Hi hello, I have nothing to gif, and I attended my fifth kpop this weekend, and thought I would rate/share my experiences for no reason other than maybe help others figure out the way of kpop concerts and etc
BTS - 9/10
I attended their “love yourself world tour” in Berlin in 2018, I travelled to Berlin from my country (Denmark) to attend the concert. The ticketing experience to bts is a nightmare, even back in 2018 - I still don’t know how we managed to get tickets, because everything was sold out in minutes. I’ve heard it’s even worse now. The cueing for bts outside the arena and merch is an even bigger nightmare, I don’t know if Mercedez Benz Arena has fixed their “we let everyone in the seated areas through the same ten doors) issue but the line was so long it wrapped around the buildings and we only got in like twenty minutes before start, I didn’t go for merch but my friend I travelled with did and she stood in line from six in the morning till four in the afternoon and she got none of the things she wanted and only got a small keychain with a members name on (not even one of her biases), I hope bighit/hybe fixed the merch hell. The concert itself though!! Sadly we were one of the ones affected by Jungkooks foot injury, so he was seated, but he slayed the vocals from his seated position and did little dances in his seat it was cute. The boys can dance though, have incredibly energy, and are so in sync, but I will say the one thing about bts when they go on stage is they are such a unit, when they interact with each other and in each others presence you can feel how much of a close relationship they have with each other and it really brings everything to the next level. I have no complaints to their performance at all, and will always recommend that anyone should go to a bts concert before they die because there is nothing like it. The only dislike I had (which will be a common theme with two other bands too) is that the translator was ofc german, which meant for a good portion of the concert (whenever there was talking) me and my friends had no clue what was going on. But this isn’t really something that brought down their performance or my overall view, it was just kind of like “ugh” not knowing what they were saying, but that comes with travelling to other countries to see concerts.
Monsta X - 8/10
I can’t remember what this world tour was called, but it was the one in Berlin in 2019. I was a casual fan of them when I went in, and boy did I come out loving them and their performance energy. This concert also had absolute hell cueing outside the arena, I generally hope this has gotten better with the years and as the arena has held more kpop concert, but this one we got in an hour before even though the doors opened two hours before. Me and my friend wanted to get lightsticks at the concert, and they were sold out, and at first we thought they must have sold a lot then, but when we sat down in the arena ... no lie, so many people were without lightsticks, and it just seemed like the company had underestimated how many people needed lightsticks in the crowd. Major minus point to the company. HOWEVER, the boys were amazing! they had so much energy, their vocals and rap were 100% live (which bts were too, didn’t mention that, but you could clearly hear with both these bands that everything was live), I genuinly came out a bigger fan than when I entered and listened to their music so much afterwards, it was such a good experience and if they came to my country I would totally go see them again. This concert ofc also had the german translator, except for I.M who spoke in english, which again was like “ugh” but again not really something that affected my view of the group or their performance. Would totally recommend going to see them if you have the chance, you won’t regret it.
Got7 - 4/10
Now, before I start I will say this was one of their last tour if not the last tour before they left JYP and I think that might have affected their creative vision of how they wanted this concert to look and sound like, and JB was also sick during this concert and left before it was over, so I think you should keep that in mind because I definitly think that affected a great part of why this concert didn’t work, for me atleast. I have been a casual fan of got7 since their debut, me and my friend who also saw monsta x, have listened to them since their debut and now a lot of their songs and also have seen a lot of variety content for got7, so we went in with higher expecations than we went in for Monsta x. But something just felt slightly off for this concert, the stage itself was kind of boring - they didn’t really have anything that set it apart visually form other concerts, it was mostly just screeneffects and then them. The mood also felt a little bit off, not like they didn’t wanna be there, but just it felt like it wasn’t like their prime that night and it might have been because their leader was sick for a big portion of the concert. Dancing wise they were amazing, vocal wise - though live and no backing track - they didn’t always sound as clear as monsta x and bts, but I think that could also just be circumstancial, I don’t think bts and monsta x have sounded perfect every day in their career, so. One of their vcr’s was a comedy bit, which is ofc on brand, but it was quite long and they had put on german subtitles for the berlin tour stop, which meant me and my friend spent a lot of very long minutes amongst laughing people not understanding what was going on at all, and the people around us we asked if they could translate just ignored us, which was quite rude. Overall just not the best concert experience for us, I probably wouldn’t go see them again, but I do think people should go see them and make their own judgement especially because I’m quite sure we might have just caught them on a bad day or year. I will also add that Bambam basically carried the energy of this concert, he has incredible crowd control and really knows how to interact with the crowd and make them laugh and have energy, and he’s not even my bias.
Blackpink - 6/10
Now I saw blackpink in december in my home country, and there’s several points I wanna make. I don’t think Blackpink are bad performers, dancers or singers as some commenters on social media would make it out to be, but as someone who attended this tour I do think with the time in their hiatus ... this could have been better. Now first for plus sides of this concert experience, it was the first concert in my home country and it was just nice that I could go home afterwards and not to a hotel. Yg has their merchandise under control!! there was basically no cue, they had every size left even though me and my friend came very last minute when the doors opened. Blackpink had an entire section where they spend several minutes showcasing their dancers and band, letting them have the stage alone and I have never seen this at a concert before and I loved it and it really showed respect to the people they work with. They also had practiced several phrases in danish, which I also felt was so respectful to the country they were in and the people they were performing for. Their vcrs are amazing, beautiful and stunning and practically look like etherial perfume commercials. Rosé and Jennie were overpowering the backing track several times. Jennie and Lisa have incredible stage presence in terms of how they are in their facial expression, they really know to navigate that according to what song is being performed and what is being sung. Jisoo can dance!! she nailed that choreography for her solo performance, not just nailed it, she was incredible. Now for negatives: Let’s be honest, if ur going to a blackpink concert for choreography, ur in the wrong place. At most their choreographys is them swinging their arms around a lot, doing varies forms of catwalks whilst singing or rapping, and ocasionally you’ll get minimal footwork. They aren’t really a dancing choreography hard hitting group, and I think that’s fine and I think it’s time blinks admit that and just roll with what we get. For me I do think at times the girls could benefit from ditching the catwalking waving arm choreo for some of their b side tracks and just lets the dancers do their thing while sing and rap and be artists, I don’t really think they need to have choreo for all their songs, and sometimes it feels like they shove some easy choreo in their just to have it. Jennie’s solo is amazing, and I love the direction for it and the sound of it, BUT I do think it kind of sucks that you go out of the concert not being able to hear it (probably ever again bc lets face it yg aint releasing shit unless they really have to), where as had it been “solo” being performed u could go home and listen to it and repeat it, you can’t really do that with this. Jisoo not having her solo before this tour started, is criminal, yg had two years to get that out and I absolutely think that should have been a priority, because even if Jisoo nailed her liar performance it feels off that there are three bandmembers performing original work and then one member performing covers. I’m not the biggest fan of Lalisa and Money (mostly Lalisa, because I find it highly annoying that she says her own name over a 100 times, and I think she deserved a better solo than a song that just screams at you to say her name over and over again) but I will say they do really well in concert settings even if you don’t like them, HOWEVER, it did bother me during money how little Lisa had that microphone to her mouth, even when she wasn’t dancing - she practically threw out a phrase once in a blue moon, and I wished they instead would have said “okay this is a dance performance” and just put the mic down entirely and just had her go off with the background dancers, because it would have worked better and it just feels off when she only does half the lyrics. The girls are not good at crowd control during talks, at all, you can really tell they are all kind of shy people because a lot of the time they look at each other and you can tell they just hoping not to be the next one to talk. Jennie and Rosé talks most, probably because of the english, but i wish they would have put a translator on then so Lisa and Jisoo could have been freely speaking too. Yg needs to ditch that backing track for blackpink, it keeps coming back in every live event blackpink does and I hate it, they can perform perfectly fine without it and its annoying to hear the echoing of a backing track. I didn’t attend their first world tour, but I have the dvds from it, and I honestly like those better than this one, and i wish I had been on that one. But that being said, I am a blink forever at heart, and it’s always an experience to go see them, but I do think if you go on hiatus for two years planning an album and tour, I expect more from it. There are kpop groups who have a quarter of that time planning it, and money, and they manage to produce better staging and setup and concept.
Ateez - 9/10
I was not a fan until I saw them on saturday in my home country. I had listened to a lot of their title tracks, because I’m the type to put on kpop playlists and find new tracks that way to listen to, but I didn’t really know their names or anything like that, went because my friend was a fan. But boy did they change my mind. First of all, this was the first group who did not!! have any solo or unit stages in between group stages, they were on stage all eight for the entire concert, and I think they basically only didn’t have choreography for a song or two, it was insane how much ENERGY they had! Jongho (I hope I am spelling his name correctly) is insane live, his vocals are beyond stable, and he is without a doubt the best kpop vocalist I have heard live. I also love that their choreographies seem to have a common theme to them, I called it “stumble choreography” to my friend in lack of better wording, but a lot of the choreographies have this theme of where they stumble to one side of the stage to another, and it just cool it kind of ties together. The entire section with the pirate ship as a graphic, where they mimicked stumbling on a boat each time the boat graphic moved was beyond cool. They all spoke english even though they clearly aren’t fluent, and I respect that!! the only time they used their translator was when one of the members cleared up something that didn’t come out right in english, otherwise they spoke entirely in english. I don’t a single complaint about this concert at all, and I think just like I said with bts, everyone should go see them once, they are incredible.
also I would like to add at the end, most of my critique is mostly aimed at the company, I don’t think in most cases that kpop idols gets to have a lot of control or say in how they want things done, and I think that should be taken in consideration when critiquing a concept, album, music video or concert or anything that is being put out. Unless of course you are dealing with groups like bts who have had a lot of creative input to how they should like and sound and perform.
for the end here are groups I really want to see life if they come to europe, so if you have experiences with them please tell me yours <3 :
le sserafim, new jeans, shinee, exo, twice, seventeen, txt, gidle, nct 127
and as for solos, I really wanna see Taemin he’s very high on the list (but sm is allergic to europe)
stormborns
prguitarman
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
titsay
baratheonpilled
izzy806
discoholicmusic
