PUBLISHED ONJuly 22, 2024 6:00 AMBySyarifah NadhirahAs someone who frequently attends concerts - especially K-pop ones - outside of work, my expectations for Aespa's were the same: A powerful entrance, multiple outfit changes, strobe lights and additional dance breaks to spice things up.
At their Synk: Parallel Line concert in Singapore on July 20, I was astonished to be treated to all that, and much more.
The four-member K-pop girl group - consisting of South Korean members Karina and Winter, China-born Ningning and Korean-Japanese Giselle - opened the show with a bang, performing 2023's Drama.
They certainly brought in all the drama, appearing on an elevated platform and making their way in clad in glittery black outfits; the chorus even started with a burst of pyrotechnics.
The song smoothly transitioned to their 2020 debut track Black Mamba and the screams got louder as they dropped to the floor - an iconic move in the choreography.
By now, I expected a ment - short for comment, a term referring to a talking segment - as artistes would usually introduce themselves after one or two songs in the past K-pop concerts I've been to, which included those by Blackpink, BTS, Seventeen and Itzy.
But the quartet continued with more stages, changing outfits twice for Supernova and Mine.
The pre-recorded videos in between performances were longer than most K-pop concerts too, but the peculiar yet intriguing storyline was enough to keep me entertained.
After a short ment, Aespa slowed things down with the R&B song Thirsty before jumping into performances of their unreleased solo songs.
Each member's stage highlighted their individual colours and strengths.
While rapper Giselle proved that her singing was just as good as her rap with Dopamine, Karina showed off her sharp moves with Up.
Ningning's Bored! reminded me why she's the main vocalist, and Winter left me entranced with her fairy-like visuals and sweet voice for Spark.
The next half of the show had the most impressive visual effects I'd seen for all the K-pop concerts I've attended from displays of the four members in a cute comic-like format on screen for We Go - their soundtrack for Pokemon Horizon: The Series - to an interactive text animation asking the audience: "Are you ready?"
Just when I thought another group performance would kick off, Aespa surprised me yet again.
Though I knew the group has a metaverse concept where each member has her own avatar in a virtual reality world - after all, Aespa stands for "avatar x experience and aspect" - I didn't expect their concert to bring the idea to reality.
After an impressive 3D animation of black tar 'flowing' down the enormous LED screen to form pulsing reptilian scales - a nod to the Black Mamba music video - the screen "collapsed" to show codes before they all faded into sparks and slowly moulded into a figure.
Naevis, an AI character that frequently appears in their music videos, had her own solo performance. I chuckled at first, but the CGI (computer-generated imagery) was so stunning that I was admittedly captivated by the end of it.
[embed]https://youtu.be/6zgxPJgBR_k?si=ogx7_L5I8IIMtnXw[/embed]
The visual effects carried on throughout the rest of the show, changing up to match the vibe of each song.
The wait before an encore is when I'd usually start scrolling through social media to pass the time, but my eyes stayed glued to the screen for an unexpected interactive segment.
The camera panned to random fans and they were challenged to dance a part of an Aespa song. Some were confident while others were visibly embarrassed but the audience - me included - laughed through it all.
By the time Aespa wrapped up with their final song, I was left reeling from the highs of the concert.
All in all, if you're looking to attend any of their future shows, be sure to have your bowels cleared before the concert because the jam-packed and epic 2.5 hours will leave you with no time for a toilet break.
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syarifahsn@asiaone.com
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