My musical education continues apace thanks to my 14-year-old daughter, and it’s more apparent than ever that it’s easy to exist in a musical bubble, where there are acts which are globally massive without even having a clue that they exist. K-pop megastars Stray Kids are but one example. Last time they played the UK, they sold out 2 nights at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium – concert capacity circa 62,000.
As someone who generally sticks to venues with a sub-500 capacity, the prospect of such a thing terrifies me. And no, we weren’t actually at the 55,000 capacity Tokyo Dome: instead, we’re seated in particularly plush seats in Vue Cinema in Kirkstall, Leeds for a real-time live streaming of their performance. And the fans in here are no less rabid than those in the venue. Everyone is mindful and respectful, but there are a lot of people who’ve got seriously dressed up for this, and they’re all busting the moves which accompany each of the songs. Well, nearly all, as I can’t say I am.
The build-up is immense: there’s a huge, big-budget feel mini-movie, full of explosions and shattering glass and apocalyptic scenes through which the members of the band stride, brooding, and serious. I’m assured that they don’t use AI, either, so this is a genuinely impressive intro to a concert that will have a duration of over three hours.
When the eight of them finally do make their grand entrance, they’re straight into back-to-back high-energy songs, each with highly choreographed routines involving a troupe of some 40 dancers, steel fencing and all kinds of props, all arranged around a vast stage with an incalculable number of pneumatic platforms and elevators, and the first twenty minutes is nothing short of sensory overload. There’s a reason the set is broken into segments, with protracted chat and banter between band members, and further filmic interludes while allow for costume changes and whatever else is necessary. A performance like this makes running a marathon look like a stroll in the park. And in the main, the visuals are so much more than just the stage action blown up on screens. More than a big concert, this is a multisensory extravaganza, and the number of cameras involved in the streaming is mind-blowing, with shots from every angle, and every cut made with incredible precision. There’s clearly been no expense spared on any aspect of this spectacular production.
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The sound is phenomenal, and for a time, while the vocals are clearly live, I wonder if they’re performing to backing tracks. But no, they introduce the band, who are positioned either side of the stage, and amazingly, there are just four of them: drums, five-string bass, guitar, and a guy with a wall of synths – and I’m reliably informed that the versions are substantively different from the studio recordings.
I’m struck by how weighty many of the songs are. Yes, they are very much a pop band – the clue’s in the genre – but there are strong elements of rap, rock, and hop-hip, at times coming on like The Beastie Boys, and when the guys vacate the stage at the end of the main set, the band launch into a five-minute heavy prog-metal jam. Perhaps surprisingly, they only play two songs from their most recent, ‘This & That’, one of which is ‘Run It’, after which the tour is named. But they do include two new songs from the next album, ‘Suiatsu’, which are ecstatically received.
The extended chat segments are something I personally find a tad tedious, and the amount of time they spend bigging farewell, only to come back again (after the main set, there’s a ten-minute interlude, before the announcement of the ‘encore section’ which begins with them singing two songs from a kind of bus that traverses the inner perimeter of the stadium – and there are three encores in all. I think, finally closing off with a second – alternative – rendition of ‘Chk Chk Boom’. Boom indeed.
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