Gone Rogue: Reviewing Amber Liu and Justin Park’s concert at Trees, Dallas

Intimate, candid, and heartfelt. These aren’t words you’d expect from a performance by a global celebrity, yet they summarize Amber Liu’s tour perfectly.

By Rachel Bui

As if she self-prophesied her career with her mixtape’s title (Rogue Rouge), Amber has gone rogue (hence the name of her tour), defying expectations imposed on her as a K-pop singer with a ten-year career in a discreet but powerful manner. Easy going, raw at the edges, and bubbly are a few words she embodies.  There aren’t two separate personas between “everyday Amber” and “performer Amber;” she was as accessible onstage as she was offstage when I talked with her for an interview. As her manager and CEO of Steel Wool Entertainment, Kevin Murrow, said to me, “She’s the most down-to-earth person in the industry…she’s the least diva-like.” Murrow’s comment resonated with me for the sold-out performance at Trees in Dallas.

A no-fuss approach was applied to the borderline bare bone set-up: a simple light show, only two backup dancers and two instrumentalists, and casualwear as stage outfits. Yet even without the extra glam and glitter, Amber and her friends presented a dynamic, full-stage experience. This isn’t to say she wouldn’t be able to pull off stadium concerts – with her training as a member of K-pop group f(x), a successful, large-scale route would have been plausible. This was a deliberate choice on Amber’s behalf: choosing to go on tour with close friends, she has established that this tour is her homecoming from overseas that she wants to share with friends and fans. There was only one “demand” she had: wherever she performs, it is a safe space for everyone. “This is a be-yourself zone…I don’t care who you are, I just want you to be you, here, [whether you want to go crazy or just enjoy the show]. Be you and have fun.”

This philosophy was implemented at the very start of the show, with fresh-faced opener Justin Park setting the mood with his crooning vocals and smooth dance moves executed effortlessly. Oozing sexiness with his laid-back swagger, he commanded the stage and stole the heart of the audience. His set included tracks from his album Places Like Home, a product that you’d expect from a seasoned R&B singer rather than an artist releasing his debut full album. With his performance on his first tour at this caliber, I’m looking forward to what he has to offer in his promising career.

Amber continues this momentum throughout the performance, easily transitioning between her upbeat tracks and mellow songs. In an era filled with screams and shouts in America, whether in politics or pop culture, Amber created a sanctuary where people could step away from the harshness of reality and recharge. It was quite the surreal experience.

Initially, I had some concerns with how Amber would perform certain tracks due to the autotune effect implemented in the chorus, but she blew my expectations out of the water – with a diverse range at her disposal, she hit every note pristinely. Amber brought some aspects from her background in K-pop, like dancing and maintaining vocal stability. However, she still presented a sense of honesty and vulnerability in her performance.She discussed the backstory of her songs, made silly jokes, and just accepted that sometimes you just can’t perform a song in its entirety (she cracked into a fit of laughter at the first verse of “Three Million Years,” almost right after explaining the embarrassing background on why she hasn’t yet performed this song live without laughing at some point).

While this seven-stop tour was advertised as more of a fan-meeting, its success has established that both Amber and Justin have the talent and the fanbase in North America required to make it big, and that we can expect to see them more in the future. I’m excited to see what they have in store for us next.