Fan-made banners lined the tables as messages of support, a quiet warmth before the show had even begun. The band took the stage gradually, pale blue light washing over the room before a white glow slowly rose — and with it, tonight's protagonist: Ko Youngbae stepped forward.

Opening with Voice (목소리), he offered a humble bow before parting his lips — and within two or three phrases, made it unmistakably clear that he is the real deal. City lights and passing headlights rolled across the backdrop behind him, framing the song for what it was: a love song, understated and assured.

Ricotta Cheese Salad (리코타 치즈 샐러드) shifted the room into harder territory. Ko carries the nickname "King of Live Performance," and in this moment it was easy to understand why — there was a Freddie Mercury quality to him, a natural command of the room that felt less performed than simply inhabited. The crowd's response erupted for a full thirty seconds, riding the crest of a howling guitar solo before the song dissolved into something more intimate and confessional.

"Hello everyone, long time no see — we're SORAN." Then, in Taiwanese: to-siā — thank you. The room laughed.

He scanned the audience: "Can anyone who doesn't understand Korean raise their hand?" Only a few went up. He blinked, then broke into a grin. "Really? Seriously?" A beat. "Then what do I do… I guess I'll just use AI." The room erupted again — that kind of straight-faced, guileless humor landing exactly as it should.

"We've prepared a lot of great songs tonight. Please scream as much as you want."

The laughter said everything about him. This is not the polished remove of most K-pop acts. There is more of himself here — looser, more spontaneous, more present.

Love Crash! (너의 등장) brought pop-rock energy that had the whole band nodding in unison. Ko moved with the rhythm of someone who grew up inside a band, not in front of one — equally at home in a gritty growl or a soaring falsetto. "The moment you appeared, my whole world spun out of control."

"Raise your cup, please."

"This is our very first solo show in Taipei. We're truly honored — and genuinely happy." He mentioned the custom SORAN cocktail Billboard Live had prepared, confessed the band had already tried it at the first show, called it delicious, then paused — "There's also an alcoholic version." Another beat. "We're not really drinkers, but after having some earlier, I think we're performing better."

He lingered on the venue itself, marveling at how close the stage sat to the audience — a rarity for someone more accustomed to festival stages and large arenas, where this kind of intimacy with fans simply doesn't exist.

Love is No Sin (사랑한 마음엔 죄가 없다) felt like a personal manifesto — love, unapologetic. Dream (꿈을 꿨어) arrived with the warmth of folk-rock, and turned out to be a coordinated fan cheer song; the band played off each other with easy smiles, drifting together through the music. "I dreamed of you — and that moment felt like fate."

The latest release, Drawing an Apple (사과 하나를 그려), opened with light the color of a late afternoon sun, its Britpop sensibility giving way to baroque melodic turns, winding and alive. Confession of Your Love (이제 나와라 고백) built a wall of sound in its opening bars — full and surging — before snapping to silence and then unleashing everything at once. Ko invited the whole room to sing along, letting the simplest melody do the heaviest lifting.

Throughout the set, he kept pausing to talk, and the tone was always relaxed, easy, genuine. He admitted that walking into a restaurant-style venue initially made him nervous — he worried people might be too focused on taking photos to really join in. But the crowd's energy put him at ease almost immediately, and he turned it into a joke: he'd been thoroughly impressed by fans' ability to film and sing simultaneously, and gently warned that if anyone watched the footage back and found themselves singing too loudly, they shouldn't be upset with him.

When it came to his bandmates, he couldn't help himself. He teased the bassist for practically becoming a "Friend of Taiwan" — his feed apparently nothing but airplane photos — and suggested fans might recognize him by now. When introducing the guitarist, there was a flicker of quiet pride: the man knows their songs like they're written in his bones.

Happy (행복) opened with bright, bouncing guitar, and Ko stepped down from the stage to go hand-to-hand with fans — a flash of something small and steady in all that noise. "As long as I know where you are, that's all I need to be happy."

Between laughs, he led the room in a dance.

"In Korea, we do this with the audience." Right hand, left hand. "Then you high-five the person next to you." He glanced at the tables and smiled. "That's kind of hard here, isn't it." A pause. "Okay, let's keep it simple. Right hand. Left hand. Look left. Look right. Don't let anyone think you came alone."

The barriers dissolved. High-fives across tables, strangers catching each other's eyes, grinning.

Falling In Love (너를 보네, 2024 ver.) hit like charged pop-punk, Ko bouncing across the stage with the energy of someone who, given a pair of headphones and an open road, has never cared much for anyone's expectations. Introducing it, he wore a sly smile — this song was originally a duet with 10cm, and he couldn't resist needling his friend: "He told me he's super famous in Taiwan. Isn't that a little full of himself?" The affection in the dig was obvious.

"I'm falling in love with you."

"Honestly, I never really felt it before — the idea that music could cross borders. But coming here today, seeing you, hearing you say you love us… it's almost unreal. Getting to do a solo show in Taiwan — I'm genuinely happy."

He reached for his AI translator and held it up: "Hope to come back to Taipei again."

During Good Bye, he pulled his in-ear monitors off entirely, tilting his head to take in the full, unfiltered roar of the room. Fans wiped their eyes. He waved.

The encore brought Can't Close My Eyes (잠이 안 와) — a more languid, slightly seductive read, his expression doing as much work as his voice. "I can't sleep because I'm thinking of you."

Near the end of the night, he said: "Tonight has been so wonderful. I was incredibly nervous walking in — but now I feel this warmth I can't quite place. I'm not sure if it's the drink or all of you."

Before the final song, Movie (우리의 영화), he said quietly: "Everything that happened tonight felt like a film. Thank you — truly."

He promised SORAN would return to Taiwan, and let slip that April would bring a new single and something bigger still. In the final goodbye, he remembered to tell both the Taipei and Seoul fans watching to get home safely — and closed the night the only way that felt right:

"We are SORAN. Thank you."