The K-POP Festival – Hello Rookie 2009, a year's end festival held to select the best rookies of the year, took place at the Seoul Olympic Fencing Stadium on December 14th.
The festival, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Yu In-chon) and co-organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency (President & CEO Lee Jae-woong) and EBS Space, was the end-of-the-year final round for the 22 teams selected as Hello Rookies each month as part of the project, "Selection of Outstanding Indie Musicians and Support for Their Performances". One team is selected as "Hello Rookie 2009" during the festival.
On stage of the festival were the seven rookies - namely, No Reply, Daybreak, Park Ju-won, Apollo 18, Joa Band, Telepathy and Heum - who passed the October evaluation.
The group Apollo 18 was selected as the Hello Rookie 2009 for its enthusiastic stage manner and for catching the eyes and ears of the audience as well as the judges. Apollo 18 received a trophy and a prize of KRW 5 million. The Special Prize went to Telepathy, while the Audience Choice award went to Joa Band. The two winners each received a trophy, and a cash prize of KRW 3 million and KRW 2 million, respectively.
'Guckkasten' and 'Jang Gi-ha & the Faces', winners of the Hello Rookie 2008 and Audience Choice 2008 awards, also contributed to the performance with their dynamic stage manner. The emcees, Jang Yoon-ju and
Kim C, also produced a unique performance, singing Hot Potato's Binunmul and Jang's song Fly Away.
Lee Seung-hwan, who is busy promoting the album he released to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his debut, sang Rewind, a new song featuring chorus by Lee's fans and his hit song Dunk Shoot, which received wild enthusiasm. Kim Soo-chul, a singer-songwriter who led the 80s with such hits as Motdapin Ggot Hansongi (One Flower that did not Bloom) and Jeolmeun Geudae (You, the Young), also displayed his energy by singing Jeolmeun Geudae and Naodya Ganda (I'm Going Too).
The seven Hello Rookies also performed an homage to their favorite musicians, re-interpreting some of their songs. For this, the rookies sang Golmokgil (Alley) of Kim Hyeon-sik, Danbal Meori (Short Hair) of Cho Yong-pil, Aju Oraedoen Yeonindeul (Long Dating Couples) of 015B and Ilgop Saekgal Mujigae (Seven Colors of the Rainbow) of Kim Soo-chul.
The K-POP Festival – Hello Rookie 2009 was eagerly received by music fans, selling more than twenty-thousand tickets before the festival. The audience went wild listening to the different genres of music, ranging from modern rock to jazz, pop and metal, performed during the festival.
