IVE World Tour : SHOW WHAT I AM

Part 1.

On 20 June, IVE brought their world tour, SHOW WHAT I AM, to Spark Arena in Auckland. The girls have loved this group for years, ever since Korea, so the moment we heard the news we booked tickets straightaway. To think we'd be seeing them here in Auckland, when the shows back home had always been so hard to get into. The girls had been buzzing for months, and as the day drew closer they could hardly contain themselves.

The show started at seven. We headed out early, dropped Jin at a close friend's place, parked at a Park and Ride and caught the bus. Up the front on the top deck of the double-decker, Min and Hyun delighted in the strange new view, and lit up when the Sky Tower came into sight in the distance. Spark Arena, about fifteen minutes' walk away, was already thick with people when we arrived. We had an early dinner nearby, and at the merch truck the girls each bought the lightstick and keyring they'd been longing for ($100 for the lightstick, $25 for the keyring).

As seven drew near, the bag checks began. My bag — packed with water for the girls and this and that, just in case — had to go to the coat check. We'd queued a little before six, but it was only at seven that the gates finally opened. They were selling burgers, chicken and chips inside, so we just grabbed the girls a drink and some lollies. The drinks came with the caps taken off, which made it awkward the whole way through the show.

Part 2.

Then, at last, the lights went down. A vivid red glowed up on the stage screen, and as music that seemed to pound through your chest swelled, the curtain rose and IVE appeared. In their striking black outfits, the group set the whole arena alight in an instant. Still new to the ways of a concert, the girls didn't cheer — they just gazed, spellbound, unable to take their eyes off their favourites.

From those slight frames came voices of such presence that they filled the entire arena. Only after three or four songs back to back did IVE finally turn to greet the crowd. Our seats were to the right of the stage, not so far that we couldn't see their faces clearly. Lovely as they'd been on screen, they were even more dazzling met without a lens in between.

The show opened with their more recent songs, then moved into a string of short solo stages, each member drawing out her own charm to the fullest. As the night went on, the set turned to songs my own ear knew, the well-known ones. Carried along by the music, by the roar that broke out at the end of each song, I felt buried in the sheer scale of the energy.

Then, at last, the finale — though, as these things go, an encore was waiting in the wings. Min, counting off on her fingers the signature songs they hadn't played yet, was sure they'd bring out this one and this one too. Before the encore came a dance screen event in the interval. A song's choreography played up on the screen while a camera worked the crowd, and whoever it landed on danced the moves on the spot. With each new song, the people caught on camera — whatever their age or gender — danced with the happiest faces. A great big man; a girl who looked about Hyun's age; a clutch of glammed-up young women in their early twenties; a few who, going by the merch they carried, were surely IVE's most devoted fans — every one of them scattered a bright, shining joy.

Changed into something more relaxed, IVE came back out for an encore made up — just as Min had predicted — of their best-known songs: After Like, Kitsch and the rest. Here, in a place they'd reached after flying half a day across the world, surrounded by their own shining fans, they waved and met eyes and gave their thanks, over and over and over — and the girls took every moment of it in.

The show, having started past eight, finished after ten. We collected the bag, walked back and caught the bus, picked up Jin — fast asleep at our friend's place — and got home past midnight. Worn out as they were, the girls were each too wound up to sleep, and sleep was a long time coming.