Kim Sung Kyu: 1st Solo Concert Live Shine Album Review

2018 has been a big year for Infinite's leader Kim Sung Kyu, with his full album released in January, first solo concert series "Shine" held in early May, and then his military enlistment shortly after. But to many Inspirits' surprise, he has also been active in the military, by acting as a lead in a military musical that will soon be on a nationwide tour. To add to this list, Woollim has also released the live album version of Sung Kyu's solo concert on August 22nd.

I pre-ordered this live album from Ktown4u for about $30 USD. It shipped out on August 22nd and arrived on September 4th. The album was securely wrapped in several layers of bubblewrap and placed inside a cardboard box and arrived in almost perfect condition.

The album looks very minimalist but elegant, with a pastel blue and white color scheme and matte finish. The album is held together by a cardboard sticker in the center. The dimensions are about 7.75" by 7.75" by 1.125".

The sides of the album say "shine" in the same font used for Sung Kyu's concert poster. Here you can see the design flaw of this album - the sticker doesn't stick too well, so the album ends up looking like this. Ideally there should be magnets in place for reinforcement.

The top and bottom of the album look like this, with the artist and album title printed.

The back cover lists the tracklist for both discs, highlighting track "Sorry" as the title song.

Lifting up the flaps reveals the album contents. The bottom flap also includes the album credits.

The center box isn't connected to the outer casing. The top layer is a translucent plastic cover, similar to Sung Kyu's 10 Stories limited edition packaging.

From left to right are the photobook, folded posters, sticker, photocards, and CD case. Fortunately there is nothing random with this album release; each album comes with the same 2 posters and 2 photocards, and there are no exterior first press posters.

The photobook consists of 24 loose leaf pages that are double-sided. The second page has a Thanks To message. All other pages purely contain photos.

Excluding the second page, the first 16 sheets are photos from Sung Kyu's photoshoot for his concert promotions and merchandise.

The remaining 8 sheets are photos from his concert series.

This album also contains 2 folded posters. I personally like these posters a lot more than the ones included in Sung Kyu's 10 Stories limited edition album because these look much more official with the text.

These posters are about 15.5" by 23.25" and have a matte finish. The backside of both posters contains a simplistic design as well.

This album also includes a highly reflective cardboard sticker, the same one used on the album cover. The wording is embossed and says "shine / KIM SUNG KYU / 1ST SOLO CONCERT LIVE." It is about 2" in diameter.

2 photocards also come with this album. They're both glossy and have the same dimensions as Season 2, Top Seed, and 10 Stories.

Here are the backsides of the photocards. The first message translates to "goodbye for a moment" while the second message translates to "be healthy." It's so touching he wrote caring messages for Inspirits while we wait for him to come back from the military!

At the very bottom of the box is the CD case, which has a matte finish. The backside of the CD case looks exactly the same as the back cover, except without the barcode and authentication sticker.

The 2 CDs are secured in a plastic casing.

Both CDs also have "shine" printed on the front. I love how Woollim always adds these subtle details.

Below is the tracklist, where the first disc contains 10 tracks and the second disc contains 11 tracks.

1. 천사의 도시
2. 끌림
3. I Need You 
4. 눈물만
5. 마주보며 서있어 (featuring Woohyun)
6. Sentimental 
7. 뭐랬어 (featuring Dongwoo)
8. 즈워지는 날들
9. 답가 (featuring Inspirit)
10. Till Sunrise (featuring Jongwan)
11. 41일
12. Daydream (featuring Borderline: Tablo and JW)
13. Alive
14. Kontrol
15. Shine
16. 너여야만 해 
17. True Love
18. 60초
19. Sorry
20. 거울 
21. 머물러줘

I compared the above tracklist with Sung Kyu's concert setlist provided by Twitter fanbase @InfiniteUpdates. In one of the three concert days, Sung Kyu performed "Because" instead of "마주보며 서있어." And of course the special guests' songs aren't included in the album.

I absolutely love all the tracks on this live album. Woollim did an excellent job of minimizing the audience's cheering, so you can really hear Sung Kyu's vocals. I also love how almost all of Sung Kyu's songs are on this album (I think we are only missing his solo songs "Because" and "Light" from Infinite's full albums). It's also really cool to hear the change and growth of some of these tracks in comparison to when they were first released. For example, 눈물만 has the lyrics "I missing you" and it was performed with this grammatical error for years. But in this live track, Sung Kyu sings it "I'm missing you" which I'm so happy about because I personally had trouble listening to this song just because of that error. It is also very touching hearing Inspirits sing parts of "답가" and "True Love"; it really feels like Sung Kyu and Inspirits became one at his concert. And lastly, I love that Dongwoo and Woohyun were featured. We finally have an official track of Infinite V!

I have fallen in love with Sung Kyu's voice all over again and am so happy that Woollim released a live album while we wait for Sung Kyu to return!