From morning we are working hard. I try on the four different outfits that I will be wearing but we don’t have time to do a dress rehearsal: the rehearsal we do have time for feels hectic. The day goes by too fast yet everyone knows what they are doing to do and it is just for me to remember my parts and everything will probably go well. I do love the hard working staff we have. After rehearsals I walk around to cheer everyone up, while for myself I am getting a headache of nervousness and I think I am going a bit insane and shaky waiting for the concert to begin. Eventually I sit down in my room backstage, I have washed up and I have my nails, hair and makeup getting done and I am forced to calm down for my stylists to work their magic. My nails are made in a clean colour, crystal stud attached to cover one nail on each hand and make shapes at the tip of the rest of my nails. It looks simple and beautiful but each crystal is glued on to the nail by hand, which is extremely hard work. My chestnut brown hair is in heavy locks with some hair extensions added along and my makeup is pretty in a mix of golden brown and gray eye-shadow. Not too much but it will look great on the stage. I keep glancing at my phone though. I did it yesterday too. The last concert we had, the Christmas concert, I ignored my phone as much as possible to not have to talk to him while these days I am looking at my phone in hope each text message I receive will be from him. He hasn’t called or texted me, it’s not that I have texted him either, I don’t know what to say to him, but I really want him to take the first contact. He is mad at me, isn’t he? Jonghyun and I won’t even be friends… “Stop that.” The phone is snatched from my grip and I look up at Maria who walks up in front of me to sit down on the makeup table. “Stop that look right now,” she tells me and points a finger right in front of me. “What good will you get by looking longingly at your phone? You either give him a call or you don’t, but don’t get all gloomy over it because you are about to blow some minds, okay? Can you, please, pretty baby, promise me that you will do well?” I nod, not sure if she is talking about Jonghyun or the concert at the end, but I do take notice of that she doesn’t say his name. My room is crowded. Milo has a corner of blankets by himself, 5 Pieces is in the room to eat snacks and talk and look through some of the presents I have been receiving while they most of the time are pretending they are giving me supports. Managers are relaxing and stylists are working, I have my own group of a doctor, assistant, trainer and masseuse that annoyingly will come along during my promotions only to make sure I am alright. Which also means my trainer is helping me stretch, our vocal teacher is helping me warm up my voice, and earlier today the masseuse got to give me this wonderful massage to relax my body. Once I am warmed up I get dressed; a black mini dress and stretchy sheer lace fit with flare slip and crisscross strapping detail at the shoulders and neckline, I am wearing sheer tights and in the end I put on a pair of black platform over-the-knee boots. Chae Hwan fixes my hair, and she takes a few locks on my left side to put in a strange but very cool braid that isn’t even tied at the end. She just tries it and we keep it. “I’m shaking,” I whisper when Julia gets up behind me, eating some stuffed bread that Doojoon had taken with him – he is out walking with Emelia now, somewhere in the building. I show Julia my hands for her to see how shaky I am. I want to cry too, I am shaking out of nervousness for the concert and the press-conference. “Good; it’s a good thing,” she smiles. “You look pretty,” Maria calls out from a chair that she has started to roll around on to reach bread and go back to the makeup table and just spinning the chair around. “Don’t make fun of me,” I pout. “I’m not,” Maria smiles foolishly. “You look very pretty, baby. And you will rock the concert tonight, I tell you that for sure. Jen, tell your sister she’s pretty.” “I don’t think that word makes up for it though,” Jen says and I smile when turning around to look at her. She is sitting in the sofa, Carolina sitting next to her and talking about stuffed bread though no one is listening. We don’t have stuffed bread in Sweden. I put a hand on my stomach, grimacing as I think I have been eating too much today because I have to use the bathroom again. I am so nervous. After the bathroom I am lightly clapping my hands together heading to another room backstage. I am nervous and my heart is shaking all the way up to my throat and I have a bathrobe around me – we have a bathrobe prepared for backstage but when Emelia was looking through the gifts from fans she found a bathrobe with my ‘NEW ME’ logo enormous on the back and it has my name written at the front so of course I choose to wear that one backstage. Where I am going now is to meet fans. Fans with VIP tickets are allowed to come backstage to meet the performer, and it is always kind of strange to meet fans backstage before a show. Today, it feels creepy because they don’t know what to expect from the concert. I am not even wearing the shoes now; I am wearing slippers that are comfortable. The room prepared for the meet has a human-sized figure of me, it has candy and snacks and drinks on a table, there are a few sofas and a table and a poster on the wall and some curtains hanging over other walls and windows. When I first near the room I can hear the first group of fans in there; about six of them maybe, and I peek inside to see what they are doing – friends are pointing at the poster and taking pictures with the human-sized figure of me and no one notices me leaning inside to look at them until my manager walks straight inside the room and ruins my sneaky moment. The fans start screaming, jumping in surprise and I am smiling widely. My heart isn’t shaking anymore. “Hello everyone,” I say and walk inside the room, raising my hands for a high ten with the two fans standing the closest to me. I stop and just smile at a teenage boy who seemed to get such a surprise to see me that he is crying, so I am waiting for him to calm down. It’s not that we do a lot in the room, we chat a bit and I get to hear a lot of great things from the fans and we take a picture. They are excited for the album and the concert and I can feel myself get all shy as we are talking about it. My fans are incredible, they are open and talkative once they get the word and they are mature whether they are fifteen or thirty-two. “I am actually super nervous for the concert today,” I tell them with a smile, “Since you all come here without knowing what songs will be heard.” The second group of fans are just as incredible, and we talk and take pictures and I dare to ask them what made them come to the concert without knowing if they will like the songs – a question I have been certain would keep fans away from the concert as they can’t sing along or they won’t know most of the songs since the album is coming out tomorrow. “For me,” a young woman who is here with her two best friends starts to answer my question. We are sitting down in the sofa, chatting and opening up during the minutes we have. “For me, I have followed your music since [Burning], and I know you give your everything into the things you do, so I knew I just had to come to this concert to see what you have been working on to show us. I see it as a surprise, perhaps, to see everything at once for this concert.” I can’t help but to smile at her, seeing how nervous she gets when I am focusing on her as she speaks. “I think it’s like that too,” an older man says, “It will be very interesting to see the concert when we don’t know what it will bring. Hannah always does so well.” My hands are put in front of my mouth when my smile is just growing, and they all react to how happy I look. “You got no idea what that means to me,” I tell him, “Thank you. And I do hope you will have fun at the concert.” The third group of fans seems a bit different. I meet a little girl, younger than Kyung Ho, who tells me she is here with her aunt and that she got the ticket to the show as a birthday present. To see such a young girl is coming on the concert, I wonder if my y dance performance is appropriate for her but there aren’t any age restrictions like that. Another girl really moves me; she has come from the hospital, she is sick and she is sitting in a wheelchair but she boasts about sitting on the first floor near the stage. There are a lot of different people coming to the concerts; older men and women that have children in my age, there are little kids coming with their parents or aunts, teenage friends or those in my age. Everyone have their own story, and everyone reacts so greatly backstage when meeting me that I can’t help but to react similar most of the time. And after being encouraged and moved by the fans I have a press-conference to talk about tomorrow’s album coming out, how I have been preparing for the concert, the feelings and thoughts and what can be expected from today’s concert, I comment on that I have been given a lot of support by having my members here with me the whole time and that I just can’t wait for the concert to begin. That sickness I have felt during the day, the stress and nervousness for the concert, is completely gone when the crew is gathering for the cheer backstage. I have regained confidence and I am excited hearing the fans in the hall waiting for the concert to begin. “Is everybody here?” I cutely ask as the band and dancers, managers, stylists and Jen are all standing in a large circle. Well, two circles since we don’t have enough space to stand in one enormous circle – we have a lot of space, just not that much. I lean to the side to see where Maria is. “Captain, hurry up please!” Carolina calls out. My members are here too. The cameras are filming backstage today, now busy filming us all getting ready for the cheer. Maria joins is at last, getting up next to me to take my hand. “Hannah, take the word,” Shiwon loudly says and I realise it is not Maria who will say the speech. “Okay,” I sigh. They laugh at the pressure it felt like I got. “Um… what am I supposed to say?” “Cheer us on,” one of the female dancers comments. “Hu,” I grimace and hold on tightly to the hands next to me. “I am terrified for this concert because it is my first solo concert. Everyone have worked really hard to prepare for the concert so thank you all for that, I will too do my best and, and I hope my fans out there will be just as excited as they have been outside and I am really bad at these speeches so I wish everyone to have a lot of fun and not get hurt and give their best.” I stop just to remember something so I quickly add; “And thank you, ladies, for being here.” “Yay!” Carolina happily cheers. “Our baby’s first concert,” Maria loudly starts to say and I find myself laughing as she starts her speech for the staff around us too; “We are expecting only the best tonight and since yesterday we have only seen everyone do their best so continue with that, and … like Hannah said, just have fun because that is what concerts are all about. Good luck on you all, okay? … How do you do the cheer?” “Since everyone is here, let’s just do the usual one,” Myung waves it off. “Use Hannah instead of 5 Pieces,” Carolina suggests but no one cares as Maria tells me to do the shout. I am laughing. “Who are we?” “5 Pieces!” it roars around me so I laugh more with Maria telling me to give the cheer more power. “Who are we?!” I call out and everyone cheers happily; “5 Pieces!” “Let’s show them a NEW ME, now who are we?!” I shout out and I can hear the crew cheer while shouting out our name. Like always the cheer turns all confused emotions into excitement and I jump with my arms around Maria, wanting to cry and scream that I am about to begin the first concert for my first album and my surrounding is cheering and I really just want to get up there and do what I love to do. “Let’s show them,” Maria repeats in my ear. I hug my ladies and even my sister before I prepare the microphone and that for the last minutes, and I stand next to the stage breathing out and calming down for the concert to begin. The light fades and the hall burst out in screams as the opening video begins to show, and I feel lonely knowing my ladies are taking their seats in the audience. I am watching the video from the side of the stage, I feel calm on the outside while on the microphone nervously and my insides are waiting for me to be on the stage and give everything and a bit more of what I have to give. The video is a long futuristic opening video, but in short it is about me finding myself with a pair of new wings spreading out over the screen. Getting up on the stage I find the tape stuck on the stage behind the screen to stand by and I take my position with excitement, my crew getting ready too and it’s like I am really growing a pair of wings, only a screen between me and my fans. I am staring straight ahead when the screen goes dark after introducing the concert, and spotlights behind me lights up the screen to a pair of butterfly wings in dark spreading out over the screen to show the owner of the wings, a shadow of me in the bright light and I am smiling at the loud cheering from the 1,500 people in front of me. It is finally starting. NEW ME, a new chapter – it is time to give my fans the first real show with just me. Music begins to play, there is smoke and dancers circulating and moving on the stage and the screen goes up while [Oh (intro)] is playing; a futuristic electronic sound and the stage is filled with movements. I sing parts of the song, doing these vocals I don’t usually do and I can hear the audience roar out, and I just want to laugh as the concert has actually started – NEW ME is finally here. It’s when the second song starts that I catch a glimpse of the audience. [Butterfly] begins and it’s like going back in time, and I know this was the right song to begin with; the audience knows it, they are standing up and screaming and while I am performing they are singing along, chanting like they did two years ago when the song came out. It feels incredible to stand on the stage, sing live and dance and have an audience of fans being here without knowing what to expect and I just want to make them all smile by giving everything I’ve got. The nervousness returns at the end of [Butterfly], but I am energetic and my wings are large so when the song ends I feel like I own the stage as [NEW ME] begins to play. A brand new song, a brand new style: I am ready to throw myself into it. The music for the new song begins and I hold the microphone to my lips, nervous to perform it for a first time, to show my fans what I have prepared for them, I am actually terrified that they won’t like it, saying it is too much of something, while all I do is for them to see that this is a fun song to just go crazy to. My voice is clear through the microphone, not really singing but I think it is a bit y. I want to scream out “THIS IS NEW ME”, but I just focus on the performance, to give my absolutely all to present myself and my album in the best way possible. *Sometimes … you just want to loosen up Get a little out of control Is it just me, can we get crazy? I still have to- Aow!* For the second line I roll my head back a bit, for the third line I look out at the audience and I know I do not want to smile but I am so excited and nervous at the same time that I must look a bit crazy. For the last line, I love it. in the middle of this ‘I still have to do this and that’, we just have ‘I still have to’ before the music has reached my mind and I go crazy doing this adlib that I love to do but that is kind of tricky because if your voice is not warmed up or tired, the tone won’t come out. Today, it sounds perfectly, and I imagine my members clapping and cheering in the crowd while the audience just starts screaming. The dancers are all around me and I am smiling out, on the first, second and third floor, my body moves along to the music and I start singing, performing the song I have wanted to show them for a while now. Charisma and iness, I feel like I am in control of my body and my voice, of my movements and of the people around me. *You think you know me, The young and quiet girl Though if you really knew me, You’d throw those thoughts away* *I start do things that I normally wouldn’t do-o-o-o A new, new, NEW ME is here, a NEW ME for you And if it’s not okay, I wouldn’t care anyway* I love the second verse, *I start do things that I normally wouldn’t* we dances towards the left until *do-o-o-o* we move our hips in synch and the crowd start cheering and I love it so much; how I am singing clearly because I want my fans to hear the lyrics while I am so focused on showing off the choreography with my dancers. At the end of the verse I turn away, male dancers join us and I am singing the pre-chorus, warming up for the chorus. *This music is all about dancing I won’t be in the corner just hiding It’s like a new me has arrived And the music starts, I’m losing control~* {CHORUS} *A NEW ME right here tonight Tonight I will go crazy, crazy* {CHORUS} *A NEW ME right here tonight! Tonight I will go crazy, crazy* I love the chorus, and I love the fans already going crazy to it. I can’t hide how happy I am over their reactions, to see them stand up and cheer along to a song they have never heard before and they seem to really enjoy it. The choreography is fun too, not difficult other than bouncing your hip and moving your hands but it is y and it looks good. I am on fire for the next verse. *I’ll be dancing a lot, I’ll steal the night And I’ll feel just fine* *I can kiss a boy and a girl, Someone play the music because we lost our mind* *I start do things that I normally wouldn’t do-o-o-o A new, new, NEW ME is here, a NEW ME for you And if it’s not okay, I wouldn’t care anyway* We dance to the right this time before moving our hips for *do-o-o-o* and I am so happy seeing fans just shake their heads while screaming at the top of their lungs. It sounds great. *This music is all about dancing I won’t be in the corner just hiding! It’s like a new me has come And I don’t care, I’m losing control~~~~* {CHORUS} *A NEW ME right here tonight (hey) Tonight I will go crazy, crazy (woo)* {CHORUS} *A NEW ME right here tonight! (ye-ye-yeah!) Tonight I will go crazy* I take on a higher note before the chorus begins, a longer and higher note, and I don’t sing much of the chorus as the playback as I am doing adlibs on my own. After the chorus I start using my voice more than movements, taking out the words; *I’m not that one, who you thought you’d know… I’ll show you this, this NEW ME that I can be Oh baby, it’s tonight~~* And for the last line, I bounce to get out that roughness in my voice when singing out the tone, making it go higher, the chorus playing and the dancers working around me and I join them. *A NEW ME right here tonight Tonight I will go crazy, crazy* *A NEW ME right here tonight! Tonight I will go crazy, crazy* *(Yeah… This night is mine, I feel new Yeah, all grown up, get crazy Come on. We’re losing control Yeah)* For the ending of the song it is mostly dancing, my voice in the playback saying these words to show that the song is coming to an end and I really love this. If I was getting a headache of nervousness before the concert, I might get a headache now from all the joy bursting through my body. All these weeks that we have been preparing for the comeback and the concert and the months of preparing for the album, I am letting it all out tonight. The wind machine at the front makes me not sweat as much and I step up to it when [NEW ME] ends, I smile at the audience that I can see clearer at the front where the light isn’t directly in my eyes and I step back again as they start screaming loudly. The lights keeps changing, going darker and shifting shade. I turn around and walk a few steps to the centre of the stage. Music comes out with a beat and I push my hips from side to side along to it, hearing the screaming behind me and the music stops as I take a step to look at the side. The music warms up for a fire show at the front of the stage, the dancers do their routine with me on the stage as we perform the obsessive track [RETURN (addicted to you)]. The song has an outstanding choreography but I take my time to sing the addicted tone for the verses, letting the fire machines and stage settings do most of the work for the song. {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the heart I want* {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the heart I want* *No matter what you say – No matter how many times I will hunt you, time after time – I will find you, over and over* *You can’t hide, I will find you – Our love is endless, you can’t hide* {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the soul I want* {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the soul I want* *No one can love you like I do – No one will ever give you the same You belong to me, time after time – You are only mine, forever and ever* *I will retain you, you are mine – I will keep you, my only one* {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the man I want* {CHORUS} *Return to me! Return to me who loves you deeply Me who gave you everything Return to me! Return to me with the man I want* *I am addicted – This heart, body and soul It is yours, it belongs to you – I belong to you* During the last chorus we are just dancing, for the last verse I sing live and move in synch with my dancers while the ceiling pops out into this shower of firework that falls behind us. The audience is loud throughout the whole song and I am out of breath when it ends. I smile widely as the stage goes dark, my chest moving as I try to catch my breath but I am smiling so widely as I can really see the audience for the first time when the stage goes dark, but just for a few seconds before soft lights are back on. My dances had rushed off the stage when the stage got dark and I am now standing face to face with my fans that are still cheering. I have to do the introductions but I am so out of breath and I have forgotten what to say, I just want to melt this all in and I can’t stop smiling as the audience is cheering me on. As it seems they are done cheering their voices gets loud again and I start laughing. “Wow,” I breathe out in the microphone. I laugh as they cheer a bit louder again. Does this mean they like the performances so far? It gives me time to calm down a bit, well; my heart is beating so hard seeing the audience standing up, and they are so close those at the front, and then it is three floors and as they continue to cheer I put a hand up to cover the light so I can see up the