Over the next two weekends, the California desert will be overflowing with music lovers heading to the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
I grew up in a concert-going family and spent most of my college and grad school years as a DJ. I have been interested live music and music fests ever since. When you’ve made it to Coachella, you’ve made the big one. This festival brings in about 125,000 people each each day over span of the two weekends. That’s pretty massive numbers.
Last year, the first K-Pop group to headline Coachella was girl group BlackPink, and for good reason. Yet, no boy group in the K-Pop category has made it “to the Desert”.
That was until ATEEZ became the first boy group to be invited to the fest.
About five years ago, my then-teenage daughter discovered these guys via their video “Pirate King” and has been an instant ATEEZ scholar ever since. Our entire family knows more about these men than we probably should. I will tell you one thing: they deserve every little bit of attention they are getting.
This group of eight, who was picked up by a smaller company KQ Entertainment, has about 46 million hits on YouTube on their earlier videos. That’s impressive, but it was this video for “Bouncy (K-Hot Chilli Peppers) from their album Outlaw that even non-KPop fans helped propel to 119 million views in about nine months time:
Elements of cyberpunk and anime (spot the Akira-like reference) are mixed with with sci-fi and gothic fantasy in the video. There’s also underground kickboxing, spaghetti western and bad boy action film appeal. It even included a “post-credits” teaser to the first big hit off their follow up album. That hit, “Crazy Form” has already gotten about 109 million views in four months.
Okay, but why did they make the Coachella cut over some commercially better known groups like Stray Kids (who will headline Lollapalooza in Chicago this year) or BTS. Every member of BTS is currently serving in the military, by the way, so you won’t see them perform together again until at least 2025.
My guess, ATEEZ is one of the best live performing groups I’ve ever seen. We’ve watched a lot of concert footage. Their albums are always concept-heavy, with their last trilogy following a detailed story of a dystopian world where music and free expression are outlawed.Their current videos and music have been inspired by everything from Fritz Lang to Tolkien. Plus, they toss in a tribal sounds, rock, hip-hop and EDM (and a bit of BDSM) in their live performances.
Yeah, they are ready to hit the high and horny — and very judgey — crowds of Coachella right up there with the Deftones, No Doubt, Blur and Sublime. You might not know who they are now, but you will, very soon.
Coachella’s live stream begins Saturday, April 12, and runs for both weekends on their YouTube channel, with feeds for all the stages. Schedule will be announced soon.
FYI: My favorite band touring today, indie rockers The Rose, will also be there. Check them out on one of my Sunday Jams.