As the sun set over Hyde Park last night, BST provided one good argument for turning off the football and heading down to the Great Oak Stage: K-pop band Stray Kids, making their first appearance in the UK in four plus years.
“Did you guys miss us?” band leader Bang Chan shouted as they took to the stage for an all-killer-no-filler hour-and-forty-minute set. Judging by the volume of the screaming he got in response, the answer was yes, very much.
And despite the length of the set – more brief than their usual two-hour-plus gig times – not a minute of it was wasted as we were taken on a whistle-stop tour of the band’s greatest hits.
Since forming in 2018 (the product of a reality TV show of the same name), the eight members of Stray Kids - Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N. – have gone from strength to strength, winning awards, going platinum and selling out stadiums around the world. Not bad, considering most of them are still in their early twenties.
In terms of sheer, feel-good energy, they can’t really be beaten. The crowd came wielding band merch, and glitter, ready to dance the night away to the group’s unique blend of rap, electronica and hip hop.
We got that, and more, as Stray Kids dove into their back catalogue, pairing awe-inspiring visuals with tight choreography and some truly impressive lyrical flows. Early on, there was a thundering rendition of Topline, followed by Item, and then an angry Domino – the deep, gravelly voice of Felix facing off against the frantic rap of Han.
The hits kept coming. We got Charmer, featuring Felix pulling up his shirt to show the crowd his abs (to more rapturous screaming). And of course, there was God’s Menu, the hit that sent them stratospheric and which was chanted back at them word-perfectly.
As night set in, the energy among the crowd was rapturous – and in the band, it was playful. “Do you guys have a curfew?” Bang Chan asked at one point, in between chatting about the football and hyping up their upcoming mini-album ATE. “You guys wanna go home?”
The answer, obviously, was no. We were duly treated to not one, but three “last songs” – including megahits Miroh, Lalalala and Victory Song, complete with pyrotechnics – before he declared there was just enough time for another finale.
“Bloody hell, let’s go!” he shouted, and his surprised-looking bandmates mustered the energy for a foot-stomping goodbye in the form of Megaverse and then Haven, which saw them spraying the audience from their water bottles in between coordinating handclaps from their vantage point on stage.
“London, we’ll be back,” Stray Kids promised as they left, smoke still hanging in the air. If the crowd’s reaction is anything to go by, bring it on.
