Over the past few years, K-Pop has become a mainstay within Coachella’s lineups. This year we had a few different artists take different stages, and I decided to watch the livestreams. And I have many thoughts about this year’s performances and K-Pop at Coachella overall.
A Little Background
Coachella is an annual music festival that takes place in the Coachella Valley in Southern California. The event features musical artists from many genres of music, including rock, pop, indie, hip hop and electronic dance music, as well as art installations and sculptures. Across the grounds, several stages continuously host live music.
Previous K-Pop performers at Coachella include Epik High (2016 & 2022), BlackPink (2019 & 2023), aespa (2022), and 2NE1 (2022). Jackson Wang, from the K-Pop group GOT7, has also made numerous appearances including this year. Korean artists that had their own stages this year included Ateez, Le Sserafim, and The Rose. 88Rising Futures had their own stage with many Asian artists including Korean soloist BIBI.
Week 1
You Can’t Lipsync Coachella
It is no secret that K-Pop with their many music shows leading to daily performances for artists that there is lip syncing happening. Idols have admitted to it, with some explaining why some performances may be lip sync over others. This works in K-Pop, but not at Coachella. You have to actually have the vocal skills to perform full sets live, and that was an evident struggle for one of our Coachella artists: Le Sserafim.
I am not going to hate on Le Sserafim for their performance, but I am going to be honest with what I thought when watching it. Their set started off poorly and slightly improved towards the middle. As a group, they did not collectively have the vocal skills and performance experience to do well. Their switch from handheld to headset mics did help them with looking more comfortable on stage, which made it better. But I can’t call it great in any way.
Now, I don’t put all of the fault on Le Sserafim for their lackluster showing. Here is one of the reasons why:
Not All Stages Are Created Equal
Something I noticed when watching different stages, and I mean the actual locations not just different artists sets, is that the stages deemed “more important” have better audio and camera staff. Both Ateez and Le Sserafim performed on the Sahara stage, and they had similar issues happening. The camera crew for both never really knew who to focus on and frequently focused on members that were not the main moment of the song. Both also had microphone mishaps where a mic would be off or really low, thus making it hard to hear for audiences and the artists themselves. The artists rely on feedback from their mics to know how they sound, and if they can’t hear it, they don’t know. That in particular played a big role in Le Sserafim’s struggles in my opinion and also would explain why they were shouting more than singing; their mics were not picking anything up.
Now you may be asking “But why didn’t Ateez struggle as badly?” And my answer is: they are way more experienced with performing live. They’ve had numerous tours and performances that require them to sing live. And they have practice not being able to hear their in-ear during one of their songs. And, to be frank, they are better vocalists than Le Sserafim.
Another stage that had Korean artists was the Mojave stage which hosted the 88Rising Futures showcase. They had some of the same microphone struggles with the earlier artists in their line up, but BIBI’s set was great on all accounts. You could hear her, which is a great start, and she showcased her vocal skills while also hyping up the crowd. This wasn’t her first Coachella and you could tell.
In my opinion, The Rose had the best performance of all of the Korean artists I watched. They were clearly very comfortable performing a festival stage, and they did not have anything technical issues. Also it was very clear that, compared to the other Korean acts, they had the best technical staff. So they had a leg up in that regard, but the ultimately succeeded by simply being themselves.
Weekend 2
Redemption or Condemnation?
The ultimate question of weekend two was if Le Sserafim would redeem themselves. They essentially had to for their reputation. And, in my opinion, they successfully redeemed themselves.
They seemed a lot more comfortable with their set this time, and like they were having more fun. Vocally they did sound better now that they focused more on singing versus shouting, and we could hear them much better than the previous weekend. However, each member had a different level of vocal success, with Chaewon and Yunjin performing the best. There were some moments of lip syncing as well, but I personally am not as bothered by that as long as the whole performance is not lip syncing. Would I prefer live vocals all the way through? Yes! But I don’t think Le Sserafim has trained enough for that. Hopefully their experience with Coachella helps motivate them towards improving their live performing skills.
As for Ateez and The Rose, they overall did well. But, in my personal opinion, they didn’t perform as well as they did the first weekend. What did improve at their sets was the crowd interactions. Ateez’s iconic Guerilla fan chant was so loud and distinct, and The Rose had everyone singing along with ease.
Should K-Pop Be At Coachella?
As a fan of K-Pop, of course I want it to be showcased at one of the largest music festivals there is. However, not every K-Pop artist is meant to take one of the stages. Some are not skilled enough yet and some just don’t have the music or concept that fits. I also think that Coachella seemed underprepared to host Ateez and Le Sserafim, at least unprepared to host them on the Sahara stage specifically. When the stage is primarily set up for DJs, it just won’t work for K-Pop groups. They fixed themselves for weekend two, but they shouldn’t have had to fix anything. Other music festivals take care of K-Pop artists better than Coachella did.
Did you watch any of the Coachella stages this year? Let me know your thoughts in a comment below!
Back when I was more of a BlackPink fan, I tried watching their Coachella performance becuz “everyone” said it was so awesome. I’m sorry, but they were so off-key that it was physically painful for me to listen to more than a few seconds of it. I’ve not tried to listen/watch any other kpop performances at Coachella since then as a result.