Ion-item and background on click like WhatsApp does

Hi,

You know the behavior of a clicked item on WhatsApp:
it becomes grey until the page transition happens.
So that the user knows that he’s just clicked on it.

I expect to do the same with Ionic with CSS only.

Basically I have this:

           <ion-list>
                <ion-item collection-repeat="elem in elements track by elem.id"
                          item-width="'100%'"
                          item-height="100"
                          ng-click="show(elem.id)">  //show does the transition to the item's detail page
                          //...........

The CSS being:

.item {
  background-color: #fcfcfc;
}

.item.active, .item.activated, .item-complex.active .item-content, .item-complex.activated .item-content, .item .item-content.active, .item .item-content.activated {
      border-color: #ccc !important;
      background-color: #ff0000 !important;
 }

However, the issue is that the color appears on click but immediately disappears.
I expect the grey background to stay until the page transition is done, exactly like WhatsApp does.

Is it possible?

Thanks