of promising bands using those instruments to perform, but bands with that kind of potential were rare.
‘But I’m looking forward to the next band.’
One of the judges thought that. It was a name he had heard many times before—and one that had recently become the talk of the town. In the meantime, the staff member who had opened the door for the departing band called out the next band’s name.
“Group Sound, please come in!”