Do you remember your first concert? I do. Sort of.

My dad surprised my cousin and me — 12-year-old middle schoolers — with tickets to a show at the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He told us by phone, and he says I gasped after hearing the news. Unfortunately, I don’t recall any of that.

What I do remember is feeling extra fancy in my new brown fur coat. I tried to be patient sitting in that stadium seat, but my entire body shook with nervous excitement! My stomach dropped into my feet and then straight through the floor. Those jitters were bigger than butterflies. A Jabberwock was inside of me.

Music, lights, dancers, and then, there he was: Knees bent, balloon pants billowing from his hips, and hype feet zooming left to right across the stage like a typewriter. MC Hammer was untouchable.

More than three decades have passed since then. Earlier this year, in June to be exact, I got to watch both of my daughters experience the same emotional intensity at their first major concert — K-pop superstars Stray Kids in Atlanta, Georgia. It was surreal to come full circle.

The temperature was close to 90 degrees as we climbed those steep, gray concrete stairs to our seats. Truist Park, the outdoor baseball stadium for the Atlanta Braves, was ground zero for Stray Kids’ DominATE Tour.

We survived the chaos of Atlanta’s bumper-to-bumper concert traffic to get there and then the astronomical fee to park our car. Waiting in the entry lines, however, was a nightmare. What I wasn’t sure we’d survive — my daughters, in particular — was the shock of seeing those eight handsome guys on stage below us. Whatever the reactions, Mark and I were prepared with cameras in hand to capture the moment.

Our K-pop journey started with anime recommendations by one of Alora’s 6th-grade friends. Vivia joined her in watching shows like Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, and Psychic Kusuo on weekends until she had favorites of her own. I began to notice more and more songs in foreign languages filling our house, accompanied by playful laughter and dance moves I’d never seen.

The girls inevitably found K-pop music and K-dramas, introducing us all to new elements of Korean entertainment and culture. I remember Alora and Vivia first fawning over the K-pop group BTS, but it was after seeing Stray Kids that everything changed. The 2023 VMA performance of their hit song “S-Class” sealed the deal. Handsome faces, high-energy rhythmic dancing, a deep baritone voice (Felix), and a sleek black ponytail (Hyunjin) sent my daughters spiraling into boy-band love.

The more I tried keeping them level-headed, the deeper I also fell for the group. Down, down, down the rabbit hole until we ultimately found ourselves in Atlanta making concert posters, buying must-have photo cards/key chains/tote bags at a pop-up shop, getting dressed in on-theme red-and-black clothing, and referring to ourselves as STAY (the name for Stray Kids fans). I regret nothing.

Back in the stadium, time felt familiarly endless while waiting for a glimpse of the group. With every movement or hand wave near the stage, we leaned forward, peered through squinted eyes, and zoomed in on our phone cameras. Was it them? We were impatient.

Suddenly, music blasted from the speakers, competing with frenzied screams. And, one by one, Stray Kids’ faces appeared on the massive background screens. But it wasn’t them in the flesh… yet.

More teasers sent the packed venue into various levels of deafening uproar. Alora, Vivia, and I were no different, and Mark looked on, highly entertained by our giddiness. A quick change in the music, followed by booming fireworks and other dramatics, led all of our eyes to center stage, where an elongated platform slowly lifted our guys to their proper places.

Bang Chan, Changbin, Felix, Han, Hyunjin, I.N., Lee Know, and Seungmin were finally in view! Around the stadium, the last vestiges of decorum turned to total mania as Stray Kids began singing. The excitement was almost palpable.

I felt a tidal wave of emotion rise inside of me. For a moment, I was the little 7-year-old, music-lovin’ dancing machine, infatuated with Michael Jackson, Prince, and the Isley Brothers. I was the awestruck 12-year-old at the MC Hammer concert. Most importantly, I was the 46-year-old mom who pulled it together just in time to see euphoric joy on her daughters’ faces.

Alora’s quiet tears turned to intense sobbing. Vivia’s timid temperament became shrieks of elation as she reached for the yellow Felix plushie — called BbokAri — in her purse. Their dance moves were natural, involuntary.

And I caught most of it on camera.

It was all well worth it. The more than 15 hours in the car together as a family. The standing in multiple lines across Atlanta for anything involving K-pop. Our deep fear of not getting to the stadium in time to see Stray Kids hit the stage. Even the post-concert depression that followed us back home. All worth it.

The DominATE Tour was unforgettable. Still, I cannot wholly express what the experience meant to me as a mother. And I think that’s the point. Core memories I made with Alora and Vivia in real time were (and still are) the gift. Someday, when my beautiful daughters share the story of their first concert, I hope they start at the beginning.

I hope they remember the never-ending days we spent squealing over faces with names we couldn’t pronounce, and our late nights questioning God about the unfair cuteness of K-pop boys. I want them to re-enact the intricate dance moves they tried to teach me, but Mama just couldn’t learn. I hope they replay the many K-pop music videos we’ve watched ad nauseam. And most of all, I hope they remember the tears in my eyes as I experienced their first concert with them. Because while they were watching their favorites, I was also mesmerized by mine: Alora and Vivia.

ADDITIONAL READS

-My partner, Mark Kemp, has been a music journalist for over 40 years. Read his perspective of our concert experience as a man new to K-pop and stepparenting:

-Spend a day out with us exploring Korean culture:

First Concerts: Everybody Remembers Them