MUSIC PREMIERES
“For a festival, we’ll come and say, ‘We’re gonna die out here tonight’,” Hyunjin explains backstage, hours before Stray Kids take to the stage in London’s Hyde Park. “Ooft!” the group’s leader, Bang Chan, exclaims from behind him, the expression on his face suggesting he’s not ready to go quite that far for the occasion. Come stage time, though, what seems like an extreme way of phrasing the eight-member boyband’s passion for performance doesn’t feel quite so exaggerated.
As Stray Kids race on stage at BST – becoming the first male K-pop act to headline a major festival in the UK – an enormous red banner emblazoned with their name unfurls magnificently. In the background, their live band play a beefed-up, instrumental version of ‘Lalalala’, all crunching rock riffs and ferocious drums. It feels like, instead of a festival performance, the group are heading into battle – a feeling that doesn’t dissipate when the banner drops to the ground. Once it’s out of the way, a graphic of a red flag, also emblazoned with the Stray Kids name, billows on the screen behind them. It’s clear they mean business, here to lay claim to hearts and minds.
As you’d expect, then, for the most part, this performance goes extremely hard. ‘S-Class’ is a speaker-shaking opener that feels like a demonstration of the power the boyband are about to display. ‘Thunderous’, which sees all members stride down the runway to deliver their complex choreo on the b-stage, is precisely as the title suggests – a storming early contender for set highlight. The thumping, prowling ‘Domino’ gets an electrifying refresh via a breakbeat dance break and, later, the triple threat of ‘Back Door’, ‘Maniac’, and ‘God’s Menu’ threaten to take things to brutal new levels, the latter peaking with blazes of fire shooting up from the stage.
Throughout, the group’s rappers set the pace, flawlessly delivering their fast-paced bars with ease. Whenever Changbin or Han in particular are on the mic it feels like you’re watching a masterclass in flow – it’s just a shame that the sound can’t always stay as crisp to give the audience the full effect of their talents. But even when Stray Kids leave the stage for an outfit change, the energy doesn’t drop, thanks to their backing band stepping into the spotlight to deliver a riff-heavy interlude that includes part of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’.
For all the booming tracks that make up the core of this set, though, there are also lighter moments. ‘My Pace’ sounds brighter than ever, its “na na na na” refrain uniting the park in a big singalong, while ‘Charmer’’s Afrobeat rhythms and ‘Lonely St.’’s expansive, emotional scope counterbalance things – a necessary moment of relief so the boyband can return to battle mode once more.
It’s been five years since Stray Kids last performed in the UK with a show at O2 Academy Brixton, which feels tiny compared to tonight. “Back then, there was some uncertainty – we didn’t know whether we had fans in the UK,” Lee Know admits backstage. Although they’re much more comfortable in that knowledge these days, their London fans make sure to make their presence felt tonight. They bellow back every word, even before the group first appear on stage, and come close to matching Stray Kids’ intense energy.
If the crowd is having a good time, then the same can be said of Stray Kids. They look like they’re having the utmost fun, whether they’re jumping around in a circle during ‘Social Path’ or darting from one side of the stage to the other during ‘Back Door’. As the set reaches what should officially be its end – after a euphoric, fireworks-punctuated ‘Miroh’ and a reprise of ‘Topline’ – there’s one member in particular who doesn’t want to go home. “You guys want one more song?” Bang Chan asks before Feli starts yelling into his mic in his deep, umbling rasp: “One more song!”
A fierce ‘Megaverse’ follows, but it’s still not the end. “One more?!” Felix begins shouting as Stray Kids’ leader tries to wrap things up. “Mate, mate, mate,” Bang Chan addresses him, arm around his shoulders. “You’ve gotta hype everyone up, and then we’ll do one more song.” Challenge accepted. Felix roars at the crowd before turning his attention to his bandmates: “Stray Kids, do you want one more? Let’s get it!” ‘Haven’ is a fitting way to both end the night and measure up to the rapper’s boundless enthusiasm, its chorus taking Hyde Park higher one last time as Stray Kids finally make their exit, London well and truly conquered.
Stray Kids played:
‘S-Class’
‘Freeze’
‘Super Bowl’
‘Topline’
‘Thunderous’
‘Item’
‘Domino’
‘Lonely St.’
‘Social Path’
‘Charmer’
‘My Pace’
‘Back Door’
‘Maniac’
‘God’s Menu’
‘Lalalala’
‘Victory Song’
‘Miroh’
‘Topline’
‘Megaverse’
‘Haven’
After first rising to prominence with the expansive, 1980s-inspired dream-pop of ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ and its standout tracks, Ethel Cain has spent much of her artistic journey trying to step away from that sound. She’s leaned into a moodier mix of drone, ambient rock, and raw analogue textures. “I’m not a fucking pop artist,” the Tallahassee singer once told The FADER, adding, “I reject that wholeheartedly.” Her experimental projects ‘Perverts’ and ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ make that stance very clear, and her latest tour often feels like a firm break from the softer sounds that brought her into the spotlight.
For the first of her five headline nights at Hammersmith Apollo, Hayden Anhedönia builds a scene that feels like a slightly playful, gently eerie B-movie graveyard. She spends most of the performance tucked inside a moss-covered altar, surrounded by dramatic lighting and a crucifix mic stand. The show is nearly silent when it comes to onstage chatter. The rare moments she does address the audience are understated and easy to miss. When a fan shouts their love for her, she responds with a simple “Thank you!” from the darkness.
Instead of walking the stage to build energy, the lighting design carries that weight, mirroring the intensity of her songs. During the gritty, heavy ‘Dust Bowl’, she sings inside a slowly circling beam of light that sweeps across the Apollo with piercing brightness, while strobing green and white lights heighten the tension during long instrumental passages.
Ethel Cain. Credit: Connie Burke
As the warm, rough-edged guitars of ‘Knock At The Door’ fill the room, the production shows it can match the strange, atmospheric side of Cain’s catalogue, even if those moments are rare tonight. The set doesn’t lean heavily on ‘Perverts’, but brief pieces of ‘Houseofpsychoticwomn’ and the title track make their way in. The industrial ballad ‘Vacillator’ appears in full, bathed in stark white light as she softly sings, “If you love me, keep it to yourself,” on a track heavy with buried emotion.
For the most part, the night is devoted to ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’. The album slows the cinematic Southern Gothic of her debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ and explores the dizzying pull of a teenage love triangle. The shimmering synths of ‘Fuck Me Eyes’ and the lush strings of ‘Nettles’ bring an early glow, before the performance drifts into hazy ambient dream-rock reminiscent of Grouper. The mood is thick and steady, though it lacks big shifts in dynamics, leaving the set on a single emotional wavelength.
When ‘Tempest’ is briefly stopped and restarted so medics can help an audience member, ‘Waco, Texas’ follows as the main set closer. The encore then pivots toward older material, shifting the tone entirely. After a heartfelt ‘A House in Nebraska’, Anhedönia steps out from behind her green altar for the first and last time, moving into the brighter side of her discography with ‘Crush’ and ‘American Teenager’. Even though she has expressed discomfort with her most well-known tracks, their contrast with her darker material gives the finale a powerful lift. After holding the room in quiet tension for so long, their arrival feels like a release that lands with even greater impact.
