Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
When most of us think of KNK, we think about long legs and fresh incredibly attractive faces. Their rather odd concept revolves around a lot of talk of their height and tends to drive people to think they are a gimmick group with nothing else to sustain them, but they’ve successfully worked to prove they’re much more than that.
Even though they’ve lost a member, gained a member, and hung in the balance of their unstable parent company only to sign with a new company this year, KNK has continued to drop bop after bop. When My Music Taste announced that Tinkerbells successfully funded (via ticket presales) a KNK Tour in the US, I practically begged IAFTB to let me cover them! And fortunately enough for me, he and MMT agreed.
The Lonely Night Tour kicked off at the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles with a surprisingly large crowd. Two lines wrapped around the block, the VIP line being equally as dense as the general admission line. Press was not only granted access to the pit, but we were also allowed to shoot a few songs from a gorgeous vintage balcony that gave me a world of nostalgic feels.
The lights dimmed low and the boys stepped out to nothing but the shimmer of the massive disco balls that hung above the audience. Jihun, Seoham, Heejun, Inseong, and Dongwon positioned themselves center stage and proceeded to absolutely blow our collective minds.
Not only could these guys dance phenomenally, but they could sing while doing it. They proved this to us time and time again as they performed the entire concert live mic’d for us to hear every glorious note. I’m not gonna lie … I was totally floored. They they performed a solid 20 songs, including “Lonely Night“, “Feel So Good“, “Day By Day“, “Gone“, “Back Again“, a beautiful rendition of “As Long As You Love Me“, “Day N’ Night“, and “Tonight“.
Of course that wasn’t all. They got about nine songs in before they decided to surprise the audience with a special dance stage, in which KNK got down to the nitty gritty and performed “THE EVE” by EXO, which lead the entire audience to erupt into heated screams. The performance was so hot you could see the steam rise in the room!
KNK didn’t stop there. They chatted it up with the crowd and even called numbers given on special ticket flyers given to the audience at the door, giving away special gifts to lucky members of the audience. The generosity was refreshing, especially after seeing the massive pile of gifts MMT had collected at the front of the venue for the group from fans.
It was a nice little treat as they did dances, told dad jokes of the highest quality, and found themselves shocked at the level of hype from the crowd. They talked about being so excited and humbled by the fans (Tinkerbells) bringing them out on this tour and were very thankful for the support even with everything they’ve been through. They were excited to finally be in LA and to see such a large boisterous crowd, who screamed and cheered to the members delight. I don’t know what they were expecting, but often times groups come to the US and experience a completely different type of fan. Fans who are more free, loud, and maybe a bit wild. They love it and KNK expressed that love on stage talking about how they couldn’t believe that there were so many fans excited to see them.
They continued to wow the audience with more live singing and dancing, and ended the show on a high note with “Think About You“. They came out on stage for their encore in over-sized pink hoodies (that sold out minutes after the doors had opened to my frustration) and hopped around the stage goofily while collecting custom made pickets from fans and stuffed animals being thrown at them onto the stage. They then said one final thank you, and exited.
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I bought myself a KNK shirt because they were weirdly soft and I couldn’t pass that up. I walked out of the Globe Theatre suddenly feeling very much like I was going to have to make room in my life for another K-pop group because KNK was moving in.
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Thank you to My Music Taste for allowing Asian Junkie to be a part of this event. It was fantastically organized and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience.
