Exclusive Review: MAMAMOO's HwaSa Heats Up The Stage In Boston

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HwaSa, the famed vocalist and rapper from South Korea, recently performed to a nearly sold-out crowd at the MGM Music Hall Boston last weekend. Despite the show being on at the tail end of her North American tour, she told her TWITS (HwaSa’s fandom’s name) that she was looking forward to this stop for a while.

“I had a chance to rest one day here in Boston,” she said during one of her interludes between songs. “Next time, I want to come on vacation here by myself. I didn’t think I ever could get healing from just being in a city.”

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While HwaSa’s claim to fame is being a member of MAMAMOO, a vocal powerhouse group that has sold more than 1.2 million records worldwide, she displayed both the vocal and physical chops needed to command the attention of the nearly 3,000-person audience in attendance. She expertly mixed vocal forward ballads such as her hit ‘LMM’ and Lady Gaga’s ‘Always Remember Us This Way’ with her high energy, choreography forward numbers like ‘TWIT’ and Tyla’s ‘Water’ throughout the set.

During costume changes, the crowd was treated to a video of HwaSa touring the historic town, including a walkthrough of the famous Harvard Yard where she pretended to be a model student on campus as well as a visit to the Neptune Oyster Bar where she ate a famed lobster roll and clam chowder.

“This has been on my mind so much,” she said, “that I would return to Boston just for this.”

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While HwaSa has her own growing discography under her new label P Nation, she also performed other MAMAMOO hits such as ‘Decalcomanie’, ‘Egotistic’, ‘Dingga’ and ‘HIP’. She also covered various Western artists and had the crowd singing along to Billie Ellish’s ‘Lunch’, SZA’s ‘Snooze’ and Brittney Spears’s ‘Toxic’ during her nearly two-hour long concert.

After Boston, HwaSa continued to Toronto and Chicago to complete her “HWASA LIVE TOUR [Twits]” in North America. Her fans are already anticipating her return.

“This show was amazing,” said Jessica Welsh, 19 and was attending her first K-Pop concert in her life. “I need mother HwaSa to come back tomorrow.”