LIVE REVIEWS
Tomorrow X Together are no strangers to making history at Lollapalooza. Last year, the band became the first Korean act to ever perform at the Chicago festival and dazzled a huge crowd with live band versions of some of their most alternative-leaning tracks. Tonight (August 5), just 12 months on from that late afternoon set on one of Lolla’s smaller stages, TXT are back – and this time they’re making their mark as the first Korean group to headline here.
Returning with a live band again, the five-piece have built their set around two themes, those of “youth” and “rock”. “If you think of those two keywords, they remind you of Tomorrow X Together right away,” Hueningkai tells NME backstage before the group head over to the Bud Light stage. He’s not wrong, and tonight’s performance only reinforces that point, racing through a setlist full of big riffs, angst and giddy joy.
The latter begins early. After the opening two songs – fiery versions of ‘0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)’ and ‘Dear Sputnik’ – the members take a moment to introduce themselves to the crowd. As the camera pans to Hueningkai, he lifts his microphone to his mouth and, mimicking what is now becoming an inescapable tradition at K-pop shows in the US, ignites the first fervent round of barking. Moments later, Yeonjun looks out over the drizzle-soaked audience and declares: “The rain can stop, let’s fucking enjoy it.” The rain does not, in fact, stop, but that doesn’t prevent Grant Park from pouring all its energy into doing as the rapper says.
The idea of youth is ever-present throughout the setlist, the collection of songs shared tonight encapsulating all sides of it. It represents flirtations with temptation via an intoxicating ‘Devil By The Window’ and the world-ending feeling of a first break-up in ‘Good Boy Gone Bad’, which comes with a new and extended, jaw-dropping dance break. As Beomgyu does his now-traditional lighting of a rose and tossing it nonchalantly over his shoulder, huge flames burst up in front of the stage and the group launch into yet more intricate choreography.
But there are also the happier, warmer sides of youth showcased here too. Synth-pop banger ‘Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go’ might feature some of TXT’s least complex dance moves but, as Taehyun, Beomgyu and Soobin deliver them with exuberant grins on their faces, they feel like some of the most joyous. ‘Cat And Dog’ remains the group’s cutest song, while ‘Blue Spring’ – an unreleased song penned by all five members premiered during their Act: Sweet Mirage tour – captures the magic bond of friendship through the tumultuous time of growing up.
While TXT might not have been readily associated with rock when they first debuted, in recent years, they’ve leaned more and more into heavier sounds, with many of those songs aired tonight. ‘Wishlist’ is full of pure pop-punk buoyancy, the crowd head-banging along even as the rain gets heavier. ‘LO$ER=LO♡ER’, a song that always feels full of catharsis when it’s being screamed by thousands of fans, amplifies that release with an extended ending that becomes dizzyingly jubilant.
The live band help turn ‘Can’t You See Me?’ into a sludgy sledgehammer of a song that hits incredibly hard, sonically at least. That the group performs most of the song by standing still in a line across the stage feels like a missed opportunity to make this new rock version as ferocious as it can be. A return to the choreography at the end helps, but it can’t save it from feeling like the only flat part of the set.
TXT’s Lollapalooza headline moment might come in the midst of their Act: Sweet Mirage world tour, but they mix things up from that setlist and song arrangements to give Chicago plenty of surprises. There’s a ludicrously euphoric rendition of ‘Magic’ that finds the group upping the speed midway through for a high-octane dance break and a reunion with Coi Leray for ‘Happy Fools’ (plus a snippet of her own track ‘Players’). ‘Do It Like That’, the group’s recent collaboration with the Jonas Brothers, gets unveiled live for the first time, although the trio aren’t present to help out (“It would be awesome if they made it to perform it with us, but there’s always next time,” Taehyun says after).
Although this is TXT’s time to shine – which they do, blindingly – they make sure to give those who help make the performance what it is their flowers, and in full HD. Early in the set, they put the spotlight on their backing band, each musician’s name broadcast on the back screen as they take on a solo. Later, they do the same with their dancers, allowing them the chance to show off their moves while the crowd learns their names. It’s a humble gesture, but one that speaks volumes.
In their new Disney+ documentary Our Lost Summer, Yeonjun reflected on TXT’s last appearance at Lolla, saying they weren’t sure if they deserved their place on the bill. While they proved that to be wrong in 2022, this headline set shows they are more than worthy of this new, elevated slot on the line-up. Their performances are tight and impactful, their vocals phenomenal, and their stage presence nothing short of rockstar status.
As they wrap things up, Yeonjun describes the set as “a dream come true” before Taehyun asks the crowd to “follow us for the rest of our world tour, our new album and more amazing stuff”. To do that, though, TXT first need to leave the stage, but they linger on it for minutes after a final, thrilling ‘Sugar Rush Ride’ and after gold fireworks light up the sky in celebration of their huge achievement, thanking fans and initiating more barking. History never felt so giddily great.
Tomorrow X Together played:
‘0X1=LOVESONG (I Know I Love You)’
‘Dear Sputnik’
‘Tinnitus’
‘Can’t You See Me?’
‘Good Boy Gone Bad’
‘Lonely Boy (The tattoo on my ring finger)’
‘Thursday’s Child Has Far To Go’
‘Anti-Romantic’
‘Farewell, Neverland’
‘Blue Spring’
‘No Rules’
‘Cat & Dog’
‘Happy Fools’
‘Players’
‘Blue Hour’
‘Wishlist’
‘LO$ER=LO♡ER’
‘Magic’
‘Sugar Rush Ride’
Kacey Musgraves has cast a spell across London’s Roundhouse. Dry ice shrouds the Texan artist and her 8-piece band in a hazy mist, the lighting dramatic – at times it evokes the break of dawn, others a thunderous rainstorm. And at the eye of this hurricane is Musgraves, her luminous vocals shining as brightly as the disco ball that’s illuminated during a rousing rendition of ‘Anime Eyes’. With the audience — who obey requests to be in the moment and not just view the gig through a lens — enraptured, the ethereal magic of the live show threads throughout.
Tonight’s gig is part of the ‘Deeper Well World Tour’, the shows accompanying Musgraves’ sixth studio album released earlier this year. It’s a record that saw her “navigating new beginnings”, as she said about its titular track: “Sometimes you reach a crossroads. Winds change direction. What you once felt drawn to doesn’t hold the same allure. You get blown off course but eventually find your footing and forage for new inspiration, new insight and deeper love somewhere else”. Or, as she more succinctly reflects in its chorus: “And I’ve got to take care of myself/I found a deeper well”.
This live setting, with the lush arrangements delivered by Musgraves’ double-denim clad band, is where the songs shine, the resilience and complex emotions they convey shining through. The power of opener ‘Cardinal’ ricochets through the venue accompanied by fleshed out instrumentals, while the lilting ‘The Architect’’s quietly questioning lyrics resonate in their subtle accompaniment.
Tracks that faded into the background on ‘Deeper Well’ at times work better here, too. ‘Jade Green’ is taken from a subdued slow burn into a thundering storm, Musgraves swathed in lights of the titular colour, strobes evoking lightning and crashes of percussion closing out the song, before the chaos subsides into a musical ‘Rainbow’. ‘Lonely Millionaire’, meanwhile, is elevated in this setting, the slinky track coming with mass sing-a-longs.
Yet for all the mysticism and magic when the music is playing, in-between songs Musgraves charms in a very different way. Her breezy wit juxtaposed with gut-wrenching music reminiscent of fellow on-stage entertainers Adele or Lewis Capaldi. As the band gear up for a quieter point in the set and huddle in closer at the front of the stage, Musgraves delights the audience with her tight-5 about the food poisoning and stomach upset she started the tour with, which soon spread around her touring party like wildfire. How did we get onto this story? An audience heckle that sounded a bit like a Spice Girl prompting Musgraves to reveal “I met Sporty the other day and almost shat myself! Speaking of…”
That’s not to say this humour isn’t also evident in Musgraves music — the excellent couplet “If you save yourself for marriage, you’re a bore/You don’t save yourself for marriage, you’re a hor-rible person” is sung with gusto by the crowd, in a stripped back rendition of ‘Follow Your Arrow’ (a cut from Musgraves’ debut studio record ‘Same Trailer Different Park’). And there’s rousing renditions of the jubilant kiss-off ‘High Horse’, and the eye-roll at an insecure ex on ‘Breadwinner’.
As she closes with a cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Three Little Birds’ and a short snippet of ‘Easier Said’, Musgraves tells the audience: “I hope your well has been deepened”. With the spell-binding communal magic of being in the moment and Musgraves’ powerhouse performance, we don’t doubt they have.
Kacey Musgraves played:
‘Cardinal’
‘Moving Out’
‘Deeper Well’
‘Sway’
‘Too Good to Be True’
‘Butterflies’
‘Happy & Sad’
‘Lonely Weekend’
‘Lonely Millionaire’
‘Follow Your Arrow’
‘The Architect’
‘Nothing to Be Scared Of’
‘Heaven Is’
‘Jade Green’
‘Rainbow’
‘Golden Hour’
‘Anime Eyes’
‘Don’t Do Me Good’
‘Justified’
‘Breadwinner’
‘High Horse’
‘Slow Burn’
‘Three Little Birds’ (Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
‘Easier Said’
