In San Francisco at The Regency Ballroom Hyuna fans (A-ings) who had attended other shows at the venue may have immediately noticed some differences regarding the barrier between the stage and crowd. That difference was that it was much closer than usual. If you looked at some of Hyuna’s earlier performances in the tour you may notice those were modified too. Hyuna has been lauded as the queen of fan service and after this performance and L.A. I'd have to confirm this to be true.  During her opening song “Roll Deep,” which had to be restarted due to technical difficulties that were already occurring before the start of the show, she interacted with fans explaining that this was the first time the music had actually cut off on her in the middle of the performance. Having been to many concerts in the past, when something like that happens the artist usually moves to the next song.  This wasn’t the case; despite the fact that Hyuna actually was almost finished with “Roll Deep” she ordered it to restart completely as in the entire concert opening.  Attendees may have also received an update on twitter that Hyuna had requested that the show be held in its entirety despite the errors.

Hyuna had different outfits for each stop, a different set-up on stage for each venue, and a different way she interacted with the crowd during each venue. Non-uniformity made this tour fun for the fans and showed us a side of Hyuna we’ve never seen before. In Los Angeles Hyuna took fan interaction to a different level with a stage setup that confused even the security guards at The NOVO. Security actually had to ask fans what was going on as the steps from the stage went directly into the crowd with no barrier in the center between the fans and Hyuna. On more than one occasion she would come down the steps and make the audience feel like they were part of the performance, and in some ways completely shattering the norm for K-POP performances especially by a female idol. Generally you’ll see an idol male or female keep a certain amount of distance between them and fans, Hyuna either is extremely brave and trusting of her fans or has some of the most well behaved fans in K-POP, or a combination of the two. With the exception of a few misbehaving attendees before the show and during the meet and greet there were no incidents.

Speaking of performance, as noted earlier about the technical difficulties in the beginning at The Regency, Hyuna appeared uncomfortable at first, and more than one source claims that she was actually feeling under the weather that night. As the performance continued, she looked more energetic and relaxed.  It’s worth noting that Hyuna performed the song "French Kiss" off her A-Talk album. The choreography has never been posted to CUBE unlike many of her songs that have been performed in the past. After seeing this performed twice I have to wonder why this wasn’t a feature track on the album. No choreography or music video has appeared online for "A-talk" and "U&ME" either. Hyuna told her audience that they may not be interested in the next song before performing these two tracks. The sharpness of the choreography suggests that possibly there’s a dance for all of her songs released. "U&ME" is the ultimate fan service song and it appeared as if that’s what she was going for as she interacted with the crowd a lot here holding hands with fan boys etc. 

Oh and what’s an audience interaction without games? Fans were invited to ask her a question before the show, put it on a sticky note and maybe Hyuna would answer. We learned a little about Hyuna from this. Hyuna prefers shoes to heels, is an avid reader, and likes the Simpsons. Hyuna would also take questions from the crowd. The other two games included a dance contest and the other was a how well do you know Hyuna game where contestants tried to guess the same answer as Hyuna.  If you got one of those coveted spots on stage you were already a winner because most the contestants took selfie with Hyuna. The winner of the question game received a signed Polaroid of Hyuna that she actually kisses before handing it off to the winner. The dance contest winner got signed merch like a hoodie and a hat.

Unfortunately there are a few elements that San Francisco missed out on as the Regency Ballroom is a flat open floor space. This layout didn’t allow for her to come off stage and interact with fans the way she did in Los Angeles. Another element missed out was Hyuna starting her performance by throwing a jacket into the crowd, Los Angeles got a much more organized show as well as venue staff at the Novo did a very good job with line control and answering questions. For example by comparison, the meet and greet photo op was much more controlled than in San Francisco where the staff had difficulty getting people in a single file line. The Novo had several lines for the photo op where people were split into groups of 12. The group of 12 thing continues to puzzle me. For Apink last year 12 people made sense for the photo as there’s more than one member but with Hyuna there’s only one idol. I think groups of 4 to 8 people per photo would have been more ideal. Staff did have to remind a few badly behaved fans not to be taking photos and video during the hi-touch, it was to a point that there were threats that they would stop the meet and greet.

The setlist for the show was fairly short, something A-ings don’t really understand as Hyuna has a discography long enough to have a 12-14 song concert. The fan interaction and games made the show enjoyable, and while this may be a once in a lifetime experience for North American fans, we certainly hope Hyuna will make a second run of touring here. It’s still early in the year but the “Queen is Back” tour could easily be a candidate for concert of the year even with the influx of K-Pop coming to this side of the world in the next couple of months.