Top Idol, Anyway (PART 1)

Chapter 154

#154

Behind the stage, a large blue crescent moon appeared on the LED screen.

As the bleak Daegeum sounded sadly and the lights dimmed, a shadow crouched in a corner of the stage caught my eye.

This is Chan.

Lee Chan, who slowly got up, was wearing a fancy red mask on his face.

Black slacks and a see-through black blouse. On top of that, a cheollick, a type of hanbok, was worn like a gown.

Cheollik is a jacket that used to be worn as a deaily wear fr men or an official wear for military officials.

Han- bok = Korean clothes
Simply meaning 'Korean clothes', 'hanbok' was introduced in the late 19th century by Koreans as a term to help differentiate their everyday dress from a recent influx of western-style clothing. A century later, western clothing had overtaken hanbok as the main style of dress worn by Koreans.

Then, the newly arranged melody of <Mask> filled the stage.

The haegeum was added to the daegeum, followed by the sound of the electric guitar and taepyeongso.

The haegeum is a Korean musical instrument played with a wooden bow between two strings, standing in line with a large wooden block standing vertically on top of the ring box.

Korean double reed wind instrument in the shawm or oboe family.

Holding a microphone, Lee Chan slowly walked to the front of the stage while performing a rough rap. Then he threw off the mask.

The music gradually changed into an intense house-style EDM.

Even when going back and forth between vocals and rap, there is no disturbance in breathing.

Lee Chan, who completely transformed the lively funk dance music of the 90s into house music with Korean traditional music, showed a perfect performance with choreography reminiscent of Samulnori.

Samul nori is a genre of percussion music that originated in Korea. The word samul means "four objects", while nori means "play". Samul nori is performed with four traditional Korean musical instruments.

At the end, on the stage where all the instruments died down and only the sound of the daegeum remained, Lee Chan quietly put the red mask on his face again.

Suddenly, even the sound of the daegeum disappeared, and only blue silence flowed quietly over the stage.

The filming set was quiet until Lee Chan took off his mask and returned to the center of the stage. They couldn't even hear that common breathing sound.

Did a broadcast accident happen? The moment he thought about it, Yoon Joo-eon got up from his seat and clapped his hands. Lee Na-young and other judges also followed Yoon Joo-eon.

It was the same for the performers.

"Wow, tore it up."

"This is what tearing the stage apart."

"Goosebumps. I have goosebumps all over my body."

It was really upsetting.

Everyone applauded, saying, "I have no choice but to admit it."

So did the judges.

They praised the stage, saying it was so intense that they couldn't remember what the previous six <Masks> were.

Then Lee Na-young asked a question.

"Mr. Lee Chan. You had a brief conversation with me after the second round. Wasn't this stage what you were talking about then?"