SHINee Beyond Live International Fan Experience

On Sunday April 4th, Easter Sunday, at 3PM KST, SHINee hosted an online concert called "SHINee World: Beyond Live," which was their first concert since 2018. This concert was hosted through an app called VLive, which Korean celebrities use to host both planned and informal livestreams to connect with their fans. This service is especially pertinent in our current pandemic-stricken world. In-person concerts, fan meets, and performances are not possible now, so this platform allows artists to stay in touch. For an international "shawol" (what SHINee's fans are called), this has been a great solution. Because of SHINee's increased online presence, I get a better opportunity to engage, participate, and interact. And as an international fan, I got my first chance to "attend" a SHINee concert.

So, in case you didn't know, KST is 14 hours ahead of CST, where I live in the middle of the US. That means that I had to stay up until 1am and stay up until about 3:45am to enjoy the whole concert. The ticket was also not free. For about $43, fans got the chance to watch the livestreamed concert on up to 2 devices. There was access to multiple camera angles, so if you wanted to just focus on Minho you could. Finally, the ticket grants access to two delayed live streams, however the delayed streams would not have subtitle services. (Which I do not understand. You would think the delayed stream would have even better subtitles). So, was it worth it to stay up until almost 4am on Easter Sunday (when I had to be at church in the morning) and pay $43 to watch this virtual concert?

In a word, yes. I felt good about it. For one thing, I was actually able to split the ticket cost with another fan online. I simply shared access to my VLive account and they sent me half the cost via PayPal. So that took the cost down quite a bit. Additional value was added considering that the concert was approximately 2 and a half hours. My husband also stayed up to watch it with me. So for less than the cost of two movie tickets, we were entertained for two and a half hours and have the chance to watch it again.

The reason I was so amped up to watch this concert is the choreography tease for their song "Kiss Kiss" off their latest album.

This brief instagram video featuring Onew was the nail in the coffin for me deciding to buy the ticket.

The little shoulder shimmy and live vocals from my favorite song off the Don't Call Me album... Impeccable. I was in love. I also enjoyed live performances of other recent songs on their album, namely Attention, which was also very cute.

Other notable moments: A performance of Sherlock, a 2012 hit, which hit just as hard in 2021 with bombastic choreography. A throwback to Love Like Oxygen from their first full length album. A slowed-down version of their song Hello off their 2nd album repackage.

I also really enjoyed the "VCR" of their songs Chemistry (from the album Story of Light) and Kind (from Don't Call Me), which could be described as quasi-music videos that feature ethereal visuals.

Of course, perhaps the most impactful moment was the first-ever performance of their new title track for their 7th album repackage: Atlantis! It feels quite exclusive to have heard the new song before anyone else, as well as witness the choreography. I would love to be able to watch the performance again to form more of an opinion of the song and dance, but my initial reaction was pretty pleased and excited!

I also loved the costuming for the whole concert. Highlights included these outfits:

This look really reminded me of something Elvis Presley would wear, but more modern, young, and fresh.

I also liked this mint green matador look.

I found the costumes to be flashy and exciting as well as well-tailored and flattering.

That's not to say that the whole experience was perfect. In one of their performances, a song called Juliette from the 2nd mini album, Onew's microphone was off for part of it. And there seemed to be other audio issues during that song as well. They performed through the glitches well, but it was still a little disappointing. (At least it kind of proved that it really was live).

The subtitle service was also awful. The subtitles were really delayed and also obviously very abbreviated. Key would speak for forty five seconds and then the subtitle would say something like, "We're really excited to be performing a concert again after 3 years." Obviously, Key said more than that. The subtitles were mostly useless, but I still appreciated the effort. I wish that the delayed streams would have cleaned up and improved subtitles, but they will not.

I have one very, very minor complaint about the setlist. I really wished that they would have performed "Body Rhythm" and "Marry You" off of their latest album. However, Minho and Onew promised that they would perform "Body Rhythm" at a future time and they were saving that song for something else. I hope that it's true. And I'm not really that upset about "Marry You" because they already have a performance video of it from before the album was released. I also would have liked to see some solo performances, maybe while other members were backstage changing, but I understand that wasn't the point of a concert celebrating the reuniting of the members after three of them served mandatory military enlistment.

The final problem I had was one that just couldn't be helped. I really hate mentioning late member Jonghyun, as I don't want to keep dwelling on something sad. But this was kind of the first concert without Jonghyun's presence at all. At their last concert in 2018, I understand that they left Jonghyun's vocals in during their performance. This concert was different. Each song was fully adjusted with other members covering his lines and revised choreography. I think the performance that was most noticeably different was Everybody. During the original choreography, the members hold each other up for this kind of interesting floating running man effect, but now it is back-up dancers who hold the members up. In fact, the very beginning of the choreography is revised. Originally, the four other members launch Taemin into the air for a really cool landing. Now, it's the other three members plus some other guy (a back-up dancer). It's sad. I'm not bothered at all by watching SHINee's old content. I'm not bothered at all by the lack of Jonghyun in their new albums. However, watching SHINee perform old songs without him... That stings for some reason.

Overall, I really enjoyed this Beyond Live experience and I hope that simulcasts and livestreams become more commonplace in the future. There were over 100,000 online viewers from over 120 countries watching this concert, and I hope that success inspires more international access for SHINee fans in the future.