Purple Kiss Festa Tour Review
My wife, Celina, and I were able to squeeze in one last concert for the year, and a very exciting one at that, her favorite current girl group, Purple Kiss! Luckily, our interests overlap in this group. I think PurKi has one of the strongest and most diverse discographies in kpop, so I was more than happy to have fun with this one. Oh, and have fun we did, we went a little more all out than we usually do, getting a fan sign, and a selfie picture each as well. I’ll work through the event in order.
It started with the fan sign, this was where most of the people in the venue stood in line seeing idols really up close for the first time going “wow, they’re so much prettier up close how is this possible?” Celina and I were no exception to that, muttering the same to each other as we advanced as well. Once you get to the signing it moves fast, the members take the signing object, say thank you as they do an elaborate signature like it’s writing the simplest thing in the world, and then you move to the next one. The whole moment lasts maybe 15 to 20 seconds. So, while the memory of it isn’t particularly clear, the signatures do last, and now we have two very cool signed albums. I would say this is absolutely worth it if you like the group and/or enjoy getting really cool display pieces, great experience.
Next up were the photos with the group, 10 fans at a time stand behind the group for a picture. This would have been much more exciting prior to the fansign, but due to being less personal, it’s impact was diminished, probably cool if you aren’t getting anything signed or a selfie photo, but definitely the least of the group interaction experiences.
Luckily, the next thing was the sound check which was really fun, the group did a few songs, there were strict rules against recording which stopped people from blocking each other’s views with their phones, and it felt loose and fun. I think the show stealer here was Swan, because between the songs she was just goofing off with the crowd constantly, interacting, asking questions, answering people’s shouted out questions and comments, and generally just being as charming as can be. Sound check is great, and I’d love to do it for more groups that I enjoy. After this there was a decent break, around an hour before early entry for people that didn’t have access to the first few events, we grabbed our merch at this point and found a local restaurant to eat lunch at to stay fueled up for the actual concert.
Speaking of, the actual concert was great, we were at the back of the people who had that super early entry tier, and it was still way closer than we had ever been, no concert was ever so clear. I also love standing venues over assigned seating, the energy is better, and you get the freedom of being more open in the back, although we were close enough where we were very much in the crowd, but the show was so good my social anxiety only spiked a little. PurKi are great performers and singers, they managed to mostly stick to choreo during songs and still feel fairly loose and stage-filling, which isn’t always the case. Nobody stood out because they were all so great that it felt like a group wide elevated performance. The ones who caught my eyes the most personally though were definitely Dosie and Ireh, who also did a lot of the work of covering Yuki’s parts, as she was absent due to El7up activities. My only possible critique of the concert was the lack of Autopilot and Cast Pearls Before Swines, which are my 2nd and 3rd favorite songs of theirs behind Zombie. The whole concert flow was also really good, there was basically no dead time at all, members would change in parts while subunits performed or just chatted with the audience on stage, I prefer the constant action that the video segments that most groups have taken to using.
So, shows over, but there’s still a few more things to do, namely, the high-touch, the selfies, and the solo with group photos, the last of which we didn’t do. The high-touch was like the fansign on steroids, instead of 15 seconds, it’s 2-3, you just high five a bunch of people who have just high fived a bunch of people and the memory is so fast that it’s gone before you get in the selfie line. I don’t really think high touch is worth it when it’s so abrupt unless you aren’t doing any of the other group interactions. Plus, that’s way too much human contact for my taste, making me want to wash my hands ASAP.
The selfie on the other hand, maybe the most special of the events to me, because, like the fansign, you get something that you can keep forever, even when your memory fails you. For this part you had to buy redeemable tokens when you bought tickets, 1 token gets you a picture with 1 member. Shout out to the people who can buy all the tokens first of all, that’s got to be a bunch of fun, but for us, we just got one each. Celina was able to get her picture with Swan, who has been one of her favorite idols since her pre-debut content came out. Meanwhile I had suddenly realized that I wished I had two tokens, because I planned to take a picture with Ireh originally, but realized as we were there that I also wanted one with Dosie. I only had one though, and I’m Ireh biased, so the decision was clear. Honestly, I was so nervous taking the selfie, I have pretty extreme social anxiety, concerts push me a lot and this was so much more than the normal concert experience. So, as it was my turn and I walked towards her, Ireh said “what pose” to which I, being extremely cool, said “what was that?” I legit hadn’t heard her past my own brain going nuts, luckily her repeat of “what pose” got through the second time, and we took a pretty awesome selfie. What’s funny is that this is made more embarrassing by the fact that we had a similar interaction during the signing where I didn’t hear her past my brain freaking out, that’s right, I did it twice. Sorry for my awkwardness Ireh, thirty years of life is not enough for people with social anxiety to get their composure together apparently.
My final answer to the question of pose was “make a heart?”
And that was the end of our experience. To be frank, it was so cool, I woke up the next day and checked the selfie and was like “that was awesome” and I already have the album I got signed on display in my office so that I can turn around in my chair and just look at it. I think if you love a group, a fansign and a selfie is absolutely amazing. I would recommend it if the experience doesn’t break the bank, which for many groups, it does. Luckily, PurKi was a great exception for us in that regard, and I’m so happy we went for it. As a concert, this was top tier, as an experience, it was the best concert I’ve ever been to, and some of the coolest memories I now have.
