Sunday, July 08, 2007

Rain US Tour

A bit of mysterious trouble for our favorite 'World Star' Rain. Several weeks ago his Honolulu concert was canceled just a few days before scheduled date. Rain didn't show up to a press meeting, which ended up being used by his promoters to announce that the concert was off. No reason was given for the cancellation and ticket holders were told they could get refunds for their tickets.

The final sentence in that article:

Promoters would not say how many tickets were sold. The venue would have been set up to hold a crowd of 20,000 to 25,000.

Oh what a mystery! The concert is abruptly canceled without any reason and promoters are not willing to say how many tickets were sold. Local promoters have apparently filed a lawsuit.

A Rain concert in Toronto which was to be held a few months ago was also canceled, and promoters were unable to give refunds. This is from the first link above:

Jay Lee, South Korean representative for the promoter of a Toronto concert that was also canceled, said at the press conference that he has not been able to refund money to Canadian ticket-buyers, since he has not yet been reimbursed for his $250,000 deposit.

"And it's been 40 days since the cancellation," said Lee.


Translation: You've all been screwed. Thanks for participating in the Korean Wave.

And why was the Toronto show canceled so suddenly? Apparently there was no official explanation given. Five minutes of intensive Internet searching didn't come up with any solid information, but I did stumble on a blog which claims that Rain canceled the show because the stage was too small. I guess they didn't figure this out until after the venue had been booked and tickets were sold. That could happen...I guess...

The San Francisco, New York and Atlanta concerts were canceled because they faced a copyright challenge in Nevada (There is another band in the States called Rain). However, that was thrown out of court last month and there isn't any word on rescheduling those concerts.

And now the LA concert has been canceled as well just a few days before the scheduled event. The reason this time?

The Saturday night show at the Staples Center was called off "due to issues related to the shows production," according to a statement from Rain's promoter, V2B Global, posted on the Staples Center Web site.

'Issues related to the show's production'...what could that possibly mean? Why so vague?

So basically the entire North American tour has been canceled for various excuses reasons.

Hey, and didn't Rain's manager just quit suddenly about a month ago without giving any specific reasons? Hmmm.......

That's just a bit too much coincidence. I've come up with several theories that could possibly explain this strange series of events.

A. Rain's management is profoundly incompetent.

B. 'World Star' Rain isn't even popular enough among Asian-Americans to sell enough tickets to have a concert outside of Asia.

C. Rain injured his wrist in a jogging accident several months ago, but will be back to his full strength sometime...soon...

D. This is all a part of a greater conspiracy to keep the Korean super-mega star down.

I don't even have to check the Naver discussion boards for this, the answer is clearly D. What would happen to the North American music industry if it got out that there is an Asian singer who can imitate such legendary acts as Justin Timberlake and Usher? How could the West handle the painful truth that no matter what kinds of acts we produce, 1-3 years later Asians can come up with their own version that is kind of almost as good (sort of)?


read the comments, they are unreal!

No comments: