K-pop girl group LOONA embarked on their first world tour. Which began in August 1, 2022, is still currently active and will end with its final show in Mexico on August 28, 2022.
Bottom row from left to right: Jinsoul, Kim Lip, Choerry, Yeojin, ViVi, Haseul, Gowon
“이달의 소녀” stylized as LOONA is a 12 member girl group from Block Berry Creative. With a very ambitious pre-debut project. Each member having their own debut single that adds to the groups lore. And then having sub unit debuts with said members (1/4, ODD EYE CIRCLE, & yyxy). 12 solo singles, 5 sub unit eps later LOONA debuted on 2018. Since their debut they have released 5 ep’s and 2 full albums and various singles like 365 and Not Friends which was only sung by Heejin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Yves. They also have made a debut in Japan just last year.
On their World Tour the girls will be traveling to twelve cities in the span of one month. Being more than half way done with the tour the girls have performed nine shows to date. Starting on the east coast in LA they have made their way across the country and the last USA stop will be Houston before crossing the boarder for the last show in Mexico which is their largest venue outside of South Korea to date, which is also SOLD OUT, like most of their shows have been!
I was ecstatic when I found out that LOONA was going to go on their own tour as I had become a big fan since finding out about them. This was their first world tour, so i also wanted to support the girls. The concert was a little over two hours long. The show started at 7:30 and ended around 9:50 almost 10.
LOONA also had many fan services before and after the concert. Like a fansign the day before, a soundcheck before the concert, and a meet and greet after the concert. These of course came with additonaal purchase, meet and greet varied from $109 to $149 depending on the package. The only one that may have been hard to attend was the fansign as the person had to be randomly chosen from the album store which was the host. Tickets were around $60 face value for GA and around $125-100 for VIP1 and VIP2, respectively. I unfortunately got confused on the day of ticket releases and was not able to buy tickets face value and had to pay $125 for a resale ticket that was GA… (SICK AND TWISTED)
During their show they played their title tracks like “Butterfly”, “So What” and “PTT”. They also played a lot of fan favorite B sides like “WOW”, (9), and “Dance on My Own”. Like previously stated, before the official debut with the 12 girls all together they had sub units.
They also perforemed some of these songs as well. 1/4 unit performed “You and Me Together”. Yeojin performed her single “My Melody” which features another member Haseul. (She is not in any subunit, so this is probably why she was to perform one of the songs from her single album) ODD EYE CIRCLE performed LOONATIC in the English version. yyxy performed One Way.
They also had little segments throughout the show, which if you are on twitter may have seen, called “LOONAS GOT TALENT” in which the member showed various “talents” they had to judges. Which just was the girls in suits acting like they didn’t know who was on stage lol. It wasn’t legit talent show more of something fun and light hearted to make the fans laugh which they did.
The Good
What I really liked about this concert was the crowd honestly. (We will talk about the Kim Lip situation in the following segments.) I have been to various concerts of different genres. From a Marina and The Diamonds concert to Playboi Carti concert. And I can say that the LOONA crowd was like the most chill and nice crowd I have been amongst. Everyone was so nice, if they bumped into you by accident they would apologize. Nobody was really trying to cut in front of others. Some people did, but people who they passed didn’t really wanna argue with them and that’s not my position. People were wearing their face masks.
Additionally, I loved the vibe and energy everyone was giving off. I did not feel scared to yell out the lyrics or to shout whenever Vivi was singing because others were dong as well. It felt so great to be amongst people who also loved LOONA as much as you did or even more and be in the moment with everyone singing. Also everyone was so loud during the songs when they ha fanchants. I was so surprised and happy to hear it. The girls even noticed it and acknowledged it during one of their talking sessions.
The Bad
This section is in no part hate to LOONA AT ALL. A lot of these things they had no control over and can be put onto Block Berry Entertainment(BBC) and My Music Taste(MMT) [WILL BEGIN TO REFER TO THEM AS THE ACRONYM AND NOT FULL NAME.]
Where to begin… well let’s start with the ticket situation. I was confused as to when the tickets would be released as I saw a post LOONA’S official twitter account put a date but they put the KOREAN date and not the American one. Korea is 14 hours ahead of Chicago, almost half a day. So when I thought tickets on sale at 12 am on June 4, tickets actually went on sale on June 3rd at 10AM. I think they should have tried changing the time zone to an American one.
Additionally, when arriving to the venue seemed like a mess. The only line was the security which was pretty brief. After that there was no defined line and it was literally just a huge group of people in front of the doors. I think this was a little unfair to those who would have waited in line as anyone could have just pushed themselves to the front. Not to mention the heat. While it was only around 75-78 degrees, the sun was killer and there was basically no shade, especially right infront of the doors; where a majority of people were waiting. HOWEVER, I do not condone camping outside venues. HAVE SOME CLASS! Arriving a couple hours like 2 or 3 before the doors open is acceptable, but I saw tweets that day about people lining up around 6 am… like…
When going inside of the venue after waiting there was no security check after the first one and they just checked your ticket.My friend had a water bottle with him and he was able to take it with him all the way inside. I found this so weird because I’ve been to various other concerts and no venue ever lets people bring in drinks from the outside. I think this could have been a potential safety risk as people could have brought in things that should not be at shows. While it may sounds like I’m being “extra” or over dramatic, I’m being realistic. Unfortunately, we do live in a time where instances of violence in a concert have occurred. And people don’t always have the best intentions for the artist, even if they claim they love and admire them.
Inside the venue the view of the stage was low and you could not see any of the floor choreography they have for songs like “Butterfly” or Yves’s Star Choreography and many others. I recorded a vlog for youtube in which I include clips of this. For Star it is at time stamp: 7:04 and for Butterfly it is: 8:12
For reference I was in that area where it is circled. I know because I remember seeing those weird red things above by the bar. This picture made me realize how far I was from the stage and why I could barely see anything. (LMAO)
Moreover, like I mentioned before they would have the LOONAS GOT TALENT segments throughout the show and I’m not gonna lie for a lot of them I didn’t know what the girls were saying because of the screen being low and the captions for the segments being at the bottom of the screen, so for the most part I was just looking at the back of peoples head. Sometimes if people would move around I would get to see what was going on. Like I thought Gowon and Gotwo was cute and funny. Sometimes, I would try to read the captions by looking through someone’s phone who was recording. I didn’t even try to record these segments as everybody else was also trying and it was just a lot. It was a struggle fest if you were short.
It was so hot. I did not think this would be an issue as I saw on twitter that a dreamcatcher fan who had attended their concert earlier that year went to this same venue and said that they had air conditioning and it wouldn’t be a problem.(Now also keep a pin on dreamcatcher, they will be brought up again) However, I was wrong. The air would turn on for a couple of minutes then be turned off and wouldn’t be turned on again till maybe the next 20 mins. While you may think that sounds reasonable it is not. The LOONA show was a 3,000 person show and it sold out. Now lets say that not every ticket was one person,and add in resellers, people who got sick, etc. Let’s say 2,000 people(and that’s me being generous) are in one big room jumping and dancing around, yelling and singing. It gets hot fast. I did see tweets online stating that two people left on stretchers due to fainting. So yes, the heat was definitely a problem. But also take that with a grain of salt cause orbits, nevertheless, believable.
This blame should all go to BBC and MMT. BBC should know by now how popular LOONA is in the states and should try to get better fit venues for them. The venue at which they performed at was Radius Chicago. This venue does not seem if for a an audience of this capacity and genre of music. I think this is more of a venue for DJ sets or other music events in that arena since the stage is lower and you’re not really expecting to look at the do the whole time rather have fun and dance while listening to the dj sets.
One thing I found that was very unprofessional on MyMusictTaste was that for a lot of things they basically used the same format that Dreamcatcher had for LOONA. From venues to even emails they sent fans with reminders. I do not think this venue was suit for LOONA or even dreamcatcher at that. In the screenshot below while you can see the subject being about the LOONA concert, they mention dreamcatcher, which means they basically copied and pasted the email that was sent to Dreamcatcher fans.
While this may seem harmless, i do think it is just lazy and should at least double check emails before sending. They did later on send a new email with a correction, as pictured above.
To add on furthermore, the merch for LOONA was WHACK. Like I’m sorry. You could definitely saved the money and gone somewhere to get it it screen printed and had it look similar if not the same and have picked a color of your favorite representative member (BBC HIRE ME FOR MERCH IDEA.) I’m not sure who was responsible of merch, but there could have been way better designs.
Oh and COVID… if you attended the Chicago show I highly suggest you go get a covid test just to be safe. I have seen various people on twitter state that they have had covid symptoms and/or have tested positive for covid. People have said they wore their mask all throughout the show and still got sick, so I’d suggest to get a test just in case.
The Sad
The Kim Lip situation… This is an issue that has been splitting the fandom . While there is on side who sides with Kim Lip leaving the stage and not continuing any part of the Chicago activities (including meet and greet.) There is another side who does not agree with what she did and think it was unprofessional and rude of her. I do see both sides of the arguments and agree with both of them. I think it was fair in that Kim Lip left because she felt that she was being disrespected. However, I do not think that was the only reason. I am giving Kim the benefit of the doubt in that, that incident was just the tipping point of a bunch of other stress and things going on. Like stated previously, they have performed 8 shows before Chicago and had little to no rest in between concerts. On top of her trying to speak in a language her fans will understand and not have to translate, it is understandable to be upset when you are cut off and someone begins to chant for someone else.
However, as a fan I was disappointed. We were already missing Chuu and to also then have Kim Lip gone sucked. I do not think that this was done with malicious intent, however the timing of it was not well either. Her missing a couple of songs would have been ideal, but she missed the rest of the concert; which was 8 songs and they had 20 songs on their setlist. Moreover, she also missed the meet and greet. While I was not attending I’m pretty sure fans a who bought that addition were upset especially her fans, as Kim Lip is one of the more popular members. While they would have somewhat understood, they were probably still upset they could not see her. For the future I hope fans can try and be mindful of when others are talking, but also have the artist not let things get to them and miss the rest of the show.
She did later post an apology to the fans about missing the activities. I honestly wouldn’t have apologized, both parties need to get over it. (She probably is over it, but orbits are not lol) However, I only think she posted an apology as Korean fans found about about the situation and started going in on her. She posted it around midnight in Chicago which at that time, it is around 2pm in Korea. While you may think, well she had finished the concert and what not, US fans have asked to go live while in the US, but the girls have said no as Korean fans are asleep at that time. So that apology was really more so toward the Korean fans who were upset she did that at the show. NO SHADE.
I also felt sad for the rest of the girls because I bet they felt awkward during the Vivi/Kim Lip situation. But also when Kim Lip walked off before ‘Pale Blue Dot’ began everyone started chanting “KIM LIP KIM LIP” and the rest of the girls were just on stage and Kim Lip never came back.
For the fans I felt bad as you could tell that the energy between the girls and the fans had shifted and it was not the same after Kim Lip left. We were left with now only 10 girls. And from looks of it online the stage and the barricade had a big separation. See usually when they sing “Hi High” the girls get off of the stage and say hi to the fans in the front row, take selfies with fans cameras, videos, etc. However, during the concert this did not happen and during “Hi High” the girls stayed on the stage for the entirety of the song.
The Beautiful
While they had many things going against them one thing LOONA excelled in per usual was vocals. While I may have not been always able to see the stage, I could definitely hear them and they sounded phenomenal. Additionally, when i was able to see them on stage the girls looked so good. LIKE WOAH. They are so beautiful in real life…
One of the standout for me was Olivia Hye. She has great stage presence and charisma and whenever she was the center or was singing she definitely drew you in.I also like that the rest of the members still tried having a good time throughout the concert even when all the previous things happened. I loved Haseul speaking in English. Also Gowon was very talkative as well.
Overall, the concert was okay. I definitely have been to better concerts. I do not blame LOONA in any capacity as this is solely on MMT AND BBC; as a lot of the issues stem with the venue, the stage, the a/c, etc. Would I go to another LOONA concert? Yes, if they go to a better venue that has seats. I’m sorry but standing for over two hours is not fun, add on the waiting time you had to wait outside. Yeah, no. However, they sounded great and would love to have the opportunity to see them again in better conditions. I hope they know that Chicago fans love them and do not let a small group of people give the rest f the fans a bad impression.
If you ever have the opportunity to see LOONA live I highly suggest it. From what I was able to view and recorded the girls looked really good on stage.
Apple Music: [LOONATHEWORLD] 1ST WORLD TOUR 2022 SETLIST
J’s Journal 