Boy band Enhypen kicked off its world tour, “Blood Saga,” last week to deafening cheers from fans, confidently pressing on despite the shake-up following former member Heeseung’s sudden departure.

“As this is our first world tour with just six of us, we’ve really given everything we have to it,” member Jake told journalists ahead of Saturday’s concert at KSPO Dome in southern Seoul, the second show of the group’s three-day world tour kickoff.

“It bares our soul,” he added.

The three-show start to the tour, which began on Friday, is expected to draw about 32,000 attendees, according to Enyhpen's agency Belift Lab.

Enhypen debuted in 2020 under HYBE’s Belift Lab as a septet consisting of Jungwon, Sunghoon, Jay, Jake, Sunoo, Ni-Ki and Heeseung. However, Heeseung, now known as soloist Evan, left Enhypen on March 10 to pursue a solo career with the agency while Enhypen continued as a six-member group.

Saturday’s concert opened with a dramatic entrance and a deafening roar: A towering red velvet curtain rose into the air as the live band launched into an explosive session, then suddenly dropped to reveal the six members — the fugitive vampires at the center of the group’s fantasy narrative.

Enhypen has centered much of its discography around a fantasy narrative in which the members are portrayed as vampires in love with a mysterious girl — a symbolic representation of the group’s fans, known collectively as Engene.

Released in January, the group’s seventh EP, “The Sin: Vanish,” took that concept a step further. The six-track EP is interwoven with narration and a skit to form a single storyline in which vampires and their human lover flee a society where humans and vampires coexist under strict rules and restrictions.

The concert largely echoed that thematic arc, drawing not only from the latest album but also from the group’s broader discography. Across a 24-song setlist, the show unfolded like a narrative of a vampire falling in love with a human despite the taboo, confessing that love and eventually reaching a “lost island” to break free from society’s repression.

What stood out in the concert’s production was the extensive rearrangement of the setlist, designed to highlight the strengths of a live band session. The songs flowed seamlessly into one another, creating the sense of following a full narrative rather than a series of separate songs.

“No Way Back,” for example, took on a more sentimental tone with the addition of crisp synthesizer sounds, leading into a dreamy, fantasy-inspired video that depicted the members falling in love in a golden forest. The mood then carried naturally into “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” which opened with a drum beat. The chanting at the end of “Paranormal” (2024), which lingered through the dome for a while, smoothly transitioned into a high-energy set of “Blockbuster” (2021) and “Go Big or Go Home” (2021).

The concert’s vampiric motifs were also at the center of its production. The show opened with an image of red liquid slowly rising toward the dome’s ceiling on the main LED screen. During the introduction to “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the lights flickered in sync with the drumbeat as the six members’ silhouettes flashed across the screen. After a brief blackout, the members then appeared onstage in the flesh, like vampires materializing out of thin air.

The dramatic elements, carefully woven into the show’s narrative, intensified by the end of the night, which member Sunghoon described to journalists as “musical-like.”

Cloaked figures appeared on stage, searching for fugitive vampires, before the group launched into “Stealer” around a gothic-style dinner table, followed by “Drunk-Dazed” (2021) and “Bite Me” (2023).

The show then shifted into one of its most visually intense moments: Jungwon stood on stage alone under a while pin light, before falling backwards as if diving into a sea of red. The entire dome was soon submerged into crimson light as well, while low-frequency sounds resonated throughout the venue as though the audience were descending deeper into a blood red ocean. That sequence led into a highlight run of “Fate” (2023) and “Criminal Love” (2023).

The crowd, meanwhile, was notably frenetic, with screams that were deafening even by typical K-pop concert standards — something the members themselves also noticed.

“We always start our tours in Seoul, and after the first shows, I usually feel like we could have done better,” said Sunghoon. “But yesterday, we and Engene created a perfect stage together. I feel like we succeeded in making it our best opening show yet.”

“Every tour so far has of course been very meaningful to me, but this one feels different somehow,” also said Jay. “Not only in terms of how we are feeling but also how Engene is enjoying the show. I’m so happy — it feels like all the hard work we put into preparing for this is being rewarded.”

Enhypen will perform 32 shows across 21 cities, including the group's first South American tour leg.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]