K-Pop Journalist. Online Editor.
Iconic South Korean boy band Super Junior is heading to Saudi Arabia in July. The K-Pop sensation will stage their first ever concert in the country on July 12 and 13 at Al Johara stadium. Jeddah Season announced the news on social media with a …
K-Pop’s high-quality earworm songs, sharp choreography and charismatic performers have experienced a boom of global interest, spearheaded by record-breaking boyband BTS. But the focus on ….
K-Pop boy band Imfact gave their UAE fans a day to remember at their concert in Dubai on Saturday.
The ‘maknae’, or youngest member, Ungjae told Gulf News tabloid! in an interview days before their performance that they’re “much more energetic and powerful on the stage” and the band didn’t fail to deliver on this claim.
Imfact gave an impactful performance with in-synch dance moves, genre-hopping tunes and an audience that engulfed the auditorium of the American University in Dubai with non-stop cheers.
Just after instrumental Korean band Sopung ended their performance, ardent Imfact fans responded instantly to a brief clip on screen introducing members Lee Sang, Jian, Jeup, Ungjae and Taeho. But it wasn’t until the opening song ‘Nanana’ and the appearance of the quintet one by one in colour-coordinated black and white outfits that the young crowd got really hyped up.
Performing a repertoire of tunes such as ‘Only U’, ‘Lollipop’, as well as a cover of Mamamoo’s ‘Starry Night’, Imfact lit up the stage, and their fans, referred to as IFs, did the rest.
“We didn’t expect this kind of reaction from the fans before we came here,” Lee Sang said after their performance. “The reaction was really great and we had fun together with them while we were performing. We enjoyed the performance today [Saturday].”
When it comes to K-Pop fans, language is never an obstacle. The quintet took a little break between performances to introduce themselves in Arabic, an admirable effort that got the audience overjoyed.
The band’s main vocalist Jeup is known to be a fan of calligraphy. Asked if he ever took an interest in Arabic calligraphy he said: “I haven’t tried it myself or looked into it, but I’ve seen the English calligraphy in kind of Arabic style. My fans also gave Arabic calligraphy to me, so I only saw those.”
In attempt to get closer with fans, each member handpicked one of multiple colourful sticky notes filled with questions written by fans, and invited them individually on stage to personally present them with a gift.
The members revealed on stage that they are working on new music and hope to come back to the UAE. What’s left on their list is their official fandom colour, which IFs have been wondering about.
Ungjae said backstage that they really want to announce it and it might take a while, but “hopefully soon”.
To deafening cheers from admirers holding glowing light sticks and banners, the members returned to the stage for an encore performance. Some of the members even stepped off the stage to join IFs before bidding farewell.
Imfact can do little wrong by their fans right now and they are determined to make an impact locally and globally with their music.
The five-piece act is arguably a K-Pop band on the rise. They held a European tour and become the first K-Pop group to take the stage in Greece.
Having debuted in 2016, Jian, the leader of the group, shared that no particular member has changed since then but it’s been all about “growth”.
“We feel that we’ve become more enthusiastic and we’re putting more effort than we first started,” he said.
He added that although their European tour was only 10 days, even during that time they could see that they were growing and putting in more effort artistically.
Don’t miss it!
Imfact will perform again on April 29 at 4pm at HCT Dubai Women’s Campus. It’s a free event but pre-registration is required.
Client: Gulf News tabloid!
Images by Clint Egbert/Gulf News
The world of K-Pop is more interesting than ever. The increasingly competitive K-Pop industry is filled with a growing wave of young talent vying to make it to the top. Among them is IMFACT who seem ….
Singers Roy Kim and Eddy Kim have confessed to distributing illegally taken photos and former FT Island member Choi Jong-hoon admitted to illegally filming obscene footage. The media was reportedly shared on a KakaoTalk group chat room that other K-Pop stars were also members of. …
Singer Seungri has been charged with illegal distribution of pornography after he admitted to participating in the circulation of hidden camera footage without consent.
On March 28, the Seoul National Police Agency confirmed that the former Big Bang member has been booked for the criminal charges. However, he has reportedly denied filming the footage himself but says he just shared it after receiving it from someone else. The police are currently checking who filmed the footage.
Coined the Great Gatsby of Korea for his taste for the high life, Seungri is also under investigation for prostitution mediation, drugs, tax evasion and police collusion related to the crime-riddled night club Burning Sun, where he was a public relations director, in the posh Gangnam district.
Though he denied the allegations and made a grovelling public apology, Seungri announced his retirement from the entertainment industry to fight the charges and spare his management agency YG Entertainment and group Big Bang from further embarrassment.
As the scandal continues to widen, the label has ended sale of merchandise related to Seungri and major Korean broadcasters stopped their VOD (video on demand) content for both the former Big Bang member and singer Jung Joon-young, who is also in the centre of the scandal.
In related news, Korean news outlet Newsdesk reported that Jung’s controversial group chatrooms, where he distributed secretly filmed sex clips, had 14 members in total with eight reported to be singers. The conversation reportedly included misogynistic messages and conversations discussing blackmailing the women with the footage.
According to the media report, Jung, Seungri, former FT Island member Choi Jong-hoon and former Highlight bandmate Yong Jun-hyung, with a further four unnamed singers were in the chatroom.
Seungri reportedly told the members: “We’re in trouble. Change your phones.”
Client: Gulf News tabloid!
It’s arguably one of the biggest scandals that upended the South Korean entertainment industry and the country. A series of investigations into corrupt and illicit activities in the nightlife and entertainment industries and possibly police corruption, have been reportedly revealed among multiple high-profiled Korean entertainers. …
It’s hard to deny that there’s a growing appetite for K-Pop in the UAE. The screams of young fans filling the air and the fast-rising group Momoland holding their first UAE concert at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium on Friday speaks for itself. Who …
There’s definitely something charming about Momoland. The South Korean group brought the K-Pop fever to the UAE in the new year, much to the excitement of their UAE-based fans.
The nine-piece act will kick off 2019 and their world tour by making their Middle East debut tonight, January 4, at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium.
Ahead of their January 4 gig, Momoland sat for a press conference at Roxy Cinemas City Walk on the day of their arrival, clad in coordinated black and red outfits, greeting the media and fans in their own signature group introduction.
The all-girls group spoke about the meaning behind the act’s name, member JooE’s learning experience on the Korean military variety show ‘Real Men 300’, and the places they’d like to visit in Dubai during their brief stopover.
Last year was a game-changing one for K-Pop in the UAE. Following a domestic growing interest in the Korean global phenomenon, Dubai rang in the new year with a new K-Pop act. Rookie boy band Lucente is in town as the opening act for the …