If there’s one word to capture girl group aespa’s third and latest concert, it’s fun.

The two-hour spectacle brimmed with whimsical visuals, playfully cheeky storylines and all the theatrics you’d expect from a K-pop production. Rarely was there a dull moment for the crowd, as expected — though at times the heavy buildups gave it the polish of a year-end TV ceremony rather than a live concert.


aespa kicked off the tour, titled “SYNK: aeXIS Line,” with three shows at KSPO Dome in southern Seoul from Friday to Sunday.

The concert unfolded in four segments spanning 26 tracks, including encores: The opening chapter “We Do the Dirty Work,” followed by “Take You to MY World,” “I’m The Highlight,” and the final, “Nothing Can Make Us Stop.”

And as the chapter titles suggest, the show stood as a bold declaration that aespa represents powerful, independent women who have carved out their own space in this world — a fitting prelude to the quartet’s upcoming sixth EP, “Rich Man.”

“The ‘aeXIS’ in the concert’s title means axis, signifying our wish to find our axis, a pillar, together with MY,” said member Karina during the concert on Sunday, referring to the group’s official fandom name.

“We prepared this concert as a present for MY, so I wish for this gift to reach your heart,” she added.

aespa set the tone for the concert with an intense run of “Armageddon” (2024), “Set The Tone” (2024) and “Drift,” which will be one of the B-sides for the group’s upcoming album, before closing out the opening chapter with “Dirty Work,” a digital single released in June.

A live band arrangement certainly amplified the energy, adding an intense edge that matched the group’s high-octane, charismatic style, inviting the fans to “join the Dirty Work Girls Club,” as the catchphrase for the second segment suggests.

The show continued with solo performances of each member, in which they all participated in writing lyrics, introduced by pre-recorded clips of them cooking dishes.

Karina performed a dance track, “Good Stuff,” adorned in a school uniform and a pair of glasses, followed by Ningning’s dreamy and sultry performance of “Ketchup and Lemonade,” and Giselle’s pink-themed, bubbly “Tornado,” before ending with the finale, Winter’s vocal-focused stage of “Blue.”

The show then led to a playful clip where the members appeared as "criminals" charged with being unapologetically themselves — a cheeky interlude that added extra fun to the storytelling.

Even during a bit more slow-paced section that followed, stage effects kept the energy alive — from white strips cascading from the ceiling to create a dreamy atmosphere in “Lucid Dream” (2021) to smoke-filled bubbles drifting through the air during “Angel #48.”

The highlight came with the third chapter, with phrases like “Self-made” and “Just married to myself” shown in a pre-recorded clip that portrayed the members as badass women collecting money and well capturing the message of the segment. The chapter then opened with the upcoming title track, “Rich Man,” set to be released on Friday.

The album’s slogan, “I am enough as I am, I am a rich man” — likely a nod to Cher’s famous 1995 remark recalling her conversation with her mother where she said she didn’t need to marry a rich man because she was one — set the tone for the finale. The highlight consisted of a high-powered sequence of aespa’s biggest hits, including “Next Level” (2021), “Supernova” (2024), “Whiplash” (2024), “Girls” (2022) and “Drama” (2023).

As iconic as the setlist was, the momentum faltered with noticeable pauses between each track. While the breaks allowed every song to build toward its own highlight, the frequent blackout slowed the pace, making the run feel more like content for TV or YouTube than a concert climax, where fans usually expect nonstop energy at its peak.

But as with most of K-pop concerts, the excitement was reignited during the encore, or the fourth chapter, when the members rode moving carts into the crowd.

“I’m the happiest when I get closer to you, riding the carts, seeing your faces full of smiles,” said Winter during the encore. “We had a lot of pressure at first because we had to prepare this concert in such a short period of time. But I’m so happy to see everyone enjoying themselves, with no one injured during the show — this is going to be a really memorable day for me.”

aespa will release its sixth EP "Rich Man" on Friday and continue with its tour, which will bring the quartet to Fukuoka on Oct. 4 and 5, Tokyo on Oct. 11 and 12, Aichi on Oct. 18 and 19, Tokyo again on Nov. 8 and 9, Bangkok on Nov. 15 and 16 and Osaka on Nov. 26 and 27. Next year, the group will then head to Hong Kong on Feb. 7 and 8, Macau on March 7 and 8 and Jakarta on April 4.

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