On February 21st, 2019 my friends and I attended Red Velvet’s “REDMARE” concert at the PNE Forum. The REDMARE tour included the group’s first-ever North American shows, and coincidentally ended up being on one of the lead singers’ birthdays! Fate worked out in our favor and ensured that the show was one that would be remembered forever. Red Velvet is a K Pop band who is really popular – one of the top groups in the industry. My friend (who attended the concert with me) got me into K Pop music for it uppity vibes and beautiful orchestrations. I learned to love K Pop music because of how much work was put into the music. I am not sure if it is because I cannot understand the lyrics (they become just part of the overall “sounds” in the song, as opposed to words with meaning), but when I listen to the music it is always so well put together! You can really tell that there is more to the groups than just the singers. I can only imagine the production teams working behind the scenes, writing and producing everything. Crazy! I believe that K Pop groups and the labels working behind them are pushing the limits and expanding the breadth of human musicality. With all this in mind, I knew I was going to have a great time at this concert. It was especially exciting for my trio because it was the first K Pop concert we had been to.
They started the concert off with a bang – “Russian Roulette”. It starts off with the singers singing “LA, LALALA” monophonically but then with a rising but chopped retro-pop instrumental accompaniement. The second verse has a chanting in the background giving a really cool build up, and then the beat drops making it feel as though you are in a rocket ship. The singers continue singing homophonically and repeat syllables musically to catch your listening, then switches to a single voice singing with accompaniment. These parts are cool because they chose to make some of the lyrics in English, saying things like “crazy” and “Russian Roulette”. The song continues to bang and is a great time. The proceed to close the first set with a song entitled “Power Up”. It has a steady “popping” beat that, when climaxes, begins to percolate – intensifying the mood of it. They close it, show a video, have a chat with us and commence the next song.
“Mosquito” is a song with what I think could be considered a lied. It is a beeping melody that keeps on repeating throughout the song, honestly somewhat annoyingly. I came to realize that this sound is imitating a mosquito. Very cool, and after realizing that, not annoying at all! I came to like the song so much that the performance ended up being a really great time.
They played a bunch of songs that I hadn’t heard before and I obviously enjoyed them all for different aspects. For instance, “Hit That Drum” was a cool take on a jungle-esque beat (performers were also on stage dressed as animals and rangers). It was cool because it had a heavy drum beat (see “Hit That Drum”), akin to what I imagine a basso continuo might be like. Although overwhelming, it was really cool to see.
Another interesting song was “Moonlight Melody”, a slow song that really changed up the vibe of the stadium. The violin-piano accompaniment was really quite lovely. This song was an aria as it was sung slowly and was very emotional.
To be honest, although I appreciated it for what it was, I was much more impressed with the pop music with its crazily orchestrated instruments and catchy sounding lyrics. Thankfully the rest of the show was full of mostly exactly that and it was an absolute blast to be there. I 100% recommend anybody to go and see a concert; it is a great time. Red Velvet – 사랑해!