My Pictures of the Phoenix Concert + My First TWICE Experience as a Relatively New Once

This will be long, just a heads up.

I’m finally posting now my highlight pictures I took of the Phoenix concert of the girls. This was my first ever TWICE concert I have ever gone to. I forgot to sign up for pre-sale but I waited in line for GA and was able to get some VIP seating at one of the best possible areas you can sit for the concert (I’ve been to the arena numerous times for the Phoenix Suns so I knew the hotspot areas ahead of time). If this was going to be my first experience watching TWICE, I wanted to go all the way and make this memorable. 

Just for some background, I didn’t get into K-pop until around 2021. I never listened to anything from the genre before, outside of PSY's “Gangnam Style” back in 2012 when I was in middle school. And also hearing it played by the Blue Devils Drum Corps in 2015 with their rendition of “I Like You” by GOT7 as a drum break when I was in high school band. Not to mention K/DA for League of Legends down the road. When covid hit years later, I was trying to expand my music tastes beyond me listening to groups and artists like Radiohead, Bjork, Thank You Scientist, Reign of Kindo, Fleet Foxes, Queens of the Stone Age just to name a few. So going from artists like these to K-pop was very much a tonal whiplash as the genre was getting way more popular during covid, so hey, why not try?

For a start, I couldn’t get into TWICE initially. Their music at the time was so much different from what I am used to listening to that they clashed way too hard with me and I struggled with listening to some of their songs. I got into groups like MAMAMOO (who I ended up seeing in 2023 in AZ as my first K-pop concert plus Solar is my ult bias), Dreamcatcher, and Red Velvet much easier however. As time passed and I was getting way more into K-pop content. I was listening to TWICE a lot more around the time ‘Dive’ (I didn’t know at the time that it was one of their Japanese albums) came out back in 2024. And soon, TWICE was regularly in my playlists and Nayeon ended up becoming my bias in the group initially. 

I always hated how so many groups just pass by Phoenix, we are the 5th biggest city in the US, you think more groups would travel here (how did Itzy not come back to us?)! And for smaller groups that do? Way too expensive or sold out instantly like Purple Kiss, CHUU, Katseye, or ARTMS. It felt like luck when MAMAMOO announced they were coming to Glendale which made me burst in joy as a MOOMOO. But when TWICE announced that they were finally coming here, I was actually in shock. I knew from that announcement, I was willing to throw down the cash for my best possible experience at the tour. And I did. I bought the online varsity jacket even for the concert when the online merch dropped. The VIP experience I would say was mixed for me, I arrived early and got freebies and waited in the VIP merch line and bought the sweatpants and the uniform shirt as well as forking a bit extra over for the tote bag to at least carry everything (I spent over $200, can I at least get a bag?). Japan had way better looking merchandise tbh. Waiting for the gates to open was boring as hell and then once they did open so I could at least get something to drink (glad I ate before hand), the grab-n-go stations were awful, we had to pour drinks into a plastic cup (which was weird because I don’t think we had to do that later after soundcheck, advertising block maybe?) and then all the kiosks stopped working except for one. I just said screw it and left for my seats. Once soundcheck happened it went fast with no interactions outside of the girls throwing shirts for a minute and sound check was like 10 minutes long. We also saw no Jeongyeon at the soundcheck so we were wondering where she was. That bad news of her being with the flu (like me the other week before) hit literally 10 minutes before the concert even started and I had to yell it out to my section [102] on what was going on with her. 

The concert itself though? It was awesome. Even if they were down a member (and maybe a member and a half with Dahyun’s condition). They still brought it and the energy they gave. However, I will say sound wise, things did sound a little off, some vocals did sound higher pitch than usual like Sana and Nayeon, the live band was great but they sounded a little overpowering at times. I also think Nayeon too may have been sick as she didn’t have her usual energy that she has. I had two coworkers who attended this as well and they said the same things as me. One major stand out though in the concert I want to talk about though, is Jihyo.

Like I said earlier, my initial bias was Nayeon because of her being a near total opposite to me and that I was in band (middle through community college before covid in both marching , concert, and indoor drumline). Before the concert, I spent a lot of time watching tons of TWICE content in the follow up months to it. And Jihyo ended up being a hell of a bias wrecker for me. When I was seeing her perform and then seeing her performing live. It felt like I was watching myself perform. Whenever I performed, I always gave 100% every time no matter how crappy I may have felt one performance week from whether it was from being sick and/or dealing with tons of AP work, I’d still would show up to every practice and toughen out, and then bring it my all come performance time. Jihyo at Dallas over the week, you could tell she was sick to the point where I was even surprised she was at day 1 but she still showed for Once’s and was even able to fully come back and move after half-way. Then seeing day 2 vids, it was like nothing had happened the day before for her and she made sure to bring it for the fans on her birthday, happy belated birthday Jihyo. And that to me is why Jihyo is my bias in this group, always giving 100% no matter what.

Overall, I had a very fun time at my first ever TWICE concert and 2nd ever K-pop concert. This was also my most expensive concert as well. They were very much up there with MAMAMOO, Magdalena Bay, and Queens of the Stone Age with the best acts I have seen live so far. I’ve also been dealing with post-concert depression by watching stuff like the JYP Scouts (that was hysterical) and checking out some of the other JYP groups I haven’t explored like Day6 or Xdinary Heroes (they were such loveable dorks in that Scouts series). And if they do a second added tour like ‘Ready to Be’ was. I’d 100% go again and hopefully all the members are in full health when that time comes. Thanks for reading.