racoon pile

After performing in Sydney a couple of years ago, on a festival line up with The Boyz and Infinite, it was great to see NMIXX back again for a full concert - this time including a show in Melbourne, Lily's hometown. For this show at the Hordern, it was full though not totally sold out on this cold winter's night. On entry we were handed some freebies: an official poster and pc (I got Jiwoo), and a fan freebie with a bracelet.

The theme of the show was a science lab, which resulted in some utterly dorky and silly VCRs with the girls mixing up potions with themes such as "love" "rockstar" and "alpha" and drinking them because of an impending bomb or something. It made nil sense!

The show was a lot of fun, they are enjoyable performers and they have some great songs. Lily was so cute, Haewon charmed me (my concert bias!), they all had their moments on stage. The momentum of the show ebbed and flowed somewhat, partly due to an extended games ment, so the pacing could have been tightened up; and I do wish there were more recent songs.

Some moments:

• Lily said she cracked up during one song because Haewon made a silly face at her; and Haewon said she thought she was being cool.
  
• Lily taught Haewon to say "prawns on the barbie"
  
• The relay drawing game went on way too long. They did six drawings! SIX! That said it did have some cute moments:
  - Lily guessing kangaroo: "So easy! Well there is the other one but you wouldn't know that" (she meant wallaby). Bae was quite good at drawing.
  - They collectively drew the worst Sydney opera house good lord but it was cute that they tried to get everyone to sing opera
  - The word to guess was 'lawyer'. A mess. An audience member drew a picture for Sullyoon. Chaos
  
• For their cover, they did NCT's Kick It.
  
• At one point Haewon and Lily sang a bit from 4 Non-Blondes.
  
• Lily: we're 50 and you're 50 and you gave 100 so together we're 150 yay maths!
  
• When it was encore time, they walked around in the crowd which was a bad idea in this venue - there's no barriers between any sections, so people were leaving their seats on the floor and in the stands to rush over to them, it was total chaos. Do not recommend.
  
• In the encore they did cover of 5 Seconds to Summer's She Looks So Perfect which Lily said was an iconic Australian song for her generation lol.
  
• Lily got her Swiftie fanchant moment by getting the crowd to shout "Sydney!" ala Blank Space.
  
• Men were yelling at Sullyoon during her ment; she was like okay thanks…
  
• For Break the Wall they said wave your lightsticks, any lightstick is fine! They spotted a candybong in the crowd.
  
• For the finale they did neverending Home.
  
• A few Aussie phrases they left the stage with: you ripper, crikey, and of course Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi.

( setlist )

It was an absolutely pouring cats and dogs, windy cold rainy night, and the venue wasn't the easiest to get to - so I'm glad this show was enjoyable. EVNNE were very charming and funny, lots of banter, and they had fun stages, starting from some of their harder songs, then some sunnier and poppier ones in the middle and later. The racing-themed VCRs weren't that exciting but tbh I wasn't expecting them to even have VCRs so that was fine!

They had three unit stages: a rap stage with Keita and Jihoo; Hanbin, Junghyun and Jeonghyeon did a performance/dance stage; and Seungeon and Yunseo had a vocal stage. For their covers medley, they performed Enhypen's Sweet Venom, NCT 127's Walk, and Seventeen's Pretty U.

I didn't know the members going in, and could only recognise Hanbin. I can see why he's the centre and why he came so close to making ZB1 - he's charismatic and has star quality. Keita as the tiny leader was very charming and full of jokes, he made me laugh. I found it quite funny/cute that Jihoo (the maknae) was very wide-eyed boy through the whole show except when he was wearing a cap and rapping, when he became all swag. All of them had good banter and interactions with each other.

For the encore, they did the expected 3 songs, but then they stuck around to do another 3 songs, repeats of songs they had done earlier (Crown, Trouble, and one other I forget - Role Model I think). So I'm going to take that as they liked us, they really liked us…

What I did not realise was that every ticket had send-off, so at the end of the show we attempted to make our way out - only to be BLOCKED by a staff member who was adamant that none of us could leave before send-off. I had an early start the next day and the show was already running longer than I expected so I would've loved to go home! Instead I got a 10 second wave goodbye to them while the staff hustled us out the door lol. It was very funny!

Some random notes:

• One of the members complimented the coffee (ah he knows how to flatter Australians) and the weather (I do hope he meant Saturday because that Sunday, as mentioned, was DISMAL).
  
• One of the members mentioned Keita getting lazier with the choreo. Keita: "yes because I'm tired!"
  
• They did sexy ments, very cringey, with Seungeon pretending to show his abs. He said "Come back in two years" to see the real thing lol. Other member reactions to sexy ments time: "I don't even know why you guys like this" and "I want to go home."
  
• For encore, Hanbin came out wearing a koala headband - cute.
  
• A couple of members said "thanks heaps" and they did "Aussie Aussie Aussie" a couple of times lol.
  
• Surprisingly a lot of talk about coming back again to Australia.