On Sunday night I returned from accompanying my autistic niece to a BTS concert at Wembley Stadium. For those of you who don’t know, BTS stands for ‘Behind the Scene’, a seven piece Korean pop boy band. They all look androgynous, wear far too much make-up and are as camp as a row of tents! My sister later informed me that they are not allowed to date. No surprise there! They would lose so many fans, known as ‘The Army’ if their sexual preferences were known.
This was the largest event I had taken my niece to bar the 2012 Olympics, pre-diagnosis. I thought she would be in need of ear plugs which I took to shield her from the screams. But it turned out to be me who needed the ear plugs, as the teenage girl next to me shrieked every time a BTS foot so much as showed up on the large video screens. Since my niece’s diagnosis her mother and I have noticed that she can tolerate noise at ridiculous levels if the situation is of interest to her. On another occasion she will complain that the tv is too loud, if what is on is not of interest to her. She refused the ear plugs I offered her on three occasions.
Two days prior, I had taken her to a car park at Wembley Stadium to purchase a t/shirt. This extended to a light stick which became a crucial part of the concert experience. The light stick was used by the fans to stress the beats in the music, and replaced their hand movements which were similar to a priest throwing incense over a congregation.
On the day of the concert my niece was accompanied by a school friend and her mother. Wearing their BTS t/shirts and syncing their light sticks to an app, I watched as the two of them sang along in Korean. The funny thing was there were many girls there who couldn’t speak their first language, English properly, who were singing along in Korean.
There were some very strange behaviours going on. The first was some of the boy band members were filmed on the big screen, turning seductively like a girl, towards the crowd. This would have the girls screaming. The other strange thing was the last song mainly sung by the crowd was about being ‘Forever young’. This brought at least two members of the band to uncontrollable tears. The two girls beside me joined in by wailing, as though their mother had died! Do these band members have to remain young? For young men whose ages spanned the 20s, they were skinny.
There were no complaints from my niece on leaving the stadium about the vast crowd. At times I was anxious about being in the midst of this. There were ‘corden’ officers who would divide the crowd at various points, in order to let those ahead move forward. My niece travelled back to school with her schoolfriend and arrived back after 1am with not a complaint. Autism is so unpredictable.
The Dutiful Daughter (previously 95 frames per second) 