I felt like it was only yesterday when I first heard the song “Ponytail” and said, “I really want to see this song performed live”. Fast forward a few years later, I finally got a chance to not only see it live but take a picture with the artist, while enjoying so many other memorable experiences and songs from him and his group. The artist is Yugyeom and he just recently embarked on his first-ever solo world tour with the first stop being in Toronto, Canada. In this detailed review, I will share my honest thoughts, what you can expect, and more about Yugyeom if you plan on seeing him in the near future! Before you read below make sure you follow me on social media (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook) as I post more concert/music content! For a preview of what you can expect, watch the video below!
About
Yugyeom is from Seoul, South Korea, and is the maknae (youngest) of the K-pop group, GOT7. I actually got to high-five and see his group member, BamBam, at his solo concert/fansign last year! As mentioned in my BamBam review I said I am a fairly new fan of GOT7 but I first came across some of the members’ solo music. The first is Jackson Wang, but my favorite has always been Yugyeom since his solo music is more K-R&B than K-pop.
K-R&B has a different vibe that is heavily influenced by Western R&B and hip-hop, and with Yugyeom’s music, I love his flow and how the songs are put together from the beats to the vibe and tone. Also, Yugyeom’s music style makes sense since he is very much a dancer, he even did a surprise tribute to the classic “Every Little Step” by Bobby Brown during the concert as seen above! My favourite songs from him are Ponytail, Love The Way, All Your Fault, 1 Minute, and Steppin. I have a strong feeling that his unreleased track (below) will also be on heavy rotation once it comes out! Ever since he released his song “Ponytail” I was an immediate fan and loved his style of music and then I realized he was best friends with BTS‘ JungKook and Seventeen’s Mingyu. Ironically, the person who did the Scotiabank Arena concert book reached out to me for my Seventeen pictures but ended up not even using it (maybe because I asked for compensation) because they used GOT7 pictures instead of Seventeen.
Tickets and Venue
The concert was held at Phoenix Concert Theatre located at 410 Sherbourne St, Toronto, ON. There is a Green P parking across but it gets full with some parking options nearby and also accessible via TTC. I would caution you to be alert in this area but in my experience that day I was fine and unbothered. This is not my first time at the theatre since I saw Logic back in 2016. The venue itself has hosted some legendary acts but it is not great because it is small, a lot of dust on the fans, and a bit unorganized with instructions when waiting outside and when collecting the VIP poster at the end of the show. I saw that some people were waiting from 8 a.m. and the lines suddenly switched between GA & VIP. We were waiting in the VIP line near 3 p.m. in the cold (but thankfully I got to sign the flag) and already the two lines were long then we were told to move to another line but eventually we were able to enter the venue at 5 p.m. as we got our VIP lanyards. There were general admission tickets for 72.50 and VIP for 225 I think. I will talk more about VIP below but we did get to enter the venue earlier and access merch but at the end, you are still in GA (although I did see some people had seated tickets) which gets cramped with overpriced water and no food available. I remember one of the security guards asked me how much VIP was because he said out of all the years he worked here there has never been a line big like this for VIP before.
Merchandise
In terms of merchandise I was a bit surprised with the options because it was very limited. Since it’s a solo tour I wasn’t surprised there were no lightsticks sold but was a bit surprised there were no signed albums like it was for Moonbyul’s first solo tour. The merch pricing was about what I usually see now ($55 for the t-shirt, $100 for the hoodie, $30 for a pack of photo cards). You can zoom in to the photo above and note these were Canadian prices so it might be cheaper in the States. Also, I do feel like the material for the hoodie and shirt is a bit soft and slim cut so might be best to measure it against you and possibly size up for a more comfortable fit.
VIP Experience + Soundcheck
This was my first ever VIP experience and my sister is the one who got the tickets because she did say that this is the cheapest and most accessible K-pop VIP experience we could get so I was really curious to see what would happen. We got informed the night before to arrive before 3:15 p.m. and wait in line as they let people in at 4:30. It was a bit delayed. Still, eventually we got in for 5 p.m. and after getting merch we were able to line up for a special photo op with Yugyeom which I think happened around 5:40 p.m. Yugyeom really is tall and was really nice. Still, like Fan Expo, these photos go by really fast and I really hope I didn’t blink! The soundcheck was from 6:15 p.m. until 6:45 p.m. and I think he performed about three songs while interacting with the fans a bit. The soundcheck was cool and I might post separate videos about that later on but one thing I wanted to note is that there was someone from behind who kept digging their phone into my back and eventually made their way beside me where they kept trying to have a conversation with Yugyeom with major koreaboo vibes during the soundcheck and eventually kept pushing people in front and around her. It’s really inappropriate and terrible that even at a K-pop concert you people need to be informed of basic manners and concert etiquette. Other than her, everything else about the soundcheck was fine and we eventually just left that spot and went further back to enjoy the concert.
Overall Performance
The concert started promptly at 8 p.m. and concluded at 9:25 p.m. (after the encore). I wasn’t sure if the start time and duration would be within an hour and a half but given that he has no VCRs and was performing in New York the next night, it makes sense. Yugyeom also had his AOMG label mate, DJ Wegun, perform with him in the background and also had a small DJ set while he changed which was also pretty good. Yugyeom truly exceeded my expectations with his stable live vocals to the incredible energy he had with his two dancers during the numerous dance breaks. Although I had my favourite songs like Ponytail prior to the concert, I appreciated even more songs after seeing them live because of the way he delivered them. I really do love his music and I hope he can get more attention and success from this tour because he does give it his all.
Also, during the encore stage where he performed the GOT7 classic, “Hard Carry” he also used water bottles to splash the crowd and although I felt like I was further away I did get soaked. Although I wish it was a different venue with more space, I am happy I finally got to see him live and be part of his first-ever North American solo concert. I do recommend you see him if you can and if there are seated seats then go for that but overall you won’t be disappointed with Yugyeom. Let me know if you attended, if you plan on seeing him, or if you wish can in the comments below and make sure to follow me on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook) as I post more K-pop and concert/music content!
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