Concerts Reviews
TWICE Kick Off the North American Leg of their THIS IS FOR World Tour With Two Hours of Joy in Vancouver
TWICE have spent the last decade growing from a bubbly K-pop rookie group into one of the most reliable live pop acts on the planet. Formed in 2015 through JYP Entertainment’s show Sixteen, the nine-member group (Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu) built their reputation on sharp choreography, sticky hooks, and a rare sense of longevity in an industry that moves fast. Their <THIS IS FOR> World Tour marks another big step, as their 10th Anniversary tour. Vancouver got the honour of opening the North American leg, with night one landing at Rogers Arena on January 9.
This show carried weight: it’s the first night of a new leg, first of two sold-out Vancouver dates, first time TWICE ever performed here. Or so they kept saying (more on that later).
Before the doors even opened, the sense of community hit hard. This was my first K-pop concert, and the concourse felt almost like a fan convention. ONCE (as TWICE fans are called) showed up early and prepared. Freebies were everywhere: fake Canadian bills printed with member faces, bracelets, banners, fake concert tickets as keepsakes. People traded gifts with strangers like it was normal, and it ruled. It reminded me of the exchange of bracelets at Taylor Swift’s shows.
Outfits ranged from full music video cosplay to subtle nods. Candy Bongs (TWICE’s lightstick) lit up the building in every direction. Someone even brought a giant inflatable Candy Bong that eventually made it onstage. Jihyo got her hands on it during “Scientist” and used it to whack her own members. No notes.
The lights dropped just after 8 p.m. “FOUR” played in the dark while Candy Bongs glowed across the arena. A massive 360-degree stage sat in the middle, with towering LED screens hanging above. The scale felt serious. TWICE rose into view and launched straight into “THIS IS FOR.” The scream from the crowd swallowed the mix.
Act I leaned heavy on confidence. “Strategy,” “MAKE ME GO,” “SET ME FREE,” and “I CAN’T STOP ME” landed clean and tight as this group moves with muscle memory built over ten years. The ments showed real excitement and a touch of nervousness. Kudos to the translator who helped both members and fans understanding each other as most members spoke mainly in Korean.
Act II raised the emotional stakes. “MARS” and “I GOT YOU” hit with warm vocals. “Gone” stood out for me, especially with the arrangement with the live band. Jihyo and Nayeon owned it. “CRY FOR ME” and “HELL IN HEAVEN” kept the intensity high. “RIGHT HAND GIRL” pulled huge cheers, proof that deep cuts still matter.
Then came the solos. This section turned the show into a full showcase. Tzuyu opened with “DIVE IN,” graceful and controlled. Mina followed with “STONE COLD.” Nayeon brought pop chaos with “MEEEEEE.” Jeongyeon surprised with “FIX A DRINK,” leaning into a country edge that somehow worked. The pink, glittery cowboy outfit was perfect for it. Dahyun played piano during “CHESS” and owned the room. Chaeyoung returned to the stage with “SHOOT (Firecracker),” and the welcome back energy was real. She had missed several dates earlier in the 1st leg of the tour, and you could feel the relief from then fans as the group back to OT9. Jihyo’s “ATM” confirmed what I already suspected. She has unreal stage presence and total command of the crowd. Sana softened the mood with “DECAFFEINATED.” Momo closed the solo run with “MOVE LIKE THAT,” pure movement and confidence.
Then it was time for the “TAKEDOWN” curveball. Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeyoung debuted it live on this tour, pulled from the Netflix hit K-Pop Demon Hunters. The arena lost its mind. I knew and loved the song going in, but I did not expect that reaction. The honmoon was clearly sealed after that performance.
Act IV was wall-to-wall hits. “FANCY,” “What Is Love?,” “YES or YES,” and “Dance the Night Away” turned the arena into a giant singalong. The fan dance cam kicked in before the encore and ONCE showed up prepared with sharp choreography.
The encore opened with “SCIENTIST,” another tour debut. Before the final song, the members talked again about Vancouver. Nine years ago, they filmed the “Likey” music video in Vancouver. That explained why they ended the show “LIKEY,” an unusual closer that was direct nod to the city. The crowd loved it and screamed the lyrics back at the members.
I walked in knowing only a handful of songs and very little about the members, and I walked out with a bias (Jihyo earned that spot without debate) and a smile on my face. More than that, I left understanding why TWICE have lasted this long. Here’s to ten more years!
Upcoming THIS IS FOR Tour Dates:
1/10 – Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC
1/13 – Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle, WA
1/14 – Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle, WA
1/17 – Oakland Arena – Oakland, CA
1/18 – Oakland Arena – Oakland, CA
1/21 – Kia Forum – Los Angeles, CA
1/22 – Kia Forum – Los Angeles, CA
1/24 – Kia Forum – Los Angeles, CA
1/25 – Kia Forum – Los Angeles, CA
1/28 – PHX Arena – Phoenix, AZ
1/31 – American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
2/01 – American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
2/13 – Capital One Arena – Washington, DC
2/14 – Capital One Arena – Washington, DC
2/18 – UBS Arena – Belmont Park, NY
2/20 – UBS Arena – Belmont Park, NY
2/21 – UBS Arena – Belmont Park, NY
2/24 – Xfinity Mobile Arena – Philadelphia, PA
2/27 – State Farm Arena – Atlanta, GA
3/03 – Bell Centre – Montreal, QC
3/06 – TD Coliseum – Hamilton, ON
3/07 – TD Coliseum – Hamilton, ON
3/27 – Kia Center – Orlando, FL
3/28 – Kia Center – Orlando, FL*
3/31 – Spectrum Center – Charlotte, NC
4/03 – TD Garden – Boston, MA
4/04 – TD Garden – Boston, MA
4/06 – United Center – Chicago, IL
4/07 – United Center – Chicago, IL
4/10 – Little Caesars Arena – Detroit, MI
4/12 – Grand Casino Arena – Saint Paul, MN
4/14 – Ball Arena – Denver, CO
4/17 – Moody Center – Austin, TX
4/18 – Moody Center – Austin, TX
5/09 – MEO Arena – Lisbon, PT
5/12 – Palau Sant Jordi – Barcelona, ES
5/16 – Accor Arena – Paris, FR
5/17 – Accor Arena – Paris, FR
5/20 – Inalpi Arena – Turin, IT
5/23 – Uber Arena – Berlin, DE
5/26 – LANXESS Arena – Cologne, DE
5/30 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, NL
5/31 – Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, NL
6/03 – The O2 – London, UK
6/04 – The O2 – London, UK
More information on the tour here.
Concerts Reviews
AC/DC Brings the Thunder to Vancouver with their ‘Power Up Tour’
There is a point where a band stops being simply a band and becomes part of the architecture of rock music. AC/DC crossed that line a long time ago.
At BC Place on August 13, the Australian hard-rock institution brought its Power Up Tour to Vancouver for a night built around the things AC/DC has spent more than five decades doing better than almost anyone: giant riffs, simple choruses, loud guitars and absolutely no interest in pretending it needs to be anything else.
The Pretty Reckless had the unenviable job of warming up a stadium full of people who had come primarily to see one band. Taylor Momsen and company handled it well. The band had already played BC Place with AC/DC the previous year, so the venue was familiar territory, and their dark, muscular rock gave the evening a harder modern edge before AC/DC took over.
Momsen remains a compelling frontwoman. She has the kind of voice that can go from a rough growl to something surprisingly controlled without losing its bite. The Pretty Reckless worked through songs including “Death by Rock and Roll,” “Follow Me Down,” “Make Me Wanna Die” and “Going to Hell,” making a solid case for their place on a tour where the headliner could easily swallow an opening act whole.
Then it was time for AC/DC. The opening notes of “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” were enough to make the point. There was no elaborate buildup or some cinematic explanation of what was about to happen. Angus Young walked out in his schoolboy uniform, picked up his Gibson SG and started playing.
That’s the AC/DC trick. They make the obvious feel good. Young is 71 now, and Brian Johnson is 78. Those numbers are hard to ignore for about five minutes. Then Young starts moving. He still has the strange, almost cartoonish physicality that has made him such an effective performer. The duckwalk remains intact. So does the ability to disappear into a guitar solo and somehow make a stadium watch one small figure instead of the enormous production surrounding him.
Johnson has changed more noticeably. His voice carries more wear than it did decades ago, and some of the higher passages have lost a bit of their old bite. Yet there is something fitting about hearing that weathered voice attack these songs now. “Back in Black” doesn’t need to sound exactly like the 1980 recording. Neither does “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Johnson sings them like someone who has lived with these songs for most of his adult life. The audience knows every word anyway.
“Thunderstruck” turned BC Place into a sea of raised arms. “Hells Bells” brought out the giant bell and all the expected theatrics. “Highway to Hell” needed almost no encouragement from the band; the crowd did most of the work. This is where AC/DC has an advantage over younger stadium acts. There is no learning curve ast hese songs have been sitting in people’s heads for decades.
The Power Up material, including “Demon Fire” and “Shot in the Dark,” fits into the set without disrupting its momentum. Still, the older songs are where the night really catches fire. “Shoot to Thrill,” “Sin City,” “High Voltage,” “Riff Raff” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” are simply too deeply embedded in the band’s history to compete with.
“Let There Be Rock” became Angus Young’s playground. His extended solo was indulgent and ridiculous, but that’s exactly what it needed to be. A shorter version might have been more sensible, but nobody came to AC/DC for sensible.
There is something almost refreshing about how little the band cares about reinvention. AC/DC has no new sound to unveil and no grand statement about where rock music is going next. It knows where it came from, knows what its audience wants and has decided that is enough.
By the time “T.N.T.” arrived, BC Place was already primed for the inevitable finale. Then came “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You),” with the cannons firing and the stadium turning into one enormous, deafening salute.
AC/DC isn’t trying to prove that it is still the future of rock. The band has become something more stubborn than that: a living reminder that a great riff doesn’t age nearly as quickly as the people playing it. Five decades in, Angus Young still wants you to turn it up. Vancouver was happy to oblige.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
Upcoming Power Up Tour Dates:
Thu Aug 27 Atlanta, GA Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Mon Aug 31 Houston, TX NRG Stadium
Fri Sep 04 South Bend, IN Notre Dame Stadium
Tue Sep 08 St. Louis, MO The Dome at America’s Center
Sat Sep 12 Montreal, QC Parc Jean-Drapeau
Wed Sep 16 Toronto, ON Rogers Stadium
Fri Sep 25 East Rutherford, NJ MetLife Stadium
Tue Sep 29 Philadelphia, PA Lincoln Financial Field
More information here.
AC/DC
THE PRETTY RECKLESS
All Photo Credit: Caroline Charruyer | @frogphotography
Concerts Reviews
IVE ‘Show What I Am’ Tour Lives Up to Its Name in Vancouver
A few months ago, I walked into Rogers Arena for my first K-pop concert. That show was TWICE’s This Is For Tour, and it was a bit of a crash course. I knew the group, knew some of the songs, but I was still trying to figure out what made a K-pop concert different from the rock and pop shows I had spent years photographing and reviewing.
Since then, I’ve done my homework. I’ve listened to more groups, learned more about the culture around K-pop, and started to understand why the relationship between a group and its fans is such a big part of the experience. So when IVE ended the North American leg of their Show What I Am Tour to Rogers Arena on August 9, I was much more prepared.
I still wasn’t an expert on IVE. I couldn’t have named every song going in, and I certainly wasn’t going to pretend I could match the DIVE fandom’s encyclopedic knowledge of the group. What I did have was curiosity, and by the end of the night, I had a much better idea of why IVE has become one of K-pop’s biggest fourth-generation girl groups.
IVE — An Yujin, Gaeul, Rei, Jang Wonyoung, Liz and Leeseo — has built its identity around confidence since debuting in 2021. The group’s catalogue includes some of K-pop’s biggest recent hits, including “LOVE DIVE,” “After LIKE,” “I AM,” “Kitsch” and “Baddie.” The Show What I Am Tour takes that idea of confidence and stretches it across a concert that deliberately gives each member room to stand on her own.
The show opens with a cinematic video sequence before the six members appear in black leather outfits, surrounded by dancers, lasers and sparks. “GOTCHA (Baddest Eros)” gets things moving before “XOXZ” and “Baddie” keep the momentum going. There is very little patience for a slow start here.
“ICE QUEEN” brings a more elegant edge, followed by “BLACKHOLE,” where the live band gives the song considerably more weight than its studio version. The band is one of the smartest choices in the production. The arrangements aren’t simply backing tracks played louder ; songs get extended instrumental sections, heavier percussion and moments where the musicians can actually breathe. It makes the show feel like a concert rather than a two-hour music video with a very large budget.
“TKO” brings the members down the runway for the first time, putting them much closer to the audience. “Holy Moly” follows, before “My Satisfaction” shifts the mood again with darker lighting, dancers and tight camera shots projected onto the arena screens (K-pop bands’ camera work really excels during live performance).
Then IVE breaks apart. The solo section is probably the strongest part of the show. Each member gets a chance to show a different side of herself, and the performances are different enough that the sequence never feels like six variations of the same idea. Wonyoung’s “8” is confident and controlled. Rei turns “In Your Heart” into a cute, playful Y2K-style performance. Liz’s “Unreal” strips things back and puts her vocals front and centre. Gaeul’s “Odd” is dreamy and understated before Leeseo completely changes the temperature with the hyperactive “Super ICY.” Yujin closes the sequence with “Force,” combining live vocals with demanding choreography before handing the stage over to the dancers.
For someone coming into the show without a deep knowledge of IVE, this was the section that made the group click for me. They are six distinct performers, not six interchangeable pieces of a larger machine.
The group eventually reunites for “♥beats,” changing into white outfits with angel wings and moving into a lighter part of the show. “WOW,” “Off The Record” and “FLU” lean heavily into fan interaction. There are waves, heart gestures, posing for cameras and plenty of moments where the members seem just as entertained by the audience as the audience is by them.
That connection is hard to miss. K-pop fans don’t just know the songs, they know the choreography, the members, the inside jokes and the tiny details. Watching thousands of people respond to the same cue at exactly the same time can feel slightly surreal when you’re still learning the language of the genre.
And then IVE brings out the big guns. “ATTITUDE,” “LOVE DIVE,” “REBEL HEART” and “I AM” arrive in quick succession, turning Rogers Arena into one enormous singalong. “I AM,” in particular, gets the kind of response you expect from a band playing its signature song.
“BANG BANG” follows, with the group teasing the crowd that it is the final song before an extended outro sends the members racing back across the stage.
Of course, it isn’t the final song. The first encore brings “Wild Bird” and a more relaxed version of IVE, with the members wearing tour merchandise and spending more time talking to the audience. Then comes another surprise: Wonyoung takes over a DJ booth for “Supernova Love,” the group’s collaboration with David Guetta. “Kitsch” follows, and then “After LIKE” closes the night with thousands of fans singing along.
I came into Rogers Arena knowing far less about IVE than the people sitting around me. I left with a much better understanding of the group, and more importantly, a better understanding of why K-pop concerts have become such a force.
The spectacle is impressive, but that isn’t what stuck with me. It was the personalities. Show What I Am works best when IVE stops trying to prove how big the production can be and simply lets the six members show what makes each of them different. The choreography is sharp, the live band adds real punch, and the production rarely sits still for long. But the biggest success is that the show gives fans plenty of reasons to feel like they are part of it.
A few months after my first K-pop concert, I’m still learning the names and catching up on the catalogue. I’m starting to get it, though. And IVE made a pretty convincing case for keeping up.
Upcoming IVE Show What I Am Tour dates:
Sept. 4 – Hong Kong – Asia World Arena
Sept. 5 – Hong Kong – Asia World Arena
Sept. 11 – Taipei, Taiwan – Taipei Arena
Sept. 12 – Taipei, Taiwan – Taipei Arena