Breaking Walls and Setting Standards: A Reflection on ATEEZ at Coachella

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As the screen went black, the crowd’s cheers grew thunderous. What followed was a recorded voice saying, “Wake up, world,” accompanied by eerie footage of a dilated eye and audio of someone catching their breath. This seamlessly faded into an instrumental version of “Wake Up” and a red and black introduction sequence that teased each song on the setlist while displaying the names of each member. While all of this unfolded, my heart was beating out of my chest with excitement and my hand clutched tightly onto my sister’s. Make no mistake, we weren’t in the crowd at a concert. Not even close. We were sitting on our couch on the East Coast at 1:45am watching the YouTube live stream of ATEEZ’s set at Coachella.

There aren’t many words to accurately describe the feeling of being a fan of someone and witnessing their milestones in real time. In the least parasocial way possible, it feels like you’re reaching those milestones with them. When the Coachella lineup was announced and I saw ATEEZ slated for Friday, I thought I was looking at one of those “dream festival lineup” posts. My completely biased opinion says it’s only natural for a group revered as some of the best performers in K-pop to perform at one of the biggest music festivals in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t completely shocked when that opinion became fact. This made ATEEZ the first K-pop boy group to perform at Coachella. They’re also the only K-pop boy or girl group to perform at Coachella outside of the management of the major K-pop entertainment companies (SM, JYP, HYBE, and YG) – no small feat.

Over the course of two weekends, ATEEZ played two 50-minute sets on Coachella’s Sahara Stage, accompanied by a live band, a cinematic level of wind, and an enthusiastic audience whose cheers could be heard across the grounds on the Main Stage’s live stream. They played 10 songs, including their most recent title track “Crazy Form,” and fan favorites “Say My Name” and “Guerrilla,” each with a refreshing flair–thanks to the band’s stylistic additions.

The first weekend’s set was filled with an overflowing level of excitement that I felt from my couch. As soon as ATEEZ stepped onto the stage to a heavy drumbeat and a chant-like repetition of “Say my name, say my name, say my name,” the gravity of a group like them performing at a place like this washed over me. It seemed to wash over Hongjoong, the group’s leader and rapper, during one of their short breaks between songs. “I think the first time we came to LA was about six years ago, right?” he asked, smiling over at his members then out at the crowd. “We were practicing like crazy in a tiny little studio to get a chance to debut. They say dream big, but I don’t think I have ever imagined being here at Coachella. And yet, here we are. Dreams really do come true.”

During each weekend, there were a handful of moments that stuck out to me and members that shined so brightly that I couldn’t look away (even in my attempts to stay true to my biases). Weekend one left me hypnotized by Hongjoong, Wooyoung, and Jongho’s unapologetic confidence. The power and authority Hongjoong displayed the moment he asked “What’s up Coachella?” mixed beautifully with his style and freshly dyed red hair to piece together the most confident version of the leader I’ve seen. Wooyoung was visibly on Cloud Nine the entire night. There was an infectious smile on his face every time the camera was on him, and his energy seemed to reach a high during the theatrical performance of “ARRIBA.” If you ended up on the Coachella hashtag or asked anyone who was there, physically or virtually, the standout of the entire night was Jongho. As a member of a high energy performance group who is known for his unbelievable vocal range, Jongho tends to slide under the radar on stage. Coachella proved to be the perfect opportunity for that to be forgotten. The combination of his elegant styling, the wind gently blowing through his hair, and the deep breath he took before perfectly belting out a four note sequence before the bridge of “WONDERLAND,” their finale, made him the star of every ATEEZ-related post for the rest of the week.

As far as the second weekend goes, I lied to myself for longer than I’d like to admit when trying to choose which moments and which members stood out to me. While each member left everything on the stage and had moments of their own that I could brag about at length, there is one part of weekend two that I’m still thinking about.

During their performance of “WONDERLAND,” there’s a part just before Jongho steps up for the bridge where their backup dancers part down the middle and Seonghwa – a main vocalist, dancer, and sub rapper – is standing at the back holding a sword in front of his face. In every performance of this song, that section is always a standout. Seonghwa heaves the sword behind him as he takes long, dragging steps towards the front of the stage, raising the sword in the air to the music once he stops. At the final Coachella performance, Seonghwa visibly fought both exhaustion and the realization that these were their last few seconds on stage in the desert. The result of this was a battle cry that rang through the crowd–even without him shouting directly into his microphone. He let everything go in that second, raising the sword in the air and ending a monumental moment in their career as a group on a triumphant note. To top it all off, as they hit their final marks with finger guns pointed towards the crowd, the camera zoomed in on Seonghwa. As he nodded his head, content with his performance, a single tear or bead of sweat ran down his cheek, smearing his black eye makeup on the way. This made for one of the most memorable moments I can recall in my time so far as a fan. (And for an impressive collection of almost immediate fanart.)

To see an artist lose themself so completely in a performance is everything a fan can ask for, and that’s everything that ATEEZ delivered. Watching both weekends with my sister and my friend from the comfort of my own home did nothing to squash the concert anxiety I typically feel while seeing one of my favorite artists live. I was fully immersed in the world they brought to the stage and locked in on every move, sitting up a little straighter when Hongjoong came out for “The Real” holding a fan that had “Golden Hour” written on it. Of course, the next morning they announced a comeback scheduled for May 31 and announced North American tour dates a week or so later. I’m still stuck in the world of ATEEZCHELLA, and yet they’re already heading into new territory.