Rhapsodies in red

MORE THAN 5,000 people crammed into Thunder Dome last Saturday for “Redmare in Bangkok”, Red Velvet’s first-ever concert in Thailand. 
As the name suggested, the show was a dream of fantasy, mystery and music all brought to the audience by the five Red Velvet girls – Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy and Yeri. 
“It would be like going into different worlds inside a theme park,” said the band’s leader Irene at the earlier press conference. And if that were not enough to excite Red Velvet’s fans, Seulgi added, “There will be fantasy, horror, and more”. 

Red Velvet greets their fans at the Thunder Dome.

Like all followers of K-pop outfits, Red Velvet’s fans have their own name – in this case Reveluv – and they had been waiting for this Red Velvet concert since their favourite girl group made its debut in South Korea in 2014. The girls captured world attention earlier this year when foreign news crews filmed part of their performance in Pyongyang in front of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. 
Redmare in Bangkok was a sold-out event, with all seats in the Thunder Dome filled and every square inch of the standing zones taken. 
Fans who managed to get hold of a ticket in time enjoyed some wonderful experiences. Every minute of the concert was great, as the girls put themselves wholly into entertaining the crowd. 
The show started at 5pm sharp, opening with a VCR showing Red Velvet bumping into a robot at a theme park. Identified later as “Reve” (the French word for dream), it was a prominent part of the stage background and quickly introduced Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy and Yeri to the adoring crowd.

The Parade episode of Redmare in Bangkok

Dressed in white tops and red skirts, the Red Velvet girls started their performance with a cool rendition of “Russian Roulette”. The bright mood continued with “Power Up” and “Cookie Jar”, sending Reveluvs rolling with joy. 
After singing three numbers in a row, the lively girls moved to the centre of the stage to greet their fans, drawing loud cheers with their few phrases of Thai including sawasdee kha. And even though they had to speak via an interpreter for most of the conversation, their happiness at receiving such a warm response from Thai fans was clear. 
The girls then walked closer to the audience, melting the hearts of spectators in the standing zones. 
Then came the tune of the remixed “My Second Date” with the five singers showing off their cool dance steps one by one. The momentum continued with “Mosquito” and “Look”, the latter number closing out the Fantasy Adventure segment. 
The main stage then fell dark, as another clip appeared on giant screens and revealed four of the group being cornered by safari-costumed men. 
Fortunately Joy was on stage to rescue her pals and as the lights came on once again, the five swung into “Mr E”, “Zoo”, and “Happiness”. Fans went wild as the opening bars of “Hit and Drum” blared out, bringing an ecstatic end to the Amazon episode. 

Irene, the leader of Red Velvet, stuns the audience with her beauty.

Another clip showed Irene concocting and feeding magic potions to her fellow band members, with some becoming dwarfs and others turning into giants. 
The next episode “Parade” saw all five Red Velvets dressed in fluffy flowery costumes, stealing hearts as they sang “Lucky Girl”, “Bad Dracula” and “All right”. 
Then, it was time for another chat with the fans, and here they invited the audience to guess the animal each singer had chosen to represent in the previous episode. The puzzle turned out to be hard to solve but quickly became clear when the girls identified themselves –Joy as a chick, Seulgi a bear, Yeri a unicorn, Wendy a puppy and Irene a rabbit. 
And to the delight of the Reveluv, the girls revealed they loved many things about Thailand, especially Thai food and Thai massage.

 Seulgi draws the first draft of Reve robot, which sits at the heart of Redmare.

 

Red Velvet then swung into “Blue Lemonade” and “About Love”, and as they brought the Parade segment to an end with “Moonlight Melody”, Thunder Dome suddenly glittered with lights, characters, and a heart symbol showing the love Reveluv have for Red Velvet”.
Irene was moved to tears while the other girls beamed with happiness.
Horror Adventure was the theme of the next episode and opened with a clip showing Red Velvet inside a Haunted Mansion. The girls returned to stage dressed all in black performing the hip-hop number “Bad Boy” and their much-loved hit “Peek-A-Boo”. 
The screams reached their highest level when the girls danced like robots to the tune of a remixed “Dumb Dumb”. 
Suelgi then answered the question on everyone’s mind – why the robot? The bot apparently was at the heart of the concert’s concept and she herself drew the first draft. Yeri then named it “Reve”, because its sound resonated with the term for Red Velvet’s fans – Reveluv – and its meaning went well with the “Fantasy” segment, an integral part of Redmare. 
With time marching on and only two songs left to go, Red Velvet again expressed their thanks to the audience and wasted no time in moving into performance mode for “Red Flavour” and “Rookie”
The ear-splitting cheers and screams carried on long after Red Velvet had waved goodbye and disappeared from the stage, leaving them little choice but to return, this time with a clip showing Irene waking up her fellow band members and revealing that she herself was Reve. 

Reveluvs turn Thunder Dome into a message of love for Red Velvet.

The girl group then performed “Ice Cream Cake” as fans waved a message saying, “Please be the smiles of Reveluv forever”. At one point, Irene could not hold back her tears of joy. She finally gave heartfelt thanks to the audience and told her fans that, “We can be on the stage here because of your love”. 
To thank Reveluv, all five singers then sang ‘Day 1’, which talks about sweet love. 
“Thank you and we love you,” Red Velvet girls shouted one last time, before the Redmare curtains finally came down on Reveluv’s dream.