EarthMix Love at First Live is my first ever fanmeet after falling headlong into Thai BL and EarthMix fandom. I’d fallen in love with this couple and their chemistry even before A Tale of a Thousand Stars aired and I have not looked back since.
The fanmeet was originally scheduled for nearly a month earlier, postponed because of the rise in covid cases in Thailand. Perhaps it’s to compensate for any possible disappointment from this delay that the production went all out for the event on the 26th of June. That being said, things got off to a shaky start when the show, which started on the ThaiTicketMajor site at 3 PM Thailand time, experienced signal lags right through the first performance, followed by a twenty-odd minute wait for things to be fixed.
When things did start off again, though, there was no dip in the energy or the quality of the first performance, with Earth and Mix performing a cover of ‘How long can a person secretly love someone?’ by ROOFTOP featuring AUTTA. Mix carrying the rap vocals was probably one of the best things in the performance, second only to the very strategically chosen lyrics of a song about being secretly in love with someone you’ve known for years.
When the performance ended and the MCs and translators for the event – Godji, Wave and Hymn (the latter two providing English, Chinese and Japanese language support for interfans), came on stage their first question was, naturally, how long Earth Mix have been in love with each other, to which the very straightforward answer was that they’ve known each other for seven years.
It kind of set the tone for the rest of the nearly four-hour show: how much tea will EarthMix spill about themselves in the most casual manner, and how are we, as fans, are supposed to take this.
Case in point: one of the MCs pointed out that the two of them often secretly sleep over at each other’s places, to which Earth replied that they’re really not hiding anything, everyone knows about it.
Anyway.
They also recalled their first impressions of each other when they met seven years ago, when Mix was in 10th grade and Earth in his first year of college. The thing that Earth remembered most was that Mix was very engrossed in eating his fried rice at the time.
The conversation moved, as it often does with these two recently, to their newfound cat ownership: Earth’s Edin and Mix’s Somporn (an old fashioned Thai name chosen because everyone in Mix’s family has names beginning with S). Anyone following their social media will probably be aware that these two cats have their own Instagram accounts where their fathers lowkey roleplay as them and it’s all very adorable.
The next section was for questions from select VIP guests out of the 600 in total. They talked about what they do to relieve stress or when they’re worried about things – both saying they’d eventually let things go rather than dwell on them. A Japanese fan wanted to know what they’d do if they ever went to Japan – Earth said he’d eat store bought corndogs, and Mix wanted to see the Sapporo Ice Festival.
A fan’s question about what they would wish for if they could count a 1000 stars made them both talk about how they want everyone to be happy – as happy as they were in that moment. Mix teared up, making fans everywhere (and Earth too) want to give him a hug.
On to a video compilation of sweet behind the scenes moments from the filming of A Tale of Thousand Stars, segueing into next performance, a duet of the OST with both actors in the familiar costumes and a beautiful CGI set replete with fireflies and a waterfall. It was a visual treat and really brought home how much the series meant to the actors and all the fans.
The talk section after had them recall their experiences shooting the series, a gruelling one month up in the mountains of Chiang Rai. They then had the VIP fans on their zoom calls vote for which two scenes from the series EarthMix would re-enact. The two that the fans chose were the one where Phupha sniffs a tea satchel (and Tian’s hand) in Episode 6 and the other was the last scene in the series (and one that EarthMix admitted was fifty percent them just being themselves), when Tian makes Phupha plead to be allowed to sleep in the same bed.
Some more conversation and onwards to a very dramatic introduction to an absolutely mindblowing contemporary dance by Earth, segueing into a performance of his song, Eyes Can’t Lie. Next came Mix’s solo stage where we were introduced to the fabulous EDM skills of ‘DJ Mixxiw’. He performed a minute long remix to his song What Kind of Person which would not be out of place in any club – then sang the song in its original form.
There was also a special section on a signature practice of EarthMix fandom – trending weird hashtags late at night on twitter. If anyone has spent any time on this particular corner of stan twitter, they might have noticed this phenomenon: they are weird and often hilarious. The fanmeet highlighted three of these hashtags. The first one, translated as ‘What’s Sweet in Bangna’ – referring to when fans realised Mix had been staying at Earth’s house in the Bangna area of Bangkok for some time. The second hashtag was ‘Check-in Suphan’ – inspired when a fan spotted EarthMix in Earth’s hometown of Suphanburi around Valentine’s day. The third ‘Edin, Where did Mix Sleep Last Night’, because of an Instagram story of Mix and Earth’s cat in what was clearly Earth’s bed. The MCs demanded explanations for all three of these hashtags, all of which the two gave to varying degrees of satisfaction. A highlight was possibly when Godji commented that Earth taking Mix to meet his family was not too different from introducing your boyfriend to your family and Mix said, jokingly, that he kind of felt that way too.
The next performance was of a fun, peppy number that I wouldn’t find out of place in an Indian film – a cover of Ice Sarunyu’s I.SEE.U, after which there was another round of fan interaction – this time games in which the viewers, and EarthMix, were encouraged to talk and draw their cats, as well as acknowledgement of the bizarre ‘fandom item’ that EarthMix fandom has adopted: hangers. [It’s a running joke in the fandom that EarthMix fans have no official name but it might as well be hangers as they often appear randomly in their IG stories]
EarthMix then covered KLEAR and Phai Phongsathon’s Longer than Ever, a song about how two lonely people will find each other if they are destined to, accented with images of the two actors separately during their solo segments, before a barrage of photos of the two together over the past couple of years highlighting that same feeling of destiny in EarthMix’s relationship.
This was followed by a special video of how far Earth and Mix have come with pictures from their fan events, a compilation ending with a screen that claimed ‘#EarthMix, You are our 1,000 Stars’ – it reminded me of similar screens from the Global Live Fanmeets in 2020. Neither of the actors could quite keep from crying during this entire segment, although Earth did hold it together significantly to support Mix, who really couldn’t hold back his tears.
The fanmeet finally came to an end with EarthMix emotionally expressing their thankfulness to their fans, to everyone who had supported them, and finally to each other, for the journey they had been on, with promises to work hard to live up to their expectations, reaffirming each other as their ‘best partner’s. The final song they sang as they wound up the show, Bell Supol’s One Lonely on the Planet, was accentuated with graphics of stars and constellations, and we were treated to the heartwarming image of the two of them doing silly dances as the show came to an end.
If you are a member of the nameless EarthMix fandom (I will not lie when I say ‘Hanger’ isn’t growing on me), the fanmeet was an absolute visual and emotional treat. The effort and dedication the actors put into their performances was visible and definitely made the experience worth it.
What the future holds for this couple remains to be seen, but I for one find their chemistry and their close relationship as friends to be a delight, and I hope to see a lot more of them.
The BL Xpress 