Live Review

ENHYPEN set Manchester alight with a show that's all bite, no filler

On the rare occasion a K-pop group books a tour date outside of London, they make it count. ENHYPEN do that and then some. Before they even step on stage at Manchester’s AO Arena, the energy is already at a 10, with the fans packing it out roaring at eardrum-rattling decibels as music videos play on the big screens. Obviously, this is par for the course at K-pop concerts, but it’s exceptionally noticeable tonight.

ENHYPEN, the seven-member South Korean boyband, debuted in late 2020 with a vampire backstory and the slick, moody, retro single ‘Given-Taken’. In the time since, they’ve remained one of the most fascinating groups to keep your eye on, their story developing in the ‘Dark Moon’ webtoon saga while the boys grew from timid teenagers to fully-fledged pop stars IRL. Their music has grown up too, most recently dipping into Timberlake-esque sensuality on this year’s ’Bad Desire’. Their ‘Walk The Line’ tour, marking ENHYPEN’s first time in Europe, attempts to delve into the group’s history and show how far they’ve come; what it lacks in lore, it more than makes up for in hits.

The set list is practically perfect; mercifully light on the ballads (the exception being the downtempo yearn of ‘Moonstruck’) and blistering from the start, ‘Brought The Heat Back’ kicks off what is set to be an absolute spectacle. No half measures, the production of this tour is superb. A thousand moving parts and a pyrotechnics budget bigger than Travis Scott’s make up a show that’s consistently engaging and impossible to find a loo break in.

The stage setup doesn’t really tell us anything about the group’s story, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. There are two very distinct sides to ENHYPEN this tour is showing us: the angsty, rebellious first half of their discography so far, featuring tracks like ‘ParadoXXX Invasion’, ‘Future Perfect (Pass the MIC)’ and ‘Blessed-Cursed’, and then more recent diversion into something significantly sexier, where ‘Bite Me’, ‘Loose’ and ‘No Doubt’ come in. One side is huge enough to thrive in an arena, the other so enticing, it’s obvious why they were picked to play vampires.

While greener K-pop groups have a tendency to perform for the cameras, ENHYPEN are right there with the audience. Their stage presence is undeniable, honed at first on the Korean pop group survival show I-Land and recently showcased at this year’s Coachella, the boys are either tightly choreographed or bounding along the runway straight down the standing audience. Rather impressively, they switch between the two with the kind of ease that only comes with spending five years in each other’s pockets. They really loosen up in the show’s second half, making ‘Tamed-Dashed’ into a dance remix of ‘Sweet Venom’ a total blast, while the house hit ‘Go Big or Go Home’ is so much fun they do a second encore just to do it twice. It would’ve been fantastic to get the storming ‘Blockbuster’ and amped up remix of ‘Drunk-Dazed’ that Coachella got in this section, but simply, we can’t have it all.

In a year where more K-pop groups seem to have paid the UK a visit than ever before, each one trying to differentiate themselves from another amongst rapidly expanding label rosters and connecting with fans who now have more options than a kid in a sweet shop, the extra Northern stop for ENHYPEN still feels warranted. The group feel as fresh and exciting as the day they debuted. In two-and-a-bit hours, ‘Walk The Line’ reveals how consistently solid ENHYPEN’s discography is, making up a tour that shoots ambitiously high and scores every time. It might just be the best K-pop tour of the year.

ENHYPEN set Manchester alight with a show that's all bite, no filler

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