I can't relate to this, because I didn't know him. Surely, those were great years for him; years he developed his style. He gained a lot of self confidence through endless concerts, multiple interviews, meetings with fans, and TV appearances. I definitely looked through hundreds of you tube videos of him with Boohwal, with great interest. I could see how much he has evolved since then, and how much the depth of his voice has improved. Yes, he is different now, and I am thankful. Some fans express sadness about his changed voice, and they even think he changed his singing style? But for me, if I encountered him on you tube at that time, I would have just very quickly forgotten him. His voice in the first 5 years or so, was "dinky". I mean, it was thin, and a bit too high pitch. Very similar to many other young Korean singers. Now, his voice is unmistakable, unique sounding. As for the singing style - I don't see much change. He had always been very versatile, rock ballads being his prime genre, but otherwise he would try pretty much any kind of song. I think that maybe Kim Tae Won, his mentor in Boohwal, taught him to not be shy about experimenting. But I also like to think that Jung Dong Ha already had it in him. ^_^
*****
When I reminisce about the past, I frequently think back about the last year. Last year, 2016, was fabulous for Jung Dong Ha, and his fans. I am not saying it just because last year I was able to travel to Korea, and see him in a musical, and I even ended up shaking his hand.
The last year was so very exciting because there were so many things going in his singing career, that it was almost difficult to catch a breath. From concerts, to musicals, to TV shows; everything was so awesome! He was so busy with variety of professional activities, and we all loved it.
I will be doing throwback Thursdays 2016, several more times, I have a feeling. ^_^
*****
Recently I found 2 sets of pictures from 2016 concerts in one of my folders. Maybe there are more somewhere on the internet, but I saved only the ones below. So, Dong Ha had three sets of his own concerts , scattered loosely throughout the year. One was the "Dream" tour, in support of his second mini-album. Second, was named something like "Best Musicals", where he sang the musical songs. The third, named "The Artist", consisted of a mix of his songs from IS2, his OSTs, plus some other covers. It seems that the last one was the most fun, but I'm not sure.
In one of those 3 tours, he introduced this funny and cute routine, where he would "undress" on stage. Basically, at some point he would take off his elegant jacket, and then continue to remove his tie, and then reach to his top shirt button, unbutton, open his collar, and expose his neck, with a wide smile. Wow! That, of course caused crazy screams from the fans. Dong Ha himself appeared very amused with this whole situation, so he kept doing it several times. Here are parallel pictures from two different concerts. Yes, he can be naughty like that. LOL.
