F.T. Island’s dream stage: The beach

F.T. Island’s dream stage: The beach

Five years when their initial performance in Singapore at the 2009 Sundown Festival, Korean rock band F.T. Island will be playing at the Singapore Indoor Stadium tonight for the primary time in their seventh-going-on-eighth year in showbiz. This is undoubtedly a momentous feat for the band and another addition to their growing list of achievements in Singapore – from holding their initial fan-meet in 2010 to finally staging their first full-scale gig at The Max Pavilion 2 years ago.

For a cluster that has played at large venues in Asia and numerous elements of the world, the rock band’s dream concert stage is nothing like that of the sprawling O2 Arena in England; it is unbelievably straightforward and simply attainable: the beach, so says lead singer Hongki, 24, in all seriousness.

As his members chimed: “Beach, beach!” in enthusiasm, throughout their interview with xinmsn yesterday, at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel, Hongki added in jest: “With lots of women (chuckles).”

Whereas it's hard to inform if their need to hold a sandy outside gig a la Taiwan’s annual Spring Wave Music Festival (that's held on the idyllic beaches of Kenting) are for real, such is an example of the 5 chaps’ fun-loving, young-at-heart nature.

Despite their packed individual schedules - Seunghyun and Minhwan are doing musicals, Hongki’s filming a drama concurrently and Jaejin is hosting a fashion programme - they showed no signs of tiredness. In reality, the 5 boys were in remarkably high spirits and so hyper throughout their press conference and interview yesterday, they started bouncing around their seats at one point in time.
Apart from goofing around and creating none-too-subtle (but hilarious) jibes at each other – including Jaejin and Hongki’s “compliments” for each alternative’s performances in Bride of the Century (Jaejin sang for the OST while Hongki is acting in it), the boys additionally had no qualms talking regarding everything beneath the sun.

They were such smart sports that they insisted on answering all questions asked – with a persistent Hongki and Seunghyun even going “Why, why, why? What is it? Ask, raise!” at their management’s delicate attempts to restrict sure questions.

Thankfully that didn't place a dampener on the interview. The members took all questions in their stride and were especially forthcoming and upfront with their answers - stunning even us, when they admitted to feeling extremely tired recently due to their schedules.