Intro:

I’ve been going to kpop concerts for a while now, and I figured typing out my thoughts—with some help from the people I dragged along—they could be something interesting that’s a bit different from my usual reviews.

(If you’d like to see all concert reviews, click here)

So, here *were* my credentials (as of my first review): yeah…none. I think the amount of TXT songs I know can be counted on one hand, and besides one, they’re all singles. But like with BTS, I’ve been a K-pop fan for four years and I figured that it was about time I make an effort to give them a try. It’s funny; I feel like with every girl group I cover I’m like “well obviously it was July 2017 because Joy had red hair” and with every boy group I’m like “um…are there seven or eight of them again?”

But I digress. TXT was formed in 2019, by Big Hit Entertainment, with five members (and yes, it’s five, I googled it, I promise), Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Heuning Kai, Soobin, and Taehyun, and they’ve been pretty popular since then, which is an achievement in and of itself, coming from an agency best known for the biggest boy group of all time.

(Edit 6/1/24): “Are there seven or eight of them” lmao. I wrote this almost a year ago and…well, guess who’s seeing TXT in concert in 10 hours? This idiot.

Hence, this review you’re reading. If you’re interested in the full journey of me becoming a Moa, check out my Discography Review of them: (Part One)(Part Two)

Review:

So, into the review!

I didn’t go to this show alone, but instead, with my little cousin Ella (I say “little”; she was 14 at the time and objects to this). We share a love of singing and musical theater, and try to see a show whenever I get the chance to visit, but she’d never been to a concert before, so I offered to take her. As for me, this was the third k-pop concert I went to, but actually, the first “mainstream” one. My first was Dreamcatcher, who take a different, somewhat more laid–back approach to touring than most groups do, and my second was The Rose, who are a band, playing instruments instead of dancing. So TXT was a first for me too, in a way.

It feels only right to start how the show did (right at 7:03 by the way), as everything went dark and the members rose out of the stage clad in white capes and hoods and strode down the catwalk to perform Deja Vu. When I first reviewed the song for my discography deep dive, I admit that I didn’t capture me, but seeing it live, surrounded by thousands of people screaming along changed my mind. It’s really a track that is amplified by its performance, and you’d be hard-pressed to find more committed performers than TXT. “We gonna talk about how loudly you screamed when they came out?” Ella asked me over FaceTime as I typed up our biggest takeaways. To answer her question: no, no we’re not.

It’s common for the biggest hits to be spread out throughout a concert, to keep the engagement going, but TXT seemed to have no such worries. With five of their most popular titles in the first seven songs, they really set a high bar for the rest of the show, and I confess I was a bit worried they wouldn’t be able to live up to it. But, of course they did.

I was expecting my favorite from this first part to easily be 0X1 = Lovesong, but actually, I was wrong. And that’s not to say that they didn’t put their whole beings into it, but nothing could compare to my shock to how much I adored Sugar Rush Ride. Besides the fact that it’s a song I not only felt ambivalent about but actively disliked to some extent, the tour’s reinvention pairs its synths with traditional Korean instruments, replacing what was originally a run-of-the-mill anti-drop with a genuinely beautiful string section. Also, the original choreography was modified, both to soften its sharper parts and to include dancing with fans for the first minute, a choice that wasn’t only lovely to watch but also unlike anything I’d ever seen performed. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that they were wearing modified hanboks for the dance, which were gorgeous, even from being decently far away. I admit it, it blew me away, and they even won Ella over too.

I have to say that, as much as I enjoyed the bombastic beginning of the show, my favorite parts were the more laid-back ones where it was clear that the members were having as much fun as the audience. One of those was Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go, a song I liked but had never really given the time of day before. But, given that it doesn’t have choreo, the members spent the song bouncing around the stage and hyping up the audience. When they got to the choruses, it seemed as though they had an endless supply of energy, dancing around like a bunch of teenagers in front of a bathroom mirror. It was both impressive and endlessly endearing, especially given how out of breath they were by the end.

And even though the show went on for three hours, they never lost that energy, managing to make quieter songs like Dreamer engaging when they were just sitting on the stage with their legs dangling down, and managing to breathe new life into already upbeat tracks like New Rules. I was pleasantly surprised by how many b-sides they sang in general, which really gave a good look into how varied their discography really is. It felt like every few songs, Ella turned to me like “wait I haven’t heard this one!!” (But she liked them anyway).

Another surprising favorite of mine from the show was LOSER = LOVER, which, if you’ve read my review, you’ll know was a song I rolled my eyes at extensively. And for the record, I do still think that it’s a ridiculous song. Its lyrics are nonsensical, it’s melodramatic in a way that would make My Chemical Romance roll their eyes, and its “I’m A Loser” hook is incessently catchy in a way that drives me nuts. But, someone, watching it live, I had a great time. Maybe it was the way that, performing live in America, they could swear freely in a way that they can’t on Korean broadcast, maybe it was the thousands of people scream-singing along, or maybe it was that they’re just such good performers that it’s hard not to be won over by how dedicated they are.

Ella’s favorite is a song that I confess I’ve never liked: Good Boy Gone Bad. I blame it on her being a (self-described) gay theater kid who a) has a love of leather jackets and b) can’t resist an ultra-dramatic song. But seriously though, they did a great job performing it, and while it doesn’t rank in my top songs of the night, I liked it just from seeing how excited she was. The best way I can put it is that I believe what they’re selling even if I don’t want to buy it. Also, less selflessly, she’d kill me if I didn’t put this in.

Writing this so many months later was an accident (blame midterms week), but it also means that I could compare the experience to the other shows I’ve seen since then. There’s a reason I mentioned this being the first (and as of yet, only) “mainstream” concert I’ve been to, and that’s because I could tell the difference. Dreamcatcher, ATEEZ, and the Rose are all from smaller companies, while TXT isn’t only from a large company but a titan of the industry that’s infamous for being tough on its idols. Now, I’m not about to claim that the other groups have no limitations on freedom, but compared to Dreamcatcher’s bizarre antics during their solo songs or The Rose’s blunt explorations of mental health in their music, TXT felt much more reserved and controlled.

You also may have noticed I haven’t really singled any particular member out, and that’s for a similar reason: they felt much more like a “group” than the other bands I saw. While DC and ATEEZ are both idol groups, they’re very good at giving each member time to take the spotlight, whether with solos like Dreamcatcher did or a couple minutes each to talk to the audience with a closing statement like ATEEZ did. Again, neither of these things I’m pointing out are necessarily bad, just different, and I thought that they were worth mentioning.

Despite that, though, I want to acknowledge the times that they did stand out. Yeonjun’s been my bias since I first got into TXT, and I’m happy to say that seeing them live only reinforced that. He’s a fantastic performer, not only in his technical dancing ability, but also very charismatic, an especially difficult thing to be in your second language. Taehyun ended up being Ella’s favorite because, and I quote, “he gives off Taehyun vibes”. I have no idea what that means, but what I can tell you is that he has fantastic comedic timing And, when he introduced himself to the crowd, a woman behind us screamed at the top of her lungs, “TAEHYUN MARRY ME!!!!!!!”, which Ella still quotes to this day.

Something else I really appreciated about the show was how much effort the members put into connecting with the audience, and mostly all in English, despite the fact that none of them speak it as a native language. I feel like kpop idols don’t get enough props for that hard work in general, so I want to give them their flowers here.

There’s so many other performances I enjoyed that I didn’t have the chance to mention. There’s Yeonjun and Soobin’s excellent dancing in The Killa (that Ella refers to as “that really gay song with the leather pants and the hip thrusting”, which, accurate). There’s the A+ drama of Growing Pain, which culminated in Kai throwing a guitar off of the stage. And, lastly, there’s my favorite memory of the night, which was during their encore performance of Miracle. Dressed down in sweatpants and sneakers, TXT freely goofed off with each other around the stage before coming back together in the middle, holding hands, while Yeonjun yelled, “Alright Moa, we say always be, you say together, ok?” And when we screamed back, and the entire stadium erupted in confetti and jumped together for the final chorus, I thought to myself, “This. This is what kpop is all about.”

Verdict: 9 / 10

So, I have to say that it was an absolute joy taking Ella to her first concert, and it was such a great memory for both of us! TXT are fantastic performers, and so much fun to see live. We met so many lovely people, got to catch up with each other, and danced and sang along for a solid three hours. No matter my little gripes and my wish for a little more connection, it’s an experience that will always be close to both of our hearts. “I was surprised by how much fun I had,” she admitted to me a few months later. “I knew I’d like it, but I didn’t think I’d like it this much!” I am very happy to report that, many (many) months later, she’s still a kpop fan, and now a big fan of Katseye (as we typed this up, the amount of times she mentioned Yoonchae was hilarious). When I tell you that we were losing our minds after the Touch remix featuring Yeonjun came out, I mean it wholeheartedly.

~Interlude For Fashion Screams~

I was wearing a peasant-blouse-esque pale teal (on the blue side) shirt with long flared sleeves, a 50’s golden yellow lined circle skirt that went just past my knees, and tan sandal wedges. I tied my hair back in a braid with a yellow bow. And, I had golden eyeshadow and red lipstick. Basically, I was scream- along to LO$ER = LOVER while looking like I’d missed the bus stop for the beach. Ella was wearing a tiered white and yellow sundress, and looked like an honest-to-god princess, in the most adorable way.

Setlist:

1. Deja Vu
2. 9 And Three Quarters (Run Away)
3. 0X1 = Lovesong
4. Devil By The Window
5. Sugar Rush Ride
6. Farewell, Neverland
7. Chasing That Feeling
8. Magic
9. New Rules
10. LO$ER = LO♡ER
11. Ghosting
12. Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go
13. Trust Fund Baby
14. Quarter Life
15. The Killa (I Belong To You)
16. Back For More
17. Tinnitus (Wanna Be A Rock)
18. PUMA
19. Good Boy Gone Bad
20. Growing Pain
21. Dreamer
22. Happily Ever After
23. Deep Down
24. Blue Spring
25. I’ll See You There Tomorrow

~~~Encore~~~

26. Magic Island
27. Miracle
28. Cat & Dog
29. MOA Diary (Dubaddu Wari Wari)

Outro & Special Video:

That’s all for me (or us, I suppose) this week, guys! See you next concert…which looks like it’s going to be Kiss Of Life!