2012 Shinhwa Grand Tour In Singapore: The Return
Resorts World Convention Centre
Compass Ballroom/Last Saturday

From Take That to Backstreet Boys to New Kids On The Block, boybands everywhere have been on a resurgent streak. Add to that list South Korea’s Shinhwa, who have reportedly sold more than five million records worldwide.
Over the past four years, the group had been on a hiatus due to the compulsory military obligations that the members had to fulfil. With that out of the way, K-pop’s longest-lasting boyband is back with a bang with their 10th album The Return (2012) and an Asian tour.
On homeground, tickets for their two shows in Seoul were sold out within 40 minutes. In Singapore, they played to a sold-out crowd of about 5,000 people.
The fans came dressed in orange and carried orange lights, flags and placards. That has apparently been the official colour of the fanclub since 1998, when the six boys made their debut.
Eric Mun, Lee Min Woo, Kim Dong Wan, Shin Hye Sung, Jun Jin and Andy Lee are in their early 30s but they can still trigger frenzied screams and piercing chants simply by stepping on stage.
With their coordinated outfits and choreographed dance moves, Shinhwa – which means myth or legend – stuck close to the K-pop boyband playbook.
They made their entrance in white ensembles and then launched into dance number T.O.P, the Swan Lake-sampling title track off their second album from 1999. Over the two-hour-plus long concert, they performed songs from throughout their career.
They acted cute on Eusha! Eusha! from debut album Revolver (1998), pumped up the energy on Hey, Come On (2001) and grooved to the slinky R&B of Addiction (2003). But unfortunately, Shinhwa were none too impressive vocally. This seemed to be partly due to glitches with the sound equipment and Kim even went off stage more than once to get things fixed.
The group had a couple of rough patches and on Perfect Man (2002), pitching was far from perfect and it took a while for everyone to agree on the key.
Another source of frustration was the fact that the banter between songs was left untranslated. This was not an obstacle for a sizeable portion of the audience since understanding Korean is a mark of the true-blue K-pop fan.
But for the rest of the audience, the only thing that registered was the repeated reference to Singapore.
And also when Kim spoke in Mandarin, his lines were cheesy: “My girlfriend is beautiful. My girlfriend is all of you.”
But they worked on the female fans.
It may not have been the perfect comeback but it bodes well for the guys that the loudest cheers and most enthusiastic singalong segment were for the updated electropop of comeback single Venus.
Looks like Shinhwa’s “legend” has not hit its expiry date yet.
(ST)