GFRIEND, the six-member girl group made up of Sowon, Yerin, Eunha, Yuju, SinB, and Umji, stopped by our sunny shores for the Singapore leg of their 2019 Asia Tour. It’s been a long 1050 days wait for Buddies, who turned out in full force at The Star Theatres on Saturday. Going at 110% for nearly three hours, GFRIEND definitely showed us why they are experiencing a meteoric rise! Here are some moments from the tour we can’t stop thinking about:
#1 – The ridiculously in-sync dancing
GFRIEND shot up in popularity thanks to their performances of ‘Me Gustas Tu’, and continued to capture the Korean public’s hearts with their amazing teamwork and chemistry by performing their choreography at double speed and even blindfolded. While they kept it simple this time (and by simple we mean keeping it trick-free), they showed off their clean and perfectly synchronized dancing through songs like ‘Love Whisper’, ‘Time for the Moon Night’, and ‘Navillera’, known for the tough choreography, all while looking calm and composed. GODChingu indeed!
#2 – Singing their hearts out
Yuju and Eunha are the undisputed vocal queens in GFRIEND, but the rest proved they can hold their own too as they powered through the self-titled ‘emotional segment’ of the night. Songs like ‘You Are Not Alone’, ‘Only 1’, and ‘L.U.V’ showcased their emotional range, but the star of the night was certainly the ballad version of ‘Rough’. All six belted their hearts out, visibly moving Buddies in the audience.
Later on in the night, they even treated Singapore Buddies to an impromptu rendition of ‘Fever’, which GFRIEND had recently staged a comeback with. It’s so recent that it wasn’t in the setlist, but Sowon really wanted to show it to the fans. Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties with the audio since it wasn’t prepared for the concert, but GFRIEND were undeterred, performing it completely acapella—including instrumental!
#3 – A GFRIEND multiverse?
Aside from singing and dancing, we bet you didn’t know GFRIEND could act too! We were given a little tease of their acting chops in the opening VCR where they raced each other to the concert venue, but during the show we were treated to not one, but two full-blown sketches.
The first was apparently half fiction and half based on real life, and showed them on the road to debuting… as two 3-member girl groups! Sowon, Yuju and SinB formed swaggy World Peace, while Yerin, Eunha and Umji made up the adorable Hug Hug. Even their debut songs were true to concept, with World Peace dressed in sleek leopard print spitting fire in the track ‘Monday Blue’ and Hug Hug pulling out every aegyo trick they had up their sleeves to match their similarly cute poofy dresses for ‘Shy Boy’.
Maybe in an alternate universe, World Peace and Hug Hug would both be amazing groups in their own right, (and in fact they later revealed that they almost didn’t debut as 6-member GFRIEND) but we’re happy with GFRIEND in this reality!
#4 – They’re comedic geniuses
The acting didn’t stop there. The second sketch we were treated to for the night was titled “War of Masters”, in which each member demonstrated their “mastery” of a sport in unique ways—most notably badminton master SinB’s giant racket that magically hits back any rally even when she’s on the phone! Sports masters or not, we can safely conclude that GFRIEND shine the brightest on the stage where they belong!
#5 – The lack of a language barrier
We were in the hands of a very capable translator for the night, but GFRIEND showed that they’re well on their way to eliminating the language barrier on their own. They all made great effort to convey their love and appreciation for Buddies in English, Sowon even cheering fans on with an adorable “All the best everyone! I love you guys!” Yuju even went off-script to praise Sowon to Buddies, saying “Her English is very good right?” It certainly was! At the end of the concert, Umji even gave a short speech in English:
“Buddy, thank you for being here tonight. We were really looking forward to seeing you guys again since two, three years ago when we were here, we had so much time. Sorry for [taking so long to come back here] but I’m sure we all had a lot of fun today. We are very touched, and it was like a perfect day. Thank you for making today a perfect day!”
#6 – Their strong connection with the fans
GFRIEND definitely worked very hard to not just communicate with Buddies, but also made sure to interact as much as they could with the audience. Cute gestures were standard, of course, and Yerin and Eunha even waved excitedly when they spotted their names on fans’ placards! There was even a video to show GFRIEND writing the lyrics to ‘Hope’, a heartwarming song dedicated to their fans that contained all of their love and appreciation for Buddies.
Buddies gave back too, from giving their all in fanchants to preparing a touching video to convey their love and support for GFRIEND. Played immediately after the light and fun ‘Love Bug’, during which the girls filmed themselves with cute selfie filters for the big screen, the video took GFRIEND by completely surprise, mapping their journey thus far and even their first win.
The members were visibly moved, Eunha tearfully thanking Buddies for waiting for them, and apologizing for making Buddies wait. Yerin shared that it felt weird seeing how they were before. Yuju was choking up too as she shared about how she used to try to solve problems on her own instead of leaning on other people.
“But I’m much happier now, and I’m learning to overcome problems together with the members. I’m also smiling a lot more after meeting Buddies!”
We hope she and all of GFRIEND continue smiling, and shining as brightly as they did on Saturday night. Don’t worry even if it takes another 1050 days to come back, because Buddies will be right here waiting!
In case you are suffering from post-concert withdrawals, do check out (x)clusive’s blow by blow recap of what went down at GO GO GFRIEND Asia Tour in Singapore!
A big thank you to UnUsUaL Entertainment for extending the concert invite!
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