Screaming fans, knee-high white boots, costume change after costume change, and coordinated dance moves.<\/p>\n
This is what you will see at a show put on by K-pop girl group Twice.<\/p>\n
“This year is their 10th anniversary,” said Sarah Keith, a senior lecturer in media at Macquarie University, specialising in music, globalisation and technology, with a specific interest in K-pop.<\/p>\n
“They’re no longer a new group, but they’re old enough to have accumulated a whole lot of fans, and they haven’t had any major scandals or group line-up changes.<\/p>\n
“So, they’re kind of at their peak of popularity.”<\/p>\n
The South Korean girl group, which debuted in 2015 after each member competed in a music competition-survival show, kicked off its Sydney concert on Sunday with the song This is For from their album and tour of the same name.<\/p>\n
It followed this up with the track Strategy, which is featured on the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack \u2014 the highest-charting soundtrack of the year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
KPop Demon Hunters was a global smash hit. (Supplied: Netflix)<\/p>\n
The animated movie, which premiered on Netflix in June, has been viewed more than 325.1 million times and is the streaming platform’s most popular movie.<\/p>\n
“[It] is a big global coup for them, and it might have even gotten them some new fans,” Dr Keith said.<\/p>\n
“There may be some people in the audience who have found the group through that soundtrack.<\/p>\n
“So, I think they’re really riding high at the moment, being one of the top well-established K-pop groups.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sarah Keith says Twice is at its peak of popularity. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Concertgoer Rafael believes people who were on the fence about K-pop became converts after seeing the movie.<\/p>\n
“I think it got a lot more people interested in K-pop,” Rafael said.<\/p>\n
“After watching the movie and listening to the songs, they are more inclined to actually learn more about K-pop.”<\/p>\n
Rafael has been a K-pop fan since he was eight and was seeing Twice live for the second time after previously seeing them perform in Singapore.<\/p>\n
“I really enjoy their stage presence,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jasmine, Marcia and Rafael (left to right) had a great time at the Twice concert in Sydney on Sunday, October 2. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Marcia is not usually a fan of big crowds, and it was her first K-pop concert.<\/p>\n
“I’m very glad that I gave my first time K-pop concert to Twice, because it’s really, really worth it,” Marcia said.<\/p>\n
As a dancer, she thought the choreography was exceptional.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s 1,000 over 100 because it was really good and it was really energetic and I can’t believe that they’ve been dancing and singing for more than two hours,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s really, really impressive.”<\/p>\n
It was also Jasmine’s first K-pop concert.<\/p>\n
“I’m so wowed by the dancing and singing,” Jasmine said.<\/p>\n
“And actually, I’m not supposed to be here cos I have a final tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“But I’m glad I came. It’s worth it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Twice fans are known as Once. (Supplied: JYP Entertainment\/Jess Gleeson)<\/p>\n
Twice was at times joined by dancers on the 360-degree stage, with their set list including songs such as Options, Mars, Right Hand Girl, Hell in Heaven, The Feels, Moonlight Sunrise, Me+You, and Talk that Talk.<\/p>\n
Excited fans \u2014 referred to as Once \u2014 brandished light sticks and reacted enthusiastically to every move made on stage \u2014 even cheering prior to the show starting when a member of the stage crew appeared.<\/p>\n
Twice has explained the meaning of their fandom name (Once) in a social media post saying: “If you love us even once, we’ll repay you with Twice our love.”<\/p>\n
The nine-member group consists of Jihyo, Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu.<\/p>\n
Chaeyoung was missing from the line-up at Sunday’s show and was away the previous night too due to health reasons, believed to be the flu, with JYP Entertainment saying she needed to “prioritise her recovery and well-being”.<\/p>\n
It has confirmed she will not be at the upcoming Melbourne shows this weekend.<\/p>\n
A ‘truly multinational’ group<\/p>\n
Dr Keith said Twice was a truly multinational group, and this was reflected in their fan base.<\/p>\n
“For at least 20 years, K-pop has been in the process of putting together these multinational groups,” Dr Keith said.<\/p>\n
“Some of the earliest experiments were bringing in Chinese members into K-pop groups, also Korean American members into K-pop groups, and Twice is obviously a multinational group with Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese members.<\/p>\n
“We’re seeing more and more of these multinational groups being formed because, of course, if you have a multinational group, there are members who can speak multiple languages fluently and that helps them connect with these global fans.”<\/p>\n
While some of what was said on stage had to be translated, there were no translations necessary when a member of the group greeted fans with “g’day mate” and when a group member chanted “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie,” with the audience quickly responding with an “oi, oi, oi”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Twice debuted in 2015. (Supplied: JYP Entertainment)<\/p>\n
Dr Keith said there were a lot of K-pop fans in Australia, but staging a concert here carried risks given the country’s small population spread across a vast landscape.<\/p>\n
“Compare this to a place like Jakarta, Indonesia, which is one city that is about the size of Australia [in the larger metropolitan area],” Dr Keith said.<\/p>\n
“Basically, the concert is guaranteed to sell out there and you might have people coming from all over the country to go to the concert.<\/p>\n
“Ultimately, it is quite remarkable that K-pop groups come to Australia for concerts given how small the market is, which I think is maybe a reflection of the size of the K-pop audience in Australia.<\/p>\n
“Because we’re a country that consumes popular culture from overseas.”<\/p>\n
Twice’s global impact is reflected in milestones such as topping the Billboard 200 charts and amassing more than 20 million cumulative album sales across Korea and Japan alone.<\/p>\n
The group won the Breakthrough Award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards and has collaborated with the likes of Coldplay and Megan Thee Stallion.<\/p>\n
Next stop on its This is For tour is Melbourne this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screaming fans, knee-high white boots, costume change after costume change, and coordinated dance moves. This is what you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,9975,154621,154622,154623,77200,154619,154620],"class_list":{"0":"post-263838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-k-pop","12":"tag-sarah-keith","13":"tag-sydney-melbourne-concerns","14":"tag-this-is-for-tour","15":"tag-twice","16":"tag-twice-concert","17":"tag-twice-show"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}