iKON delight fans at first concert in Singapore
It was refreshing to attend a K-pop concert and not have band members pause after every sentence for an interpreter to translate their words into English.
Dubbed the next big thing in K-pop, iKON, who were here for their first concert often interacted with their fan in English. The show, iKONCERT 2016 Showtime Tour, was held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last night.
Ticket prices were between $148 and $318.
The group of seven is made up of leader B.I, 19, Jinhwan, 22, Yunhyeong, 21, Bobby, 20, Donghyuk, 19, Junhoe, 19, and Chanwoo, 18.
Throughout the two-hour set, iKON, who made their debut last September, tried their best to speak to the 6,500 fans in English.
SUPPORT
Hardcore K-pop fan Emma Tay, 18, was not a fan of the group, but attended the concert with her friend Giana Siddiqui, also 18, because they had read online that iKON's performances were good.
The concert turned both girls into fans.
"They seemed really professional. It was as if they've been performing for a long time already," said Emma, a junior college student.
"I know that other than Bobby, the others are not really fluent in English. The fact that they made the effort to memorise and interact with the fans proves that they are an international band," she said.
iKON did not disappoint.
They opened their concert with a remixed rock version of one of their hits, Rhythm Ta. They also performed songs such as My Type, Airplane, and Apology from their debut album Welcome Back.
Despite their relative inexperience, they wowed the audience with their seemingly endless supply of energy, running from one end of the stage to the other to interact with the fans at all sides and corners.
Main rapper Bobby, who was involved in 20 of the 22 songs the group performed last night, got as close as possible to the fans every chance he got. But he showed no signs of fatigue even at the end.
Bobby performed GO and B.I did Be I, which were songs they had produced during their appearance on the South Korean rap competition Show Me The Money.
During the song Wait For Me, fans raised banners that read "We have been waiting for a long time" in Korean.
The highlight of the concert was Jinhwan cross-dressing as a member of fellow K-pop band GFriend and dancing to his rendition of their song Me Gustas Tu.
SEXY
The other boys joined in afterwards in black dresses and danced "sexily" to their cover of viral hit Up & Down by EXID.
The boy band also covered BigBang's Bang Bang Bang, when B.I and Junhoe went shirtless under fur coats.
At the end, after the encore, Bobby took off his sweat-drenched shirt and threw it towards the audience, leading to a mad scramble for it among the fans.
Nanyang Technological University student Siti Halimah Samsudin, 23, wished the concert could have been longer.
She said: "I've been a fan of iKON since the first reality TV survival programme and I've been smitten by each of the members' different style and charm ever since.
"My favourite parts were the encore stages, when all of us jumped along to the songs and were able to take videos with our phones.
"My friends and I had really sore throats by the end."
The fact that they made the effort to memorise and interact with the fans proves that they are an international band
- Miss Emma Tay, who became a fan of iKON after attending their concert
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now