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)

(From my discography review):

Kiss Of Life was formed in early 2023 and had a unique debut: each of the four members—Julie, Belle, Natty, and Haneul—were introduced with a solo, before coming together as a group in July of that year. They’ve achieved the title of “monster rookies” already, and show no signs of slowing down.  

Speaking of, here are my credentials: KiOf has been pretty inescapable in k-pop spaces since Sticky came out a few months ago, so of course I’ve come across them more times than I can count. (Hence, the title of this review.) But a viral song does not a good band make, and most of what I know is pretty surface level, so I felt like now was as good a time as any to get to know them better. And, seeing as they happen to be coming to my area in a couple months, I’ve been considering going to see them in concert. So, let’s see what I decide by the end of this!

Spoiler alert: I decided that I was their fan! And thus, here we are!

Check out my full Discography Review of them here: (X)

Review:

So, into the review!

To tell you the truth, I ended up at Kiss Of Life’s concert because of a few happy accidents. Firstly, I was already planning a trip to the city I saw them in, I wanted to spend that particular weekend with a friend of mine to celebrate finally being done with midterms, and lastly, I was given the very sweet birthday gift of a free ticket to whatever the next concert I went to was. Thus, in November of 2024, I found myself sitting in a puffy theater seat at 8:05 PM on a Saturday night as the lights went dark and the 3,000 girls (and the assorted partners, parents, and siblings they’d drafted into service) around me screeched in unison.

Despite how different they are, I went into KiOf’s concert with similar expectations to ATEEZ’s: that I would see a few songs I really liked, enjoy their performances, and have fun. And I was right! “Fun” felt like the operative world for the night; between the hilarious sunglasses they donned for Igloo and the many instances of shaking ass like it was their last day on Earth, I had so many good laughs.

Kiss Of Life are really good performers too, especially for having just debuted and for being pretty young. They did every song well, from the highly choreographed ones like show opener Get Loud to the more relaxed, interactive ones like encore Back To Me (which was one of the best moments of the whole show). Of course there was also fan-favorite Sticky, which they performed looking like they were having the time of their lives, and the more ballad-y Nothing, which I’d never given the time of day before but really made an impression on me.

I could tell they sang almost the whole show live too, and sounded fantastic, which is pretty impressive for the kind of dancing they do, and pretty unusual for the kpop industry. But this actually leads into one of my largest critiques: Kiss Of Life is a group that prides itself on setting itself apart from the kpop industry—which it mostly does, whether through willingness to discuss “taboo” topics, writing their own music, or giving each of their members a chance to shine, and, to me, this concert didn’t reflect that.

This was my fifth kpop concert, and while I left all of the other four more of a fan than I came in, appreciating their talents and what made them unique, and while the former was true this time around, the latter wasn’t. I think that a lot of this is probably because they just debuted, and, despite the confidence that oozes out of them, they very much stuck to the script I’ve heard a thousand times before: coquettish flirting at the audience, lots of aegyo, and very obvious fan service, all while packaging it with a girl power (!!!) sheen. And while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of that, it just felt inherently disingenuous here, and left a bad taste in my mouth. The curse of having a mother who practices her lectures for gender and sexuality class on me, I suppose.

The moments where they did stand out and their personalities shone through were some of my favorite of the concert, like when Belle’s earring fell off towards the beginning and she apologized while the others giggled, or when Hanuel (who turned 19 a few months ago) talked about how she’d grown since their debut in July 2023, and Julie (who’s 25) sighed dramatically and said, “…I didn’t *fake cry*”. Or when, for the encore, they came out in comfortable oversized sweaters with street clothes underneath and interacted with the audience, sending us hearts and jumping up and down, and just generally looking like they were having so much fun.

During Kissy Chair, they were so kind to the person who got chosen, a girl named Ella three seats over from me (I know, Ella!! Not my Ella, though I made sure to text her about this later). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous, but it was really sweet to see how excited she was. I’m glad it went to someone who was a big fan; while it would’ve been nice for me, I doubt I’d have appreciated it as much as she did. I do want to spare a sentence to say that some of my disappointment must have shown on my face, because Belle pouted at me and completed my half heart, which was very sweet of her.

I really wish I could have seen her solo, Countdown, which is one of my favorite KiOf songs, but for some reason, they didn’t perform any of them! It’s both a shame and strikes me as an odd choice, especially because their show, even with the encore, was well under two hours long (probably 1:35, 1:45 or so?). Not to be that person, but, c’mon girls. Even ATEEZ’s was longer than that, and it started over two hours late in the wake of a hurricane. (No, I’m not kidding; yes, it’s a long story, read about that here). I’m not trying to be petty, but kpop tickets are expensive! They’re a real investment, and even the least pricey options for this show were eye-watering.

(Slight TW for discussion of eating, bodies, eating disorders in the next two paragraphs):

Here’s where we go into a slight digression, because, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but, despite being the least STEM-minded person in history, I’ve actually written a research paper on eating disorders in middle and high schoolers. I’ll spare you the details, but the reason I’m bringing this up is because a decent amount of my research had to do with the phenomenon of young people, especially young women, looking up to people like influencers, singers, etc. So all this is to say that it made me so happy to see that the girls (at least to my somewhat untrained eye) looked healthy. They’re all lean, yes, but as far as I can tell, not unhealthily thin, and seeing them be so confident in their bodies is so important for their primarily female fanbase.

I know I’m putting this in decently eloquent language, but my actual hurriedly typed ramblings in my notes-app in the three or four minutes between the official show and the encore said: “they look healthy, like your average 18-22 year old, omg that makes me so happy 😭”.

(TW ends)

And speaking of their fans, Kiss Of Life are mostly listened to by young women, which is somewhat unusual for a k-pop girl group. I’m around the same age as KiOf, who range from 19-24, and it was really nice to see a show that felt geared towards me. Something I love about kpop in general is how it brings people together, and in the moments I took a step back, neither to record nor to over-analyze (which I’m often guilty of), seeing how into the show all the girls and women around me were. It was infectious, how much fun they were all having dancing and scream-singing along like you would in your bathroom mirror after you just got home from a date. And that’s the real magic of a concert.

One of the things that was so clear to me throughout the show was so grateful Kiss Of Life are to their fans. Beyond the (sometimes a bit too much) fan service at times, they were so genuine and earnest at showing their thanks to and care for Kissys. Julie acknowledged the amount of time and planning it takes to go to concerts in their goodbye section, and while they were changing, they played a pre-recorded safety message for the general admission people, likely after what happened in Montreal. Fandom is the lifeblood of kpop, for better or for worse, and I can completely see why someone would be proud to be their fan.

I am proud of them; proud of how far they’ve come and proud that I got to be there at such an early stage. But I don’t know if I can call myself a fan.

Verdict: 8.25 / 10

You might be surprised by my ranking, but let me explain my thought process here. Kiss Of Life are still so young and still finding their feet, and despite both of those things, they put on a great show! It’s just that, when stacking them up against veteran acts like Dreamcatcher or The Rose or even ATEEZ, those other groups are always going to come out on top, and I don’t know if they were quite ready for a tour. It’s not a fair comparison, but it’s the only one I can make; maybe waiting for one more album / EP release cycle would’ve been a better idea?

(It’s a bit funny that in my discography review I gave ATEEZ an 8/10 and for their concert a 9.5/10, and here it’s basically switched).

But, that being said, it was something special to see them at such an early stage in their career—one year out and clearly full of talent—in such an intimate setting, and I’m so proud of them and so excited to see where they go next! I hope I made it clear that I really did have fun at this show, despite my somewhat critical analysis. I’m sure I’ll be seeing KiOf on another stage in a couple of years, and I’ll look back on this review with a very fond smile.

~Interlude For Fashion Screams~

I was wearing a white tank top, a short pink plaid skirt, a pink button down that I tied shorter, black knee-high socks, a black leather jacket, and white Doc Martens. Also, I should mention that I had kind of strawberry-blonde / pink hair at the time, and I did it up in an Ariana Grande style vintage high ponytail, so that kind of brought the whole thing together. I looked like I walked right out of (G)I-DLE’s Allergy, or possibly Grease (but make it 2000’s).

Setlist:

1. Get Loud
2. Igloo
3. Bad News
4. Winehouse
5. Chemistry
6. Too Many Alex
7. Te Quiero
8. Nobody Knows
9. Gentleman
10. Sticky
11. My 808
12. R.E.M.
13. Nothing
14. Midas Touch
15. Shh!

~~~Encore~~~

1. Bye My Neverland
2. No One But Us
3. Back To Me

Special Video: