KARD are no strangers to Australia.
Returning to Australia after 5 years, KARD, consisting of members BM, Somin, Jiwoo, and J.seph, were brought down to Australia by Prime Entertainment. The Melbourne fan concert was held on November 12th at 170 Russell with excited fans having travelled from all over Australia to attend the Melbourne exclusive event. Patiently lining up for hours prior to the event, fans gathered to either be reunited with KARD or see the co-ed K-Pop group live for the very first time.
For the uninitiated, a K-Pop ‘fan concert’ is a combination of a fanmeet and a concert, more on the fanmeet side of things with songs inserted in between. These events are the perfect opportunity for passionate K-Pop fans to get to know the personalities of their favourite artist or group whilst also seeing the members interact and bond together on stage. KARD admitted during the event that even though they’ve been touring a lot and have had their fair share of concerts, it had been a while since they had their last fanmeet. Parts of the event consisted of a Q&A and hilarious game activities.
Admittedly, this event was my second fan concert experience and also my first time ever seeing KARD live. The way the members bounced off each other and how affectionate they were with their fans, even being playfully cheeky, joking around with the audience was so sweet and fun to witness.
Hosted by MC Andy Trieu, reunited from their last visit where he also was MC, Trieu was charismatic, attentive and interactive, not only speaking with the KARD members with such friendliness and ease, but he also made an effort of checking on the audience to see if patrons were okay, giving out water to those that needed it, something that he didn’t have to do and I commend him for.
During the Q&A, Somin and J.seph expressed their gratitude to have returned to Melbourne and the excited audience taught BM the Aussie way of pronouncing ‘Melbourne (pronounced ‘Mel-burn’)’ with BM commenting that the Australian accent is one of the sexiest accents ever, a comment which was met with loud cheers. A lot of moments of the Q&A portion of the were funny, including a moment when Jiwoo received a marriage proposal from a fan in the crowd which inspired more marriage proposals and the sudden collection of many (proposal) rings, much to Jiwoo’s surprise. On the serious side, BM shared a deep and meaningful short story about how his mum beat cancer, which had many patrons moved to tears.
Game wise, KARD played two games, one where a member covered their eyes and tried to ‘Pin the tail on the kangaroo’ with the game board made especially for the event by Sydney fan Jaelyn Lyas. The other game consisted of bottle flipping where the KARD members were split into two teams alongside some lucky fans plucked from the audience to compete with and against them. The rules were to make a bottle land normally as many times as possible to win. However, in the end the winners were clearly the lucky few that were chosen to go on stage, play with, and interact with the KARD members! They also were given signed posters, for a special memento of their experience.
Concert wise, the K-Pop group performed non-stop bangers including ‘Ring the Alarm’, ‘Oh Nana’, ‘Cake’, ‘Icky’, and they even performed crowd favourite ‘Dumb Litty’ twice, bringing back the infectious hit for the encore. The more KARD performed, the louder, more animated and more excited the Melbourne crowd became. KARD even blatantly shared that they would be back next year for a proper concert tour and I can only imagine what a fully fledged KARD concert would be like!
Overall, the Melbourne exclusive event was so much fun! What I enjoyed the most about the event was the genuine love exchange between KARD and their fans. I laughed and smiled so much that my face hurt, and I danced happily to the music alongside fellow passionate K-Pop fans. KARD are just as funny as they are talented and because we were having so much fun together, the event felt like it was over just as quickly as it began. I, like many, cannot wait to see KARD return to Australia. Hopefully sooner than later and for a proper headlining tour in 2024.
KARD performed exclusively in Melbourne thanks to Prime Entertainment on Sunday November 12th at 170 Russell.
For more information, visit:
https://www.instagram.com/official_kard
https://twitter.com/kard_official
http://dspmedia.co.kr/artist/profile?ca_id=10
https://kpopconcertanz.com
Photography by Grant Alexander.
