K-pop Group CIX Thrills American Fans at New York City Performance

The K-pop group CIX is in the middle of an eight-city North American tour, their third trip stateside in as many years. On Sunday, May 12, the five-member boy band put on a solid two-hour, 22-song set, but they also made time to charm the audience with numerous conversations (via a translator).

CIX members BX, Seunghun, Bae Jinyoung, Yonghee, and Hyunsuk bodyrolled, preened, and crooned through their numerous choreographed routines while their fiercely devoted fans -- some of whom had also attended their previous New York shows -- screamed, shrieked, and swayed. And though the band displayed much of the precision and discipline that sets K-pop bands apart in the world of song-and-dance crews, they sweetly showed their human side, joking about needing "to hydrate" and audibly panting like athletes during a postgame quicktake after the tougher dance numbers.

The band, who are all between the ages of 24 and 26, seems to know how hard building a brand and a following is, and they were genuinely grateful to their New York-area fans who attended the Mother's Day show in upper Manhattan. While speaking to the audience through a live translator, they repeatedly thanked fans -- CIX's fandom call themselves FIX, which stands for "Faith in X" -- for the love and "energy" they felt from them.

"Thank you for your energy -- you're really heating this place up!" one declared between songs.

The setlist alternated between dance-heavy numbers, like their opening industrial banger "Move My Body," distorted beat-switching "Bad Dream," and percussive "458," to ballads ("Drown in Luv") and less choreographed songs ("LOST," "Imagine," or "Wave") where they each paced around the stage waving, making finger hearts, and generally flirting with the crowd of dancing, squealing, light-stick waving fans.

(FIX members, like any K-pop stans, don't have just any old glow sticks; there are official CIX-branded light sticks available online, just as there are for most K-pop groups. Called eungwonbong in Korean, it translates as "support [as in cheering] stick," and they have been in use since at least 2006, when the group BigBang created their own yellow crown design light stick.)

For only being a few years old (and forming just weeks before the start of a global pandemic), CIX has a solid catalog of quality songs at their disposal. Some, like early singles "Jungle" and "Numb" were missing from the lineup, but CIX used that time to individually showcase the voices and personalities of its members.

During their solo sets, Hyunsuk chose LANY's pop-ballad "ILYSB," while Yonghee performed Troye Sivan's soaring "Angel Baby." BX, the designated rapper of the group, chose Marteen's "Left to Right," and came in to pinch-hit on the Latto rap during Bae Jinyoung's cover of "Seven," BTS member Jung Kook's global solo smash. Seunghun closed out the solo section with a tribute to one of New York's favorite daughters, Alicia Keys, by covering her early hit "If I Ain't Got You."

"Looking back, we all have grown a lot. When I compare our old performances and today, I think everyone improved in many aspects," Yonghee told USA Today last year. "However, I believe we still have a long way to go, so we'll stay humble and keep working hard."

The band echoed this work ethic in statements from the stage of the United Palace. After performing their very first single, the flashy "Movie Star" (which includes an impressive dance break), back-to-back with their most recent single, the funkier, extremely earwormy "Lovers or Enemies," one band member stated that they "really want to show us growing and getting better," and that the pairing of these two songs was meant to help illustrate that growth of artistry.

K-Pop bands have been making inroads with its American fanbase for quite a few years now. Boy band BTS -- which has had chart-topping English-language hits like "Dynamite" and "Butter" -- has been making Korean- and Japanese-language hits since 2014, but newer groups like Blackpink, Stray Kids, NewJeans, Tomorrow X Together (TXT), Seventeen, and Ateez have also proven they can chart in the U.S. According to Billboard, 35 different K-pop albums entered the Billboard 200 last year, and five of those took the top spot.

Much like any of those other groups, the members of CIX (pronounced C-I-X) came to the group through various Korean talent-grooming reality shows (think MTV's Making the Band) and industry training programs. Bae Jinyoung and BX were both winners on different shows, and in 2019, South Korean entertainment agency C9 Entertainment announced its newest group, CIX, with Bae Jinyoung confirmed as its first member.

According to the agency, the band's name is an abbreviation for Complete in X: "It connotes the meaning of 'completion of the unknown,' meaning that it will be completed only when all five unknown members come together." The five members have been together since then, and they've been steadily releasing EPs, touring Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and increasing their fanbase and chart rankings each year.

"When our group started, the whole preparation process was done rather quickly," Seunghun told USA Today last year. "But now, we created a great teamwork and balance among ourselves, and I feel very proud about it."

CIX, which has more than a million followers on both its Instagram and YouTube channels, will also perform in Atlanta, Dallas, Mexico City, and L.A. on this North American tour. See below for show locations and times.