After the rain stopped round 4:00 p.m. I observed the primary handmade indicators emblazoned with the letters MOA and held by folks sitting on cozy blankets with no intention of transferring. By the point Sylvan Esso took Lollapalooza’s Bud Mild stage at 4:45 the entrance rows have been already full of followers of TOMORROW X TOGETHER. There they sat for one more 4 hours, their numbers rising below the glassy gaze of a few of Chicago’s most iconic skyscrapers: the Aon Middle, Blue Cross Blue Defend Tower, and the architectural odd-couple One Two Pru. It’s an attractive place to attend.
MOA — the official title for TXT’s fandom stands for Moments of Alwaysness — had motive to imagine they may see one thing magical. A 12 months prior, TXT made historical past as the primary Okay-pop act to carry out at Lollapalooza. I truly caught a little bit of that set, crossing the garden at Perry’s Stage on my method from one finish of Grant Park to the opposite. It wasn’t too crowded, and I used to be capable of transfer surprisingly shut. I appreciated the enjoyment within the music and was blown away by the dancing, however I couldn’t put it in context. I requested my buddy Mary, a Okay-pop professional, if all South Korean bands have been that good. “No,” she replied, “They’re not.”
When TXT returned in 2023 as Lollapalooza’s first-ever Okay-pop headliners, I wasn’t the one yet one more ready. Their fandom had exploded within the intervening 12 months, and as night time fell in Chicago on August sixth there was extra of every part: extra folks, extra indicators, extra references to the 5 members Taehyun, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Hueningkai, and Soobin, extra TXT mild sticks glowing in the dead of night.
And far, far more screaming. You can most likely hear it throughout Michigan Avenue lengthy earlier than the live performance began, as quickly as a countdown timer was projected onto the Bud Mild stage. Followers wailed because it ticked down to 3 minutes, then two minutes, then one, shedding their minds with every spherical quantity. The final 10 seconds may need registered on the Richter scale.
TXT started with an exuberant efficiency of the 2021 monitor, “0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You).” And although the stage was greater, and the gap between myself and them higher, the dancing regarded much more unimaginable than I remembered. The quintet are all unimaginable athletes; it’s one factor to see somebody bounce in a music video, nevertheless it’s one other factor completely to observe a normal-seeming particular person immediately fly into the air. Often superhumans are present in film theaters, not rhythmically levitating in the course of Grant Park.
TXT stayed with a few of their older materials with “Pricey Sputnik,” earlier than transferring on to “Satan by the Window” and “Tinnitus,” a pair of standout tracks from their newest mini-album, The Title Chapter: TEMPTATION. Because the present progressed it grew to become clear how a lot TXT have grown. The stage banter was looser than final 12 months, they regarded extra snug, and extra of their personalities got here via: Soobin, the earnest chief; Beomgyu, all smiles, who bought the loudest cheers from some ladies close to me; playful Yeonjun; considerate Taehyun; and the candy teenager Hueningkai.
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