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forestsofpineI went to see Taemin (from SHINee) in Chicago this weekend on his (solo) Ephemeral Gaze tour, one of the best Valentine's Day presents my spouse has ever given me.
I had enough time sitting around hotels, airports, and on planes going home the next day that this turned out kinda long and full of links. 😅
Venue
The theater (Chicago Theater) was beautiful. Lots of gold and elaborate decor, with scenes from Greek mythology painted on the walls. Even though it was a little frustrating (from a “getting tickets” perspective) to have one of the most beloved stars in K-pop in such a small venue, the ornateness created a great atmosphere for the show. Taemin is Catholic and dramatic af, so still photos of his stages often look like Renaissance art, and the lovely theater made a beautiful “frame” for him.
There were a few people giving out freebies on the loggia as we went in, and one of them randomly handed me a button with a photo of Taemin with the restraint in his mouth from “Criminal”, which was perfect luck because that’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite of his songs.
There were some screams before the concert began because a couple people had brought American and Korean flags with photos of him shirtless superimposed on top. 😂
There were tons of Taemin lightsticks, SHINee lightsticks, quite a few people who had both, and a smattering of others. There was no lightstick syncing in the venue, but nearly everyone set their lightsticks to SHINee's signature pearl aqua glow.
Concert
The opening video for the concert is very cool. His latest EP Eternal was inspired partly by reading he’d been doing on quantum mechanics and the video was also clearly inspired by that. The screams were deafening when he appeared in his signature T pose. He walked down the stairs and fell dramatically and with perfect timing to his knees to start the choreo for “Deja Vu” and I feel like anyone who didn’t already know what to expect got a good idea right there.
“Deja Vu” is very pretty and the choreo suits him so well.
“Guilty” was amazing live and I’m sad I missed getting the climactic vocals at the end on video because they were somehow even better live in the moment than in the album version. He’s really good at pulling you into the emotion of the song.
“Advice” is also an absolute killer live, the choreo is super fast and intricate and the background video on the Jumbotron made it looked like he was being jerked around on puppet strings during some parts, which made those parts into an even more powerful statement. (“Advice” was originally released right before he had to go to the military and is one of his angriest songs.) The whole audience screamed “best take my own advice” and “you’ll never get the keys to my lock” along with him.
Quick ment after “Advice” so he could catch his breath. He repeated the famous "Guilty" point choreo and grinned mischievously at the screams. He gave a nice welcome speech in English and then said he was going to “attempt” to fill the stage all by himself with no backup dancers for “Goodbye (Sayonara Hitori)”. I think it’s safe to say that nobody in the theater doubted he could except himself. “Goodbye” is another very pretty song, with very pretty choreo, and he easily commanded the stage on his own.
“Idea” was next and it’s one of my lesser favorites of his title tracks tbh, but very impressive live. There’s different (and difficult!) choreo for each of the choruses.
I knew after seeing the recording of Ephemeral Gaze in Incheon that "Heaven" was going to be my favorite stage of the night, and it was. Frankly, it was worth the price of the ticket by itself. I loved it. The staging is so dramatic and his vocals in the climactic part were so good (AND I got them on video this time). HUGE screams during the point choreo in the “play, little girl, do it like that” section.
Then there was another short video while he changed, followed by the ballad section.
“I’m Crying” was first, it’s not my favorite of his ballads, but he sang it well and it gave him a chance to sit down, which I’m sure he appreciated. In one of his later ments he mentioned that a fan had screamed “I’ll cry with you, Taemin” and almost made him laugh and break character. “Clockwork” is also pretty, but with an aura that's ominous instead of sad.
“Not Over You” was my favorite of this first ballad section. It was one of my favorite B-sides from his Guilty EP along with "Blue" and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not", about which more in a moment lol.
There was another ment. He said that he's best known for songs with a lot of choreo, but wants his ballads and slower songs to be known and loved, too. He asked for audience song requests and sang a bit of “Love” and “Flame of Love”.
Someone also asked for “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not”, which he 100% did not remember the lyrics to at all lol. He got all cute and embarrassed about it and pretended to have amnesia (“What’s my name? Who am I?”) and then got happy when the audience chanted his name at him.
He also did a pretty good-sized part of “Pretty Boy” by request and had us sing the “pretty boy” parts back at him. He said “congratulations, Kai my friend, my friend is free.” (Kai is from EXO and he just got out of the military about a week ago. He and Taemin have been best friends since middle school and originally sang the song together.) Taemin also said “Pretty Boy” is one of his favorites because one of the other SHINee members wrote it for him. (Jonghyun, who died in 2017.)
Then he asked us to turn on our phone flashlights instead of our lightsticks for “The Unknown Sea” so it would look like stars for him as he sang. It was a super pretty effect for a super pretty song (one of my favorites off his Eternal EP) about a butterfly’s first glimpse of the ocean.
Next was “Blue”, which is also very pretty, and that one was so light and happy. He kept doing little spins as he sang and just smiling from ear to ear. You could tell how much he loved it.
After "Blue", his all-female backup dancers, several of whom are pretty famous in their own right, had a dance showcase while he changed clothes again, followed by "GOAT", "The Rizzness", and "Sexy in the Air". (Lyric sites will try to gaslight you by telling you he’s saying “sexy in the air” but what he’s very clearly actually saying is “sex is in the air”. 😂) These three are super fun and the atmosphere in the theater was one big party in this section, with everyone dancing and singing along. All three songs have great choreo and the use of lighting to enhance the effect of his performance was particularly good in this section, I thought.
Then another ment. He demonstrated one of his favorite choreo moments from GOAT a few times, increasingly cutely, but it was a really cool bit of choreo that really showed off his impressive isolations. He also did some of the choreo from "The Rizzness" again. He teased us with his abs again, too, lol. He 100% loved it when the audience barked at him in this (and other!) ments and even barked back a few times to encourage us. 😂
The second-to-last section had a bunch of my favorite songs in a row and I was in heaven the whole time.
First, “Move”, his most famous song and most iconic choreography. The choreo is deliberately androgynous, and it was genuinely mesmerizing in person: very fluid and sexy. He has you hanging on every twitch of his fingers.
Next, “Want,” which is another very fluid, sexy choreo set to a dark synthwave song. The concept of the music video (one of my favorites! - there’s a very interesting breakdown of a bunch of the symbolism and references in it) was that Taemin was Lucifer tempting you to hell (told you he was Catholic lol), so the lyrics are sibilant and seductive and the dance is snake-like.
“Want” was followed by “Criminal,” which is my all-time favorite of his songs, and god, it was so good live. He did the rock version, which has an additional, very fast and explosive dance break before the famous “destroy me more” line.
The last one in this group was “Horizon,” which has some really beautiful synths that sound like freedom. The energy was exhilarating. It was one of the ones that surprised me most with how much better it was live, even though I already loved the song and choreo. (You may remember it was my most-played 2024 release last year.)
There was another break with a sing-along version of “The Unknown Sea,” but we kinda butchered the 99% Korean lyrics, which he teased us a little about when he came back out. He also sang "Hypnosis" (the whole thing!) and a bit of "Drip Drop".
Then he did “Danger”, which was his debut song as a soloist. It started up another fun party atmosphere in the theater, which continued with the next song, “Crush.”
“Crush” was another that surprised me a little with exactly how great it was live. Like “Horizon,” I already liked the song, and like it even more now. It was super fun and had great staging. He made us practice some of the lyrics to sing along after butchering “The Unknown Sea” in the singalong haha, but “Crush” has a lot more English lyrics so we did much better. 😂I really liked the text-based art on the Jumbotron for this song.
Finally, he had one last brief ment to say goodbye and said he would come back to Chicago before singing his last song.
The last song was “Say Less”, and it’s a more emotional song than the previous two. He sang it as a farewell and was walking around and waving to different sections of the crowd with a big smile on his face. Throughout the whole evening he looked so happy to be performing and kept talking about how much he wanted to give us his best. He’s wanted this tour for ages and I’m really glad for both his sake and ours that he finally got it!
One of the other things that stood out to me was how funny he is in person during the ments, much more so than I expected. He’s an introvert and seems to be kind of shy, so in videos it sometimes seems like he does better when he has the rest of SHINee to bounce off of (Key, Minho, and Jonghyun in particular being the opposite of shy and introverted lol) but in person he came off as adorable and very humble despite being a living legend who’s literally called “K-pop Jesus” by his fans. And it really is like he flips a switch between his dramatic, sexy performance mode and cute, shy Taemin.
Speaking of K-pop Jesus, I missed this, but after the show there was apparently a guy trying to proselytize outside the theater and people were telling him that they didn’t need to find Jesus because Jesus was back in the theater. 😂
Anyway, it was amazing. He really had the audience in the palm of his hand from beginning to end. 100% worth twice what we spent on tickets. He said he wants to come back for another tour and you can bet I’ll do my best to be there!
Setlist
Here's a Spotify playlist with the full setlist.
Deja Vu: audio, dance practice, Chicago fancam clip
Guilty: MV, recent live performance that captures the vocals well, Chicago fancam clip, Chicago climax
Advice: MV, dance practice, Chicago fancam showing the Jumbotron video, Chicago fancam clip, the "Guilty"-fication of "Advice" in NYC and Chicago (or another angle, or up close and slowed down)
Goodbye: MV
Idea: MV, dance practice
Heaven: audio, live performance from Ephemeral Gaze in Incheon, Chicago fancam clip, another angle, another angle
I'm Crying: audio
Clockwork: audio, Chicago fancam clip
Not Over You: audio
The Unknown Sea: audio, beautiful clip of the venue sparkling with stars for him
Blue: audio, Chicago fancam clip
GOAT: audio
The Rizzness: performance video
Sexy in the Air: MV, performance video
Move: MV, dance practice, a favorite recent live performance, Chicago fancam clip, another
Want: MV, dance practice, fancam clip from NYC, fancam clip from Chicago
Criminal: MV, dance practice, Chicago dance break fancam clip
Horizon: MV
Danger: MV, dance practice
Crush: audio
Say Less: audio
Ments
Ment #1: fancam
Ment #2: fancam
Ment #3: fancam
Ment #4: fancam
Ment #5: fancam
Love: audio
Flame of Love: MV, dance version, Korean version audio
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not: audio
Pretty Boy: audio, performance with KAI
Hypnosis: audio
Drip Drop: performance video
Other Misc Goodies
Some great still photos: singing, K-pop Jesus fr (thread of more by this photographer), lovely lighting in these, among the stars, cutie patootie, pinky promise to come back, waving goodbye, plus a couple of great ones from NYC (and another)
I'm not sure if this is from Chicago or another show, but full performance demon possession during "Heaven"
The theater glowing in pearl aqua
Pumping his chest when people barked at him 😂
Getting another bra off the stage lol (this happened multiple times on his Latin American stops, too)
Chicago soundcheck "Guilty" pose
Come hither clip during "Guilty" at Chicago soundcheck (more)
Hehe
Accurate
I've also been really enjoying this person's fancams from the NYC concert, they're incredibly close and high quality.
I'll keep an eye out for the next few days as more people make it home and upload stuff, and might add more links. Hope you enjoyed what I found so far!
ETA:
Houston
I had enough time sitting around hotels, airports, and on planes going home the next day that this turned out kinda long and full of links. 😅
Venue
The theater (Chicago Theater) was beautiful. Lots of gold and elaborate decor, with scenes from Greek mythology painted on the walls. Even though it was a little frustrating (from a “getting tickets” perspective) to have one of the most beloved stars in K-pop in such a small venue, the ornateness created a great atmosphere for the show. Taemin is Catholic and dramatic af, so still photos of his stages often look like Renaissance art, and the lovely theater made a beautiful “frame” for him.
There were a few people giving out freebies on the loggia as we went in, and one of them randomly handed me a button with a photo of Taemin with the restraint in his mouth from “Criminal”, which was perfect luck because that’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite of his songs.
There were some screams before the concert began because a couple people had brought American and Korean flags with photos of him shirtless superimposed on top. 😂
There were tons of Taemin lightsticks, SHINee lightsticks, quite a few people who had both, and a smattering of others. There was no lightstick syncing in the venue, but nearly everyone set their lightsticks to SHINee's signature pearl aqua glow.
Concert
The opening video for the concert is very cool. His latest EP Eternal was inspired partly by reading he’d been doing on quantum mechanics and the video was also clearly inspired by that. The screams were deafening when he appeared in his signature T pose. He walked down the stairs and fell dramatically and with perfect timing to his knees to start the choreo for “Deja Vu” and I feel like anyone who didn’t already know what to expect got a good idea right there.
“Deja Vu” is very pretty and the choreo suits him so well.
“Guilty” was amazing live and I’m sad I missed getting the climactic vocals at the end on video because they were somehow even better live in the moment than in the album version. He’s really good at pulling you into the emotion of the song.
“Advice” is also an absolute killer live, the choreo is super fast and intricate and the background video on the Jumbotron made it looked like he was being jerked around on puppet strings during some parts, which made those parts into an even more powerful statement. (“Advice” was originally released right before he had to go to the military and is one of his angriest songs.) The whole audience screamed “best take my own advice” and “you’ll never get the keys to my lock” along with him.
Quick ment after “Advice” so he could catch his breath. He repeated the famous "Guilty" point choreo and grinned mischievously at the screams. He gave a nice welcome speech in English and then said he was going to “attempt” to fill the stage all by himself with no backup dancers for “Goodbye (Sayonara Hitori)”. I think it’s safe to say that nobody in the theater doubted he could except himself. “Goodbye” is another very pretty song, with very pretty choreo, and he easily commanded the stage on his own.
“Idea” was next and it’s one of my lesser favorites of his title tracks tbh, but very impressive live. There’s different (and difficult!) choreo for each of the choruses.
I knew after seeing the recording of Ephemeral Gaze in Incheon that "Heaven" was going to be my favorite stage of the night, and it was. Frankly, it was worth the price of the ticket by itself. I loved it. The staging is so dramatic and his vocals in the climactic part were so good (AND I got them on video this time). HUGE screams during the point choreo in the “play, little girl, do it like that” section.
Then there was another short video while he changed, followed by the ballad section.
“I’m Crying” was first, it’s not my favorite of his ballads, but he sang it well and it gave him a chance to sit down, which I’m sure he appreciated. In one of his later ments he mentioned that a fan had screamed “I’ll cry with you, Taemin” and almost made him laugh and break character. “Clockwork” is also pretty, but with an aura that's ominous instead of sad.
“Not Over You” was my favorite of this first ballad section. It was one of my favorite B-sides from his Guilty EP along with "Blue" and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not", about which more in a moment lol.
There was another ment. He said that he's best known for songs with a lot of choreo, but wants his ballads and slower songs to be known and loved, too. He asked for audience song requests and sang a bit of “Love” and “Flame of Love”.
Someone also asked for “She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not”, which he 100% did not remember the lyrics to at all lol. He got all cute and embarrassed about it and pretended to have amnesia (“What’s my name? Who am I?”) and then got happy when the audience chanted his name at him.
He also did a pretty good-sized part of “Pretty Boy” by request and had us sing the “pretty boy” parts back at him. He said “congratulations, Kai my friend, my friend is free.” (Kai is from EXO and he just got out of the military about a week ago. He and Taemin have been best friends since middle school and originally sang the song together.) Taemin also said “Pretty Boy” is one of his favorites because one of the other SHINee members wrote it for him. (Jonghyun, who died in 2017.)
Then he asked us to turn on our phone flashlights instead of our lightsticks for “The Unknown Sea” so it would look like stars for him as he sang. It was a super pretty effect for a super pretty song (one of my favorites off his Eternal EP) about a butterfly’s first glimpse of the ocean.
Next was “Blue”, which is also very pretty, and that one was so light and happy. He kept doing little spins as he sang and just smiling from ear to ear. You could tell how much he loved it.
After "Blue", his all-female backup dancers, several of whom are pretty famous in their own right, had a dance showcase while he changed clothes again, followed by "GOAT", "The Rizzness", and "Sexy in the Air". (Lyric sites will try to gaslight you by telling you he’s saying “sexy in the air” but what he’s very clearly actually saying is “sex is in the air”. 😂) These three are super fun and the atmosphere in the theater was one big party in this section, with everyone dancing and singing along. All three songs have great choreo and the use of lighting to enhance the effect of his performance was particularly good in this section, I thought.
Then another ment. He demonstrated one of his favorite choreo moments from GOAT a few times, increasingly cutely, but it was a really cool bit of choreo that really showed off his impressive isolations. He also did some of the choreo from "The Rizzness" again. He teased us with his abs again, too, lol. He 100% loved it when the audience barked at him in this (and other!) ments and even barked back a few times to encourage us. 😂
The second-to-last section had a bunch of my favorite songs in a row and I was in heaven the whole time.
First, “Move”, his most famous song and most iconic choreography. The choreo is deliberately androgynous, and it was genuinely mesmerizing in person: very fluid and sexy. He has you hanging on every twitch of his fingers.
Next, “Want,” which is another very fluid, sexy choreo set to a dark synthwave song. The concept of the music video (one of my favorites! - there’s a very interesting breakdown of a bunch of the symbolism and references in it) was that Taemin was Lucifer tempting you to hell (told you he was Catholic lol), so the lyrics are sibilant and seductive and the dance is snake-like.
“Want” was followed by “Criminal,” which is my all-time favorite of his songs, and god, it was so good live. He did the rock version, which has an additional, very fast and explosive dance break before the famous “destroy me more” line.
The last one in this group was “Horizon,” which has some really beautiful synths that sound like freedom. The energy was exhilarating. It was one of the ones that surprised me most with how much better it was live, even though I already loved the song and choreo. (You may remember it was my most-played 2024 release last year.)
There was another break with a sing-along version of “The Unknown Sea,” but we kinda butchered the 99% Korean lyrics, which he teased us a little about when he came back out. He also sang "Hypnosis" (the whole thing!) and a bit of "Drip Drop".
Then he did “Danger”, which was his debut song as a soloist. It started up another fun party atmosphere in the theater, which continued with the next song, “Crush.”
“Crush” was another that surprised me a little with exactly how great it was live. Like “Horizon,” I already liked the song, and like it even more now. It was super fun and had great staging. He made us practice some of the lyrics to sing along after butchering “The Unknown Sea” in the singalong haha, but “Crush” has a lot more English lyrics so we did much better. 😂I really liked the text-based art on the Jumbotron for this song.
Finally, he had one last brief ment to say goodbye and said he would come back to Chicago before singing his last song.
The last song was “Say Less”, and it’s a more emotional song than the previous two. He sang it as a farewell and was walking around and waving to different sections of the crowd with a big smile on his face. Throughout the whole evening he looked so happy to be performing and kept talking about how much he wanted to give us his best. He’s wanted this tour for ages and I’m really glad for both his sake and ours that he finally got it!
One of the other things that stood out to me was how funny he is in person during the ments, much more so than I expected. He’s an introvert and seems to be kind of shy, so in videos it sometimes seems like he does better when he has the rest of SHINee to bounce off of (Key, Minho, and Jonghyun in particular being the opposite of shy and introverted lol) but in person he came off as adorable and very humble despite being a living legend who’s literally called “K-pop Jesus” by his fans. And it really is like he flips a switch between his dramatic, sexy performance mode and cute, shy Taemin.
Speaking of K-pop Jesus, I missed this, but after the show there was apparently a guy trying to proselytize outside the theater and people were telling him that they didn’t need to find Jesus because Jesus was back in the theater. 😂
Anyway, it was amazing. He really had the audience in the palm of his hand from beginning to end. 100% worth twice what we spent on tickets. He said he wants to come back for another tour and you can bet I’ll do my best to be there!
Setlist
Here's a Spotify playlist with the full setlist.
Deja Vu: audio, dance practice, Chicago fancam clip
Guilty: MV, recent live performance that captures the vocals well, Chicago fancam clip, Chicago climax
Advice: MV, dance practice, Chicago fancam showing the Jumbotron video, Chicago fancam clip, the "Guilty"-fication of "Advice" in NYC and Chicago (or another angle, or up close and slowed down)
Goodbye: MV
Idea: MV, dance practice
Heaven: audio, live performance from Ephemeral Gaze in Incheon, Chicago fancam clip, another angle, another angle
I'm Crying: audio
Clockwork: audio, Chicago fancam clip
Not Over You: audio
The Unknown Sea: audio, beautiful clip of the venue sparkling with stars for him
Blue: audio, Chicago fancam clip
GOAT: audio
The Rizzness: performance video
Sexy in the Air: MV, performance video
Move: MV, dance practice, a favorite recent live performance, Chicago fancam clip, another
Want: MV, dance practice, fancam clip from NYC, fancam clip from Chicago
Criminal: MV, dance practice, Chicago dance break fancam clip
Horizon: MV
Danger: MV, dance practice
Crush: audio
Say Less: audio
Ments
Ment #1: fancam
Ment #2: fancam
Ment #3: fancam
Ment #4: fancam
Ment #5: fancam
Love: audio
Flame of Love: MV, dance version, Korean version audio
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not: audio
Pretty Boy: audio, performance with KAI
Hypnosis: audio
Drip Drop: performance video
Other Misc Goodies
Some great still photos: singing, K-pop Jesus fr (thread of more by this photographer), lovely lighting in these, among the stars, cutie patootie, pinky promise to come back, waving goodbye, plus a couple of great ones from NYC (and another)
I'm not sure if this is from Chicago or another show, but full performance demon possession during "Heaven"
The theater glowing in pearl aqua
Pumping his chest when people barked at him 😂
Getting another bra off the stage lol (this happened multiple times on his Latin American stops, too)
Chicago soundcheck "Guilty" pose
Come hither clip during "Guilty" at Chicago soundcheck (more)
Hehe
Accurate
I've also been really enjoying this person's fancams from the NYC concert, they're incredibly close and high quality.
I'll keep an eye out for the next few days as more people make it home and upload stuff, and might add more links. Hope you enjoyed what I found so far!
ETA:
Houston
