The Nights Are Drawing In . . .

So, since the last time I blogged, we've passed the longest day of the year and are now moving towards darker nights again (and Halloween and pumpkin spice 🥳). Only a couple of weeks on and I've already noticed it, although maybe that's just because the weather's been so crappy. It's been hot and humid and horrible but also cloudy, so maybe it just seems like it's getting darker earlier. My mother tells me it's noticeable in the morning too, but as I rarely rise until well after dawn breaks I'll have to take her word for that.

Although I never got around to posting further last month (again 🙈 - this has become a bad habit, sorry), I have been really busy putting together my top 20s for the first 6 months of 2024, and listening to the July playlist, which still managed to pass 1,000 tracks (I thought it was supposed to be a quiet month).

I shall do a separate post for the half-year lists as there are a few links and I've already got more than enough links going on in the sidebar without adding them too. I'm about ready to start on the July Top 3s, but with over 100 Korean singles alone to sort through it's going to take a while (yes, I know I always say this but it's true).

July's listening stats are out, and for the first time EVER since I started checking out Receiptify for my music, there is no EXO or Pentagon (or their members) anywhere on the top ten list of artists 😱. I obviously had to make up for this grievous error immediately by listening to my EXO 'Essentials' playlist (which contains what I consider to be the single essential track from every release that EXO and its members have released and runs to almost 13 hours) and will listen to my Pentagon playlist tomorrow to ensure that something so shocking doesn't happen again.

As you can see from July's last.fm stats, I.M finally succeeded in his bid to take over my listening, both because his music is fantastic and because we were supposed to be seeing him live last week. Unfortunately, illness derailed us and we had to cancel, so I was reduced to chasing videos on social media to make me even more sad about what we missed out on. The concert was sold out, and everyone clearly had an amazing time, so I'm hopeful that he'll come back to the UK with yet another incredible album and tour soon.

We did, however, manage to get to the Stray Kids (SKZ) concert at BST Hyde Park earlier in the month. The weather was extremely kind to us as it stayed dry, albeit a little too warm for me (hurrah for the hat and sunscreen I remembered to take), as it had rained all week, and resumed the following day too. Overall, it was an interesting experience, with SKZ providing an excellent set that was well worth attending. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for some of the support acts, a couple of whom didn't seem to be a very good fit with a K-pop band, even ones as bad-ass as SKZ. 

The organisers had cleverly scheduled the other Asian acts right at the beginning of the day to ensure people didn't turn up late and would spend lots of money on expensive food and drinks (for instance, an ice cream was £10!!!), with a Taiwanese artist I'm rather fond of called Kire opening the day at 2pm. I really wanted to support him, so despite already knowing it was going to be a bad idea, we tried to get there in time to see him and just about managed it as we arrived halfway through his set.

We just got there and Kire was already on stage.

Unfortunately, this meant we then had a 6-hour wait for SKZ, with music that was not to our taste at all (and used up all my goodwill with Quincy; not helped by the concert being on the same day as the Euros final for which England had (unexpectedly) qualified). 

The K-pop girl group NMIXX were next up. As you will have noticed I'm generally not a follower of female artists, so I didn't really know them outside of their performances I've seen on award shows and can only rate them against other girl groups I've seen at festivals. I thought they did a pretty good job, but I couldn't help wishing they'd been on first so I didn't miss Kire. 

Next was an artist I'd never heard of (as I rarely listen to much Western music outside of my favs these days) called Alec Benjamin. He was okay, as he reminded me a bit of Passenger and other similar singer-songwriters that I used to listen to about fifteen years ago, but as there was no seating we had to sit on the plastic flooring put down to protect the grass, which wasn't at all comfortable and didn't help to increase enjoyment of the performance.    

The act that followed, which was also the one that preceded SKZ, was easily one of the worst artists I have seen in a long time and, we decided after quite some conversation about it, is probably the third-worst opening act out of all of the concerts we've ever attended. We seemed to be sitting on the same side as all the parents who had accompanied their kids to the concert and weren't really that interested in any of the music - some of whom were commiserating with each other and Quincy about missing the football. 

The one thing this artist did achieve, was unite us all in wishing she would disappear and leave us in peace. While the first song wasn't too bad (considering), her entire set seemed to be songs about boys she couldn't go out with or boys who dumped her, and the quality of her more recent songs was no better than the ones written when she was sixteen. As people around us fell asleep or complained loudly about how terrible she was, I kept thinking she needed to talk to a good psychiatrist to get over her addiction to romantic relationships and learn to enjoy being single; she doesn't need a boyfriend to define her. I still have no idea why she was chosen to be the opening act for SKZ. It was also at this point I was told by Quincy that the next time I decided I wanted to see an opening act that was many hours before the band we had paid to see were on, I should think again and not do it. 

SKZ are here!

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, and with Quincy by now watching the football on my phone (I had charged it so she could watch as I felt guilty for the 6-hour wait), SKZ took to the stage and 30 seconds later Quincy announced that Felix, who until that moment she had never before seen in her life, was hers. I was happy to cede him as Bang Chan has always been my bias - although I'll admit that I.N wrecked me really badly both during the concert and with the videos for their new album, ATE (released on the Friday following the concert) that have come out since.     

Thank goodness for big screens

As expected, SKZ were incredible live, so much so that Quincy only occasionally looked at the football (this is a massive compliment to them). But their set was so short, especially considering the amount of time we had spent waiting for them (and the cost of the tickets). It was great to finally see them live, though, even if they didn't treat us by playing any of their new album in advance. 

Shortly after the release of the album they announced a new world tour so with any luck it won't be too long before they come back to the UK, and I will be watcing the first concert in Seoul on livestream on 1 September.  

Several people I know online were also there but were on the other side of the park. They all ended up with COVID, so I'm glad that we didn't do more than a cursory attempt to find and meet up with them as we were okay.

Apart from Stray Kids, I've seen two concerts live online; the first was FTISLAND, on their Pulse tour, which was actually at the end of June but I completely forgot to mention it in the last post. It was mainly showcasing their fantastic new album Serious, which is an absolute banger of an album, although it also included several of their classic numbers too. 

Jaejin, Hongki and Minhwan looking fine

Somewhat surprisingly, I received the above photocards free for attending the concert, which was a nice touch - you can usually buy merch for online concerts but it's rarely given away. It came as something of a surprise as I wasn't expecting it, especially when the sleeve containing the 3 cards turned up in such a huge box 😂.

Such a massive box for such a tiny package

I would love to see the band live, but as I'm not sure they've ever toured outside Asia since their debut, and have only recently scheduled an upcoming concert in Manila for the first time in about fifteen years I think the chances, unless I go to South Korea or Japan, are pretty remote. Although, in the excellent recent video below where the band sing various songs while travelling in a car doing 250 km/ph and skid pan driving, Hongki did mention that the experience was something they could tell their audience about when they do their world tour, so not all hope is lost (although, obviously to many K-pop promoters the world only seems to consist of Asia, the US and LATAM - Europe is just a mysterious land mass in the map that they seem not to notice).    

The other concert was last weekend and was the final Seoul concert in Baekhyun's Lonsdaleite tour, which he'd been doing for four months and in various places (sadly none of which were outside Asia). Once again, it's unlikely to come West, although he did announce a new album for September, and he also mentioned something about a world tour, presumably to support that, so once again I'm crossing everything and hoping. I mean, the Suho tickets finally went on sale for September, so at least some EXO members know where London is.

The KingDom have also announced a tour, which is only going to the US again (at the moment). I know that they did say they were going to come to Europe this time, but so far there's been silence on when it will happen. The same is true of Ateez, who are currently touring the US - there's nothing I hate more in 'world' tour announcements is US and Asia dates and the dreaded 'more to follow' because sometimes the more never materialises.  

Finally, for this post, today is the 10th birthday of EXO-L (엑소엘), the official fandom for EXO. When the band were launched they were split into two teams - EXO-K, who promoted in Korea and EXO-M, who promoted in China. EXO-L (short for EXO-LOVE) was chosen as the fandom name as K + L + M make up the band and fanclub's slogan "WE ARE ONE" 

thanks to the exo source