I-Land: Who Am I, also known as the 2020 (G)I-dle Online Concert 'I-Land: Who Am I', is the first online live concert by South Korean girl group(G)I-dle. The live concert was broadcast live on Cube TV website,[3] at 3pm KST on July 5, 2020. Initially, it was planned to conduct the first world tour in 32 cities around the world, but the offline performance was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic, and an online paid concert was held.
“A space where dreams become reality" is a description by Cube Entertainment about the group's first solo concert.[4] The concert introduced 6 individual and 1 group multi-view cameras. Over 11,000 paid real-time viewers watched the concert with an admission fee of 39,000 won ($33).[5] As a multilingual group, (G)I-dle communicated with fans using Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and English.
Background and contents
On January 22, (G)I-dle released a poster on their social media accounts announcing the world tour.[6] On January 28, (G)I-dle revealed the locations and dates for their tour and is set to begin on April 4, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand.[7][8][9] Later, it was announced their stop in Bangkok was postponed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] However, the entire tour scheduled to take place in 32 global cities from April was cancelled after the announcement of I-Land: Who Am I online concert.[11]
On July 3, Cube Entertainment unveiled the setlist spoiler image two days before their first solo concert.[12]
On July 5, 2020, (G)I-dle showed 22 stages, performing all their title tracks, Pop/Star, "$$$", "Maybe", "What's your name" and solo and unit stages. In the concert, "Maybe" which was unveiled at this concert as "Online first, first in Korea, first in the world, and first in space", showed dancers using a tool reminiscent of a lightsaber.[5] Miyeon, Minnie and Yuqi performed "Kiss It Better", which was sung during their weekly trainee evaluations.[4]
Stage
The group perform on a stage before a "screen background", using all three sides of the walls on the stage as well as the floor — giving the entire space an almost wondrous look when the camera shot from a bird's-eye view down on the stage. During the performance for "Put It Straight", dramatic red lighting were used to amplify a horror-like mood throughout and finished off with the members sitting in the middle of a raining background.[13]
Transmission errors
The performance went smoothly for about 110 minutes, the screen and the sound started to distort at 4:51 KST. The screen came back after 2 minutes, but the image quality was not improved. It did suffer a 25-minute-long glitch near the end. The members advised the viewers to press refresh, and the screen returned to normal at around 4:57 KST, but the screen was unstable until the last stage, causing viewer inconvenience.[5] The problem received mixed reception. Some fans who watched the concert posted a photo with a review that could not recognize the member's face due to a transmission error. Some fans gave up after several buffering and delays. Some fans expressed their opinions such as "Aware of the system error and waited until it was okay", and there were fans who were satisfied with the online concert.[14] It happened after group member Cho Miyeon was jokingly twerking during their first encore, "Uh-Oh" stage which they filmed with their own camera,[15] and there was a joke among fans that "The server broke because of 'Chowerking'". 'Chowerking (조월킹)' is the combination of Miyeon's surname 'Cho (조)' and 'twerking (트월킹)'.[4]
Receptions
Lee Eunho from Kukinews stated in his review that he is impressed with the members' personal stage that showed their confidence as "our strength is personality".[4]
RPM9 reporter Park Dong-seon wrote, "6 people 6 colours (G)I-dle synergy...Minnie's emotional vocals with the combination of classical guitar in "Why Do You Love Me" (original song Charlotte Lawrence), Yuqi's heavy vocal in "What About Us" (original song P!nk) and Miyeon's fresh power vocal charm in "What Now" (original song Rihanna). The stage of three vocal members showed the strength of the tone combination in unit stage "Kiss it better". In addition, Soyeon presented her unique intense rapping in "Hey Mama" (original song David Geta and Nicki Minaj), Soojin's dreamy yet sexy charm in dance cover "Trampoline" (original song Shaed) and Shuhua's beautiful performance in "Majestic Scene"."[16]
Yoon So-yeon of Korea JoongAng Daily stated that "The girls' ability to overcome the sudden difficulty was proven by the fans' choice to stick through the technical error...It probably wasn't the first concert the band or the fans had in mind, but it was a performance only (G)I-dle could have pulled off."[13]
In 2021, Interpark has released their sales stats from 2020, (G)I-dle ranks at number 8 for all of Interpark’s Annual Concert Ratings and the second highest selling online music concert behind Iz*One Online Concert "Oneiric Theater" which ranked fourth overall.[18]
Set lists
This set list is representative of the show on July 5, 2020.
Cover songs are performed in I-Land ver.
^Kim Min-ji (July 5, 2020). (여자)아이들, 첫 단독 콘서트 앞두고 세트리스트 깜짝 스포…기대감 증폭 [(G)I-dle, set list surprise spo ahead of first solo concert… Boosting expectations]. News1. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
^Kim Na-yeon (July 6, 2020). (여자)아이들, 첫 단독 콘서트 성료…신곡 'i'M THE TREND' 최초공개 [(G)I-dle, first solo concert completed… Divine Comedy 'i'M THE TREND' premiere]. Single list. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
^Lee Jooyoung (February 24, 2021). 2020년 공연계, 코로나19에도 '미스터트롯'·오리지널 내한공연·온라인 콘서트 선전 [2020 performance world,'Mr. Trot', original performance in Korea, and online concert to be promoted in Corona 19]. DailyPop. Retrieved 2021-04-17.
^Kim Na-young (February 14, 2020). (여자)아이들, 첫 월드투어 방콕 공연 일정 연기..."코로나19 확산 우려" [(G)I-dle postponed their first World Tour Bangkok show... "Concern Spreading Corona 19"]. MK Sports. Archived from the original on February 16, 2020. Retrieved February 16, 2020.