Tuesday, February 5, 2013

CNBLUE: Paving the Way for K-POP Bands


Rock band CNBLUE have been experiencing remarkable success performing live stages and have possibly opened the door for how music bands are represented on television.

CNBLUE started the year with outstanding success with their, some would say, best comeback ever. On January 14th, the band released their long awaited Korean comeback album ‘RE: BLUE’, which quickly won over all the music charts and sales listings. CNBLUE had a major hit on their hands and were about to unleash it on all of Korea and the world.

From the beginning, the band had the idea that they wanted to perform all live stages on as many music show appearances as they could. It is not very common for band artists to perform with full live instruments on many of Korea’s music shows mainly because of the huge production costs and labor behind the performance set up. These obstacles were something CNBLUE and label mates, FTISLAND among others, have had to deal with since their debut. CNBLUE have been touted as an Idol band and have been accused of not being a “real band” mainly because many only viewed them on stage hand syncing to their music as this was the practice of most music shows on TV. Despite their obvious musical talents, CNBLUE were portrayed in the media as pretty “Flower” boys until now.


CNBLUE were determined to start show promotions for ‘RE: BLUE’ with all live stages. Not letting previous obstacles stand in their way for this comeback, they made sure all the provisions for their live stages would be covered by the band. The difficulties of this possibility such as production labor, venue, and equipment rentals as well as supporters in the form of fans to fill the audience all had to be taken into consideration for them to be able to pull it off. The outcome, they would prerecord their live stage performances in front of a live audience to be broadcast at a later date.

For two weeks in a row, CNBLUE have consistently appeared on TV with prerecorded live instrument stages and are still going strong. They have made history being the first band to perform live stages on various Korean television music shows, shedding their “Idol band” media image in the process. While it’s a feat that they should be proud of, it’s even more impressive that they may be single handedly changing the way bands are treated and represented on television from now on. While the live stage production still poses an expensive issue, CNBLUE have shown that it is a problem that can be overcome successfully.

CNBLUE still continue their stages for a third consecutive week starting with a KBS Music Bank performance on February 2, 2013.


Source: cnblue.co.kr
Photo Credits: FNC 
written by: Mari @cnbstorm / colormecnblue