ATEEZ - Three Continents, One Year
I have been blessed to have the rare feat of seeing them on three different continents this year alone- Asia, North America, and Europe. A couple of people wanted to know what each concert and atmosphere was like; if there were any similarities between the three or if they were all vastly different. I had a thought about it and, considering I want to have a regular section here of concert reviews and interviews, decided why not whet the writing chops by giving three different reviews of five shows in three countries… for one artist.
Europe- London, U.K.
It was around either September or October 2024 when I saw that ATEEZ had London as part of their Europe leg of the Towards The Light World Tour. I remember looking up to the heavens and saying, “If the London stop is during the Seollal vacation, I don’t care, I am going!” and lo and behold- the London dates fell EXACTLY during the Chuseok break in January. I booked my flight back home and got myself the cheapest VIP concert ticket (that was a headache in itself. As someone who is now so used to the concert ticketing system in Korea, anything outside of this process is an absolute mess). I was a bit miffed that in Europe only the Ultimate VIPs were able to have the send off moment with the group whilst for North America, it was all three tiers of VIP but honestly, I was just glad to be able to finally see them up close on stage.
The O2 in London is a venue I am very familiar with- it is not far from my family home and icon of the London skyline since its inception as the Millennium Dome in the year 2000 (a lot of us old hats still call it “The Dome”). It’s an indoor entertainment complex so there was no waiting outside but we Brits do love an unnecessary queue so despite the concert starting at 6pm, I was in queues since 12.30pm. Despite all the standing (and me vowing to never stand at a concert again unless I had to) by the time we got inside and had the soundcheck with the members, my pain and exhaustion was soon forgotten.
The London crowd were a lovely bunch- conversational, cheeky, and full of banter. I shared to the people around me that even though I am from the city, I live in Korea and flew in just for this concert they were all fascinated and wanted to know more. The only time that there was agitation was when this one girl decided to plonk herself on the floor to sit down in the middle of the crowd but it was in such an awkward way that the fans around her asked that either she move elsewhere or she stands like everyone else. She quickly got up and that was that.
Once the venue was filled and the show started… wow. I have seen ATEEZ several times and I have been to over 30 K-Pop concerts in my lifetime and I have to say I have never been so proud to be a British K-pop fan. The energy was high and the fanchants were loud. You could tell the members were excited to see fans (of varying ethnicities, mind you!) singing along to Korean lyrics. Despite being on my feet all day I was jumping and dancing around with the rest and felt super honoured to be part of the audience. I may be a bit biased but I think ATEEZ loves coming to Europe simply because the concerts there are just vibes. Europeans LOVE music, especially live music. And will show up with bells and whistles. I would love to have the opportunity in the future to experience another ATEEZ concert on home turf.
Asia - Seoul & Incheon, South Korea
I saw ATEEZ thrice in South Korea this year. Twice for the encore concerts for Towards The Light in March and then once for the start of the In Your Fantasy tour in June. Both in different locations and, surprisingly, both with different vibes.
I will start off by saying that, yes, ATEEZ has a bigger overseas presence than in Korea. The general attendance of a domestic ATEEZ concert would typically be ⅓ Korean, ⅓ other Asian (Japanese, Chinese, etc) and ⅓ other foreigners. A lot of people would try to use that as a drag to the group but in reality the most successful groups start of by having overseas success before scoring success with the locals (e.g. BTS, GOT7, and Stray Kids) There’s a reason why groups with international appeal get invited to festivals like Mawazine and Coachella.
What was interesting to me was that the vibes of the two tours were completely different, despite being a few months apart. Korean fans are definitely a lot more muted than westerners and the people who obtain VIP tickets are mostly fansites wanting to get great shots and videos up close to the members. They would cheer but wouldn’t go to the extremes as say a foreign fan would (which was funny as one of the sections I was in was purely foreign fans and we were all chatting and making gushing comments about the performances together).
This changed for the 'In Your Fantasy' concert which had ATEEZ performing for the first time in Incheon instead of Seoul with the Inspire Arena being a key venue for shows to answer the need for venue infrastructure to be updated and expanded (a lot of the venues in Seoul were repurposed from their original use during the 1988 Olympics and haven’t seen a major update since then). It is similar to the O2 in London by being a full on resort and the concert area being inside the building. The two main flaws of it is that it is a bit of a maze to get around and it is in an awkward location where you have to have a 15 minute shuttle bus take you to one of the nearest stations (one being Incheon Airport). However, it is comfortable and clean with the best acoustics in a large scale Korean venue that I have experienced so far. And since there was a new setlist with solo performances, we were able to hear everything clearly. Plus, fans picked up on the attitudes and behaviours of the foreign fans in the overseas concerts by shouting out unofficial fanchants (helping Mingi spell out his name during ‘Bouncy’ is one that overseas fans kind of picked up on doing and it's now a staple in the live performance of the song) but barking at the members hasn’t quite made its way over to the fair shores of Korea just yet.
I will still say the pricing and the overall ticketing system is still much better in Korea and as long as they NEVER take on dynamic ticketing, this will always be the case. I still wish we had the pre-covid prices as there was a substantial leap in the last five years but I guess it is what it is.
North America - San Jose, CA
Whilst I was working in Los Angeles for a few days this summer, I was bummed that I was going to miss out on ATEEZ’s stadium concert in the city by a few days. But I did see that they were performing in San Jose during the August weekend I was in LA. I calculated. I worked out prices and timings. I checked in with my boss. I asked my friend who was living in Hawai’i if she was interested in an excursion. And so I did a one night trip to San Jose to go to the concert.
It was the first time that ATEEZ were coming to what I now know as the ‘Bay Area’ so the atmosphere was buzzing. I was running on literal fumes as I went to the airport at 3am for a 5am flight to land in San Jose for 7am to get picked up to get told we weren’t able to check in so all I could do was eat and try not to pass out before I could sit in our hotel room. Despite that, walking around the local mall I spotted a lot of ATINY (there was even one on my flight from LA) and at the venue itself we spoke to a lot of fans who had prepared a lot of freebies of ATEEZ related trinkets (my absolute favourite was a photocard of San attached to some fake grass to touch) and just generally natter about the excitement of the concert. There were a lot of people who said this was their first ever K-Pop concert and they were really excited for it.
As it was the first K-Pop concert at the SAP Center, the line organisation left a lot to be desired, making a massive looping queue around the venue and having 100s of fans still outside waiting to be let in with about 20 minutes before the concert started. I chalked it up to it being the first time that they had a concert of this nature at the venue- I am sure they will improve over time.
People were definitely there for a good time, coming in with entire meal buckets and beer. I will say though that the seats were surprisingly not that comfortable considering that we were in the States. I have sat in worse seats in Korea for sure but that gave all the more reason to stand up to sing along to the songs that I now had a lot of familiarity with since the In Your Fantasy mini had been out for some time. But even then, the space was pretty cramped and due to my lack of sleep I was indeed quite irritable towards the end. At least the people around me were a hoot but it did leave me thinking about what if I had the chance to see them in LA instead.
Summary and Ranking
Overall, I had the best time in London. Biased I know but hey, check out the name of this site. I love the fact that the venue was a short excursion from my house and the banter with the fans around me at the venue (despite me going by myself) made up for the fact that I was on my feet for over six hours. Also I just got the feeling that ATEEZ really enjoyed themselves on UK soil. Next would be Seoul/Incheon but mostly for the Incheon venue. Disregarding the venue’s location and how it is not the easiest to access by public transport, it is the best in terms of facilities and acoustics. ATEEZ sounded the best there and it was a great place to experience the full In Your Fantasy setlist for the first time. I would rank San Jose the last of the three but not because of any major negatives, even though I was not impressed with the venue’s logistics, particularly how they handled the entry of the fans into the venue. The conversational fans really did make up for that and their buzzing energy certainly helped to wake me up despite my exhaustion for not having slept for several hours thanks to flying early in the morning.
Will I get to see ATEEZ again this year? Who knows. But I would certainly love to continue my reviews of K-Pop concerts going forward! If you have seen a group in multiple locations, where was your favourite place to see them?
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