Enhypen, a 7-member K-pop boy group, ended their first U.S tour on Oct. 15 in Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Before the venue opened the doors, the excitement-fueled fans waited in line as people handed out free photo cards and slogan banners.
Starting off the concert with their debut song, “Given Taken,” they grabbed the fans’ attention instantly with intricate choreography as well as the emotion tied to this song when it first came out in 2020. Cheers and chants filled the theater.
After the first two songs, the members took a moment to introduce themselves to the New York audience, expressing their feelings of happiness and how this was going to be a night that they would never forget. When the Korean-Australian member, Sim Jaeyun “Jake,” mentioned how today is a big day for Lee Hee Seung, the audience collectively began to sing “Happy Birthday” to Lee.
Although this was their first tour, it was impressive to hear how stable the band’s voices were while executing strenuous dance moves and to see how confident and poised they were in their performance. Of the 21 songs they performed, 19 had their own complex and arduous choreography. The setlist included most of their hit songs from their discography, with the inclusion of all of the songs from their latest EP “Manifesto Day: 1” and their first album, “Dimension: Dilemma.” It was striking to see how Enhypen is able to execute each move sharply without even the slightest misstep.
Even though Enhypen sings a majority of their songs in Korean, it was astounding to see the crowd of 6,000 sing along to both Korean and English lyrics. Fans, fondly nicknamed Engenes, sang the entire song “Polaroid Love,” a cutesy pop song with catchy lyrics, with the members. During that song, the members went into the orchestra aisles and took videos and pictures to connect with the audience.
Engenes brought a member, Sunoo, to tears as they chanted his name while he was talking about how much the fans mean to him and how grateful he is that he is able to pursue his dreams due to them. For the encore, the entire crowd sang along with the members to the chorus of their song “Shout Out” as confetti shot out of cannons, coating the audience members with colorful pieces of paper. By this point, the members had been performing for almost three hours, yet their energy remained high as they kept dancing around the stage and engaging with the audience.
After supposedly performing their last encore song, “Future Perfect (Pass the Mic)” and singing “Happy Birthday” to Lee one last time after a fan threw him a birthday cake hat, they waved to the audience, bowing to say their last farewell. As they were leaving the stage and confetti was falling down, one member exclaimed that they were doing one more song, “Go Big or Go Home,” shocking the audience. The surprise double encore invigorated the crowd and they began to scream and sing louder than before.
As an LED screen descended from the ceiling hiding the members behind the title of the tour, “Manifesto,” a bittersweet feeling swept across the exhausted crowd. The concert officially ended with a glimmer of hope as Enhypen promised to be “back on stage soon in NYC!”
Enhypen continues their world “Manifesto” tour with performances in Aichi on Nov. 1 and 2, Osaka on Nov. 9 and 10 and Kanagawa on Nov. 15 and 16, with more to come.
