Concert Review: AleXa, Golden Child, and Brave Girls Bring the Heat to KOREA GAYOJE at Central Park's SummerStage

Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage and Korean Cultural Center New York presented their third KOREA GAYOJE event in Central Park on Sunday, July 10, 2022, featuring K-pop superstars Brave Girls, Golden Child, and AleXa. The concert took place at Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage in Central Park's Rumsey Playfield.

The concert kicked off at 7pm with AleXa, a soloist best known for her recent win on American Song Contest, a television competition show where she represented her home state of Oklahoma.

AleXa brought the energy up despite the hot summer sun beating down on the general admission audience at the outdoor venue, making us laugh with her bubbly personality and interacting with the crowd. She read one fan's sign that stated "AleXa, step on me" and feigned kicking into the audience, iliciting a roar of laughter from us all.

She played some of her biggest hits, including her multi-lingual debut song "Bomb", as well as fan-favorite "Tattoo" ("TATTOO SUPREMACY!" one fan yelled as the song began), and ended her set with "Wonderland", the song with which she won the American Song Contest.

Next up was Golden Child, a ten-member boy group known for their bass-heavy EDM sound and complex choreography. Their set began with the song "Burn It", before going into "Fanfare", a song their fandom, known as Goldenness, were very excited to hear.

The boys showed their unique charms, interacting with the crowd during songs like "Bottom of the Ocean", during which one member threw water into the audience and another joked that if they keep doing that, we all will be at the bottom of the ocean.

Golden Child finished their set with "Damdadi", and you could immediately tell they gained new fans that night. People who were perhaps there to see other artists were searching up the members' names online, and even looking up tickets to their next show, after seeing them perform. Talk about impact!

The final act of the night was Brave Girls, a quartet who debuted in 2011, but just last year went viral with their 2017 song "Rollin'" which peaked at #1 on the Billboard K-pop 100.

The girls kicked off their set with "Chi Mat Baram", before diving into songs with a perfect summer vibe like "Pool Party" and "High Heels."

Brave Girls' members talked a bit about their most recent stint on the competition show "Queendom 2" which aired earlier this year, performing songs that were seen on the show, "Red Sun" and "Whistle." To no surprise, they closed out their set with "Rollin'", their biggest viral hit, which got everyone in the audience chanting, singing, and dancing along.

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Following the successes of KOREA GAYOJE in 2017 and 2018, this show featured K-pop artists who have broken boundaries of genre, geography, generation to garner a global audience fanbase. This performance was also presented in celebration of 140 years of friendship between Korea and the US, with the show embodying the slogan "KORUS' Chorus, Culture consolidates alliance" highlighting the meaningful history of cultural exchange between the two countries.

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