The Collective Concert Experience – Billboard

Even though 2022 has marked the whole-fledged return of concerts due to the fact the international pandemic place a lengthy pause on touring, SEVENTEEN’s new tour could arguably be the very first are living exhibit that recaptures the collective sensation of togetherness that makes the are living experience so magical.

As several protection actions like masking and limited crowd interactions have understandably been at the forefront of artists’ and promoters’ minds, the remaining evening of SEVENTEEN’s Be the Sun tour at Newark’s Prudential Heart was a display in how audiences can reconnect with every single other many thanks to technology, output and, of system, the members that created up the K-pop boy band.

What most plainly established the inclusive atmosphere came many thanks to SEVENTEEN’s formal lightsticks, a ought to-have products item for any K-pop fan that mechanically identifies you as a main member of your fandom. Precisely, the lightsticks for SEVENTEEN can glow and flash in a spectrum of distinctive colors, which can all be managed by means of a telephone app by way of Bluetooth, as is the scenario with quite a few K-pop artists’ lightsticks.

At a live performance, the artist group normally takes in excess of the application, so just about every adhere in the location blinks and glows in sync with the tunes. Nicknamed “Carat Bongs” to integrate the group’s fandom title of Carats, the mild sticks developed a deeper musical link when they gleamed purple and yellow during the pyro-hefty opening numbers of “HOT” and “March” and comfortable white and pink even though the group talked all through intermissions.

Throughout the night time, the manufacturing driving the tour also seemed to develop an ecosystem by highlighting the unique forms of people today and communities who came to aid SEVENTEEN. While cameras are likely to pan through the audience to highlight attendees on the arena’s jumbotrons, one couldn’t support but see the distinctive signals for which viewers had enough time to get in and register. “Mexicans really like SEVENTEEN,” “They/Thems for Hoshi,” “Biracial Bisexuals for Vernon,” and “Latinas for Dokyeom” ended up some of the supporter-made posters that acquired ample display screen time as flags from all around the earth and id-centered kinds, like QTPOC Satisfaction Flag, produced appearances.

Even though K-pop seldom will get overtly political, offering space to these diverse communities and teams was a subtle way for the band to present their ongoing assistance for equal rights after again.

As component of the closing North American halt in the Be the Sunlight tour, manufacturing asked lovers to discover and sing a part of SEVENTEEN’s sentimental 2016 song “Smile Flower” as a gift to the group. Ahead of the fellas returned for the encore, the arena screens flashed instructions expressing, “Here in the very last city of the North American Tour in Newark, there is a specific party for SEVENTEEN: Following the photo shoot time at the conclusion of the demonstrate, we will sing ‘Smile Flower’ all jointly for SEVENTEEN. Be sure to master the tune and the lyrics for ‘Smile Flower’ now” and presented a part with the lyrics in Korean and by using Romanization.

Though the vivid orange font coloration manufactured it complicated to memorize — and SEVENTEEN afterwards joked about the audience’s to some degree lackluster singing — the work to join the viewers in however another way to the artist was obvious.

But SEVENTEEN didn’t just go away points up to the tech and production but did their portion to create a group at the concert.

1 of the night’s standout moments came when the group noticed 1 lover dancing in a glow-in-the-dim, LED “stickman” costume superior up in the rafters of Prudential Centre. Just after Hoshi spotted the “stick man” — who turned out to be female or, as he called her, a “stick girl” — he shouted her out for all of the 13 members to see.

The singers also linked with many men and women in the crowd during the evening, taking time out to check with their names and have them sing different components of their tunes. As the concert winded down with closers “Snap Shoot” and “VERY Great,” Seungkwan went down the concert floor to have Carats sing verses into his microphone just before the group would adhere to up with the choruses. For the initially time in decades, SEVENTEEN and their supporters have been receiving encounter-to-experience call throughout the 3-hour musical affair.

Newark was an extraordinary ending for the Be the Solar tour as all 13 customers of SEVENTEEN could shut out the North American leg of the tour with each other.

During the run, 4 customers ended up struck with COVID-19 and needed to sit out of live performance dates (and skip a Jimmy Kimmel appearance), but owning the total group near out this closing clearly show not only added to the central topic of togetherness of the evening but was plainly significant to the fellas on their own.

“We’re so happy to be back as 13 for you men tonight,” Joshua advised the crowd early in the night time and was a sentiment echoed by his a variety of bandmates all over the exhibit.

After opening up to Billboard about the collective “hardship” of negotiating contracts for all 13 members to carry on ahead as SEVENTEEN, the boy band unquestionably know the importance of remaining together and leaning on a single an additional — figuratively and virtually, a single immediately misplaced keep track of of how a lot of periods the associates would carry a single a further on piggyback.

That was reflected in the group’s most recent concert experience, which felt all the more sizeable for coming soon after extra than two-and-a-fifty percent years of COVID problems.