Exclusive Review: MAMAMOO Shines During A Starry Night In New York

MAMAMOO, a South-Korean foursome known for their outstanding live vocals, recently lit up the UBS Arena, Belmont Park with a near-capacity show on Tuesday. Fans, affectionately called MOOMOOs, travelled from as far as away as Europe to see the group, who last visited the US back during "KCON Los Angeles" in 2019.

Raising to fame back in 2014 with the surprise hit 'Mr. Ambiguous', MAMAMOO consists of Solar (Vocalist/Leader), MoonByul (Rapper), WheeIn (Vocalist) and HwaSa (Vocalist/Maknae). While the group regularly found international and domestic success, the group rarely left Asia until their most recent MY CON tour. As a special surprise for the group’s US fans, the foursome changed and, unfortunately, shortened their standard setlist.

Starting off with their most recent group comeback '1,2,3 Eoi!' before sliding into their first hit 'Mr. Ambiguous', the group was well prepared to make their fans scream, shimmy and dance for the two-hour long concert. After a brief greeting where all the members thanked their New York MOOMOOs for showing up at the start of the US leg of the tour, the group bought out its backup dancers to perform a set of the group’s more recent hits with 'AYA', 'ILLELA', 'Décalcomanie', and 'HIP'.

The audience, mostly women, could directly relate to 'HIP'’s lyrics: “Thank you to everyone who provokes me. Losers who stopped there, right back at you. Thanks to you, my mentality is strong.” After a humorous animated skit, the group led the crowd in a call and response to 'Taller Than You'.  MoonByul’s and HwaSa’s musical rapping stood out as a perfect counter balance to Solar’s and WheeIn’s soaring vocals.

The group then broke apart for solo stages as each member has a deep solo discography. Fans were surprised as each member snippets of the other member’s solo songs. Solar performed WheeIn’s 'Water Color', HwaSa sang MoonByul’s 'Eclipse', WheeIn belted out Solar’s 'Honey', and MoonByul covered HwaSa’s 'Twit'.  The group then reformed to form a medley of 'Spit It Out', 'Make Me Happy', 'Lunatic' and 'Maria'.

Dennis DaSilva | UBS Arena

MAMAMOO slowed it down with thrilling, nearly sensual, performance of the ballads 'Paint Me' and 'Star Wind Flower Sun', before picking it up with remixed versions of some of their most famous singles: 'Egotistic', 'gogobebe', 'Starry Night' and 'Wind flower'.

Dennis DaSilva | UBS Arena

As tradition with K-Pop shows, MAMAMOO quickly ran off stage and changed into the tour merchandise before performing an encore of 'Travel' and 'Yes I Am'.  The group was immediately touched as a fan-made "Welcome to the US" video was shown before the concert ended with 'L.I.E.C' and 'Um Oh Ah Yeh'.

Dennis DaSilva | UBS Arena

While MAMAMOO’s future as a touring group is somewhat hazy as WheeIn is now represented by another management group, their chemistry and energy as a foursome is unmatched.  There’s no wonder why the foursome can sell out arenas through South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Dennis DaSilva | UBS Arena

After New York, MAMAMOO performed in Baltimore and Atlanta. The group is now set to head to Nashville, Fort Worth, Chicago, Glendale, Oakland and Los Angeles for their next shows.

Kpopmap received a complimentary review ticket for MAMAMOO’s concert in New York. It did not influence the coverage of this event.