Mexican District: Seventeen LA3C Review: The K-Pop Headliner’s Groundbreaking Set Brought The Heat With ‘Hot’ & Special Unit Performances

domingo, 11 de diciembre de 2022

Seventeen LA3C Review: The K-Pop Headliner’s Groundbreaking Set Brought The Heat With ‘Hot’ & Special Unit Performances

Moments before Seventeen stepped on the stage at LA3C, their fans gave them a very warm welcome on a chilly December night in Los Angeles. Seventeen’s devoted fans, known as CARATs, dressed in their best festival attire (some dressed as frogs and tigers, representing the favorite animals of members The8 and Hoshi), screamed and waved their diamond-shaped lightsticks as the names of the 13-member K-Pop boy group flashed on the big screens on stage right before their set. Many CARATs even waited outside the Los Angeles Historical State Park in the early morning, hours before the gates opened to support their favorite group and catch their dazzling first US festival appearance.

LA3C is the inaugural music, food and art festival of StyleCaster and SHE Media’s parent company Penske Media Corporation. The festival celebrates the rich culture and creativity of Los Angeles, and Seventeen is no stranger to the west coast city. In fact, one of the members, Joshua, was born and raised in LA and proudly professes his hometown love whenever he gets the chance. A day before their festival started, the group was honored at LA3C’s inaugural Creative and Culture Awards along with renowned anthropologist Dr. Jane Goodall and HYBE founder and chairman Bang Si-hyuk. The awards honor those who enrich Los Angeles and who position the city as an international capital of creativity, culture, and innovation. With their headlining performance, Seventeen really proved that their astonishing talent dominates the industry.

Image: Sarah Morris/Getty Images

As soon as the opening notes of “Hot” filled the park, all eyes were on S. Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Jun, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, DK, Mingyu, The8, Seungkwan, Vernon and Dino. The members set the energy bar super high and lit up the stage with the intense choreography as they sang the lead single from their latest comeback album Face the Sun. For most of 2022, Seventeen has been touring all over the world on their Be the Sun tour, and with every single performance, they effortlessly invigorate the crowd with hit after hit. “There might be some of you that have been to our concerts, but some of you might have not. We’ll show you how Seventeen really is,” Joshua proclaimed on the LA3C stage. The pace kept on going with the steady pop-rock song “Rock with You” filled with smooth jumps and suave arm movements when they sang the lyrics “Baby hold on, baby hold on.”

The lovable and welcoming “_WORLD” from the reissue album Sector 17 ramped up the audience with delicate footsteps and a promise that they “won’t let you down” before the group split into their respective units to perform some exclusive songs and classics. Joshua and Vernon (dubbed by fans as the “American line” since Vernon was born in New York) started it off with the English breakup pop-punk-inspired track “2 Minus 1.” After the duo left, the performance unit consisting of Hoshi, Jun, The8 and Dino, mellowed out the stage with “Highlight” which was filled with highly synchronized dance breaks and stunning fluid movements. The feeling of hope flourished through the crowd when members of the vocal unit, Woozi, Jeonghan, Joshua, DK and Seungkwan sang the moving “Second Life” from their 2019 album An Ode. It led to a quick shift to the iconic hip-hop unit song “GAM3 BO1” filled with quick hyper-pop glitched beats and S. Coups, Wonwoo, Mingyu and Vernon rapping that they “don’t need new buddies” since they were just some “GAM3 BO1s” and only needed their “day ones.”

Image: PMC

The culmination of the unit performances paved the way down to the highly anticipated SVT leaders unit song “Cheers.” Released as a surprise track in July, Seventeen’s unit leaders S. Coups, Woozi and Hoshi sing and rap about how they built their careers from the ground up and are now celebrating all the joys and luxuries because of their dedicated hard work. The unit rarely performs the song live, only performing for several Korean variety shows and at one of their shows in Japan last month. However, CARATs were absolutely ready to party it up to the song by very enthusiastically singing along to the lyrics. At one point in the bleeped-out verse, Hoshi defiantly raised a middle finger and the audience roared with highly-approving screams and well, cheers.

Image: Sarah Morris/Getty Images

The group reconvened for their last songs with the movable and hip “Left and Right” and a holiday version of “Darl+ing,” which brought jolly vibes to their first English single along with a snowy background against the notoriously sunny weather of Southern California. Of course, a Seventeen concert is not complete without a never-ending “Aju Nice.” Seventeen has an inside joke where they would perform the chorus of their song “Very Nice” and end the concert by leaving the stage and bowing, only to repeatedly run back on once the speakers blast “AJU NICE!” The band victoriously came back for more and more while dancing and singing with each other, and the crowd gave back the same exact power and stamina. After the final “Aju Nice” (the final “Aju Nice” count was six), Mingyu waved goodbye and jokingly told everyone, “The plane is waiting for us,” referring back to earlier when Vernon said that they were going back to Korea right after their set. The members thanked CARATs with so much love and gratitude, shouting out that they would be back soon, and like always, CARATs will be there for them when they do come back.