Ain’t No Party Like An Ikonic Party
With iKON‘s sold-out, energy-filled show, it‘s safe to say that Manila has secured a spot in their next concert tour.
MANILA, Philippines — It has been four days since I attended a sold-out K-pop concert with tens of thousands of overexcited goers, and my body is plastered in pain relief patches from all the jumping, dancing, and waving my konbat (a light stick that fans purchase to flutter their support). As I write this story, iKON’s songs are on loop in the background, and the itch to see them perform live again keeps on getting stronger.
Korean pop music, or what’s commonly known as K-pop to non-listeners, may only seem to be colorful eargasmic tunes that turn to viral dance crazes or heavy electronic music performed by “idols.” But K-pop has become so much more. Aspiring K-pop idols spend years of their lives training — criticized and evaluated on their ability to dance, sing and act, only to be left with the uncertainty of ever even debuting, or being given that career. They are formed and exhausted to fit a certain mold and only the strongest get to have a taste of being called an idol.
The synergy between iKON and iKONICs flowed so well that the concert felt like a competition as to who would get exhausted first.
A certain K-pop boy group had to go through two survival shows in addition to the years of training just to prove that they deserved to be idols. Under YG Entertainment, the same company that honed K-pop legends Bigbang and 2NE1, Team B members Jinhwan, Yunhyeong, Bobby, B.I, Donghyuk, and Junhoe first appeared on WIN: Who is Next, a reality show that aired in 2013 where they competed against other trainees for a chance to debut as a group. After eventually losing to Team A, now known as Winner, Team B and three new trainees competed on another reality survival program in 2014 called Mix & Match, determining iKON’s final lineup of seven members, composed of Team B and Chanwoo. Since their successful debut in 2015, iKON has received a number of awards not only from South Korea but also from China and Japan which led to them being called “Monster Rookies.”
Debuting only three years ago, iKON has established its name in the K-pop industry, and, as a fan of K-pop for 10 years, I am ashamed to admit that I only heard about the group this year. I blame myself for being clueless about some of the most talented artists in K-pop right now. Yet they are far from uninteresting because in less than a week I have caught up with their music, appearances on variety TV and radio shows, and even iKON TV, their own reality show. I was initially hooked by Love Scenario, an earworm so addicting that it got banned in elementary schools in South Korea, and is still currently topping charts after nine months of release, breaking numerous South Korean music chart records.
I consider myself lucky in becoming an iKONIC (which is what iKON fans are called). They have released two more albums since then, namely “New Kids: Continue” and “New Kids: The Final” after the release of their second album, “Return,” last January. In addition to being well fed as an iKONIC, Pulp Live World announced that Manila will be part of the stops for iKON’s 2018 Continue Tour. After watching numerous performances of them onscreen, I was finally given a chance to watch my first K-pop concert of a group that, to say the least, I now feel deeply invested in. Talk about nice timing.
Some of iKON’s members have labeled their concerts as “dates” with their fans, and the preparation I did days before the concert did feel as if I was preparing to go out with someone. Leaving an impression of being loved has been a practice on K-pop concerts as fan unions devoted to each of the members and the whole group prepare projects, gifts, banners and rehearsed fan chants to songs.
A fan project called Project Iridescence was organized, where the arena was lit and formed a rainbow using only our phone flashlights while singing Don’t Forget.
Come concert day, I was filled with excitement and anxiety: I was finally witnessing one of the biggest acts of the decade. As iKONICs were filling the seats of the sold-out show in MOA Arena, the group’s music videos were played onscreen, and the fan chant to Killing Me was flawless. Konbats (iKON’s official lightstick) were on, and as the trumpet in Bling Bling blasted from the speakers, the screams were bombastic. Everyone in the seated section stood up, konbats were intensely swaying; some were seen with their covers flying in the air. During breaks in the show, Jinhwan, who previously stayed in Davao before training as an idol, reminisced about his stay here, and how he considered the Philippines his second country. Yunhyeong impressed us with his knowledge of Filipino vocabulary as he dropped random noteworthy quotes such as “Pagod na ako,” “Pinaghirapan ko ang kagwapuhan ko” and “Manila, sigaw!” that filled the arena with the loudest cheers from fans and left our idols reacting with surprise and awe. The synergy between iKON and iKONICs flowed so well that the concert felt like a competition as to who would get exhausted first.
Inspired by iKON’s performance on A Battle of One Voice: 300, fans prepared yellow fabric to hold up during B-Day. Fans also organized Project Iridescence, where the arena was lit and formed a rainbow using only our phone flashlights while singing Don’t Forget. No photo or video can justify how beautiful the whole show was.
With iKON‘s sold-out, energy-filled show, it‘s safe to say that Manila has secured a spot in their next concert tour. The bar for my first K-pop concert experience has been set so high, all thanks to iKON and Filipino iKONICs.
