SEVENTEEN on making history at Glastonbury: “We’ll try to blow their minds with this weapon that we have”
When SEVENTEEN released their 11th mini-album ‘Seventeenth Heaven’ last October, they filled it with the joy, euphoria and escapism of a festival. Lead single ‘God Of Music’ exploded with sunny melodies and invitations to find connection through the higher power of music. Now, eight months later, the K-pop boyband are about to take that spirit and bring it gloriously to life on one of the biggest festival stages in the world – and make history in the process.
This Friday (June 28), the 13-member group will become the first-ever K-pop act to perform on Glastonbury‘s main stage as British festivals slowly begin to catch up with the scene’s global boom. “It’s such an honour, we’re super grateful,” Seungkwan tells NME over a video call from a nondescript room in HYBE’s Seoul office just weeks before the big moment. “Some of the audience members might not know us that well, but we just hope that everyone would leave with the impression that these guys can really smash it on stage.”
His comments nod to a marked difference between this and SEVENTEEN’s previous festival performances. Where other events tend to announce their line-ups while tickets are still available – or before they go on sale – Glastonbury sells out months in advance of much, if any, of the bill being revealed. Instead of performing in a field full of their fans, known as CARATs, they’ll likely face a crowd largely unfamiliar with them and K-pop as a whole.
“We actually tend to enjoy that challenge,” Seungkwan says, unfazed by the prospect. By his side, Dino agrees. “Obviously, it’s super enjoyable to share the experience with our fans,” the group’s maknae (or youngest) picks up from his bandmate. “But it’s also very exciting [to be able] to showcase us to people who might be less familiar. It makes us want to bring out an even more intense performance.”
SEVENTEEN are a perfect choice for introducing K-pop to Glastonbury for several reasons. In line with the festival’s ethos, their music often features unifying, encouraging messages – 2023’s ‘F*ck My Life’ battles through numbness to “fight for my life”, while 2020’s ‘Kidult’ captured the growing pains of adjusting to adulthood. Their songs – largely masterminded by member Woozi – are chameleonic in sound, everything from city pop (‘I Wish’), retro swing (‘Home Run’), R&B-tinged electronica (‘Fear’) and beyond feeling like a natural fit for the group. But it’s the last point that Dino makes that really makes their booking a no-brainer.
The boyband’s performance skills are some of the sharpest and best in K-pop, from Seungkwan and DK’s jaw-dropping vocals to the fiery swagger of Mingyu and the goosebump-inducing energy and passion Hoshi brings to every stage. Each member (the group is completed by Jeonghan, Joshua, Wonwoo, The8, S.Coups and Vernon) adds their own irreplaceable flair to their concerts – no matter where your gaze falls among the 13 members, you’ll find something to be impressed by. If any group can win over a crowd and convince them K-pop belongs at Glastonbury, it’s SEVENTEEN.
“it’s very exciting to showcase us to people who might be less familiar. It makes us want to bring out an even more intense performance.” – Dino
For Jun, their secret power in this mission to conquer the festival lies in not just their talent but their sheer strength in numbers, too. “For those who might be seeing us for the first time, the first thing that would most likely come to their mind is the fact that we have a lot of members,” he reasons. “I think we can leverage that to show a very special appeal that only we have as a team, as three units [the performance unit, hip-hop unit and vocal unit], and as individual members, so we’ll try to blow their minds with this weapon that we have.”
SEVENTEEN at Glastonbury isn’t just a historic moment in terms of the festival but for the group’s own touring chronicles as well. The performance will mark their first time ever performing in Europe – something that has been a long time coming. Originally, they were meant to visit the continent back in 2020 on their ‘Ode To You’ tour, but they were forced to cancel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We had been counting down and very much looking forward to that tour, so we were super bummed out when it got cancelled,” Dino reflects.
Other than a headlining set at Lollapalooza Berlin in September, SEVENTEEN’s touring slate post-Glastonbury is currently unclear, although they’ve been teasing a new run of dates kicking off later this year. Those shows, they’ve hinted, will include another visit to the US, but as yet, nothing has been confirmed for Europe. “We know how much our fans are waiting for us there,” Seungkwan assures. “I can’t say for sure at this point in time, but we’re definitely talking to the company, and we want to make it happen.”
Glastonbury, then, is a big deal on numerous levels. Big deal activities seem part of SEVENTEEN’s everyday life right now, though. Last year, they scored the biggest-selling global album of the year with ‘FML’, based on the IFPI’s calculations encompassing physical sales, downloads and streaming. Recently, they were announced as UNESCO’s first Goodwill Ambassador for Youth, thanks to their inspirational messages. And in recent months, the group have spent weekends headlining stadiums in South Korea and Japan that feel perfectly matched to the immense scale of their performances.
The opening concerts of that run took place in Incheon, a city just outside Seoul. The powerful and emotionally shows proved stadiums are where SEVENTEEN belong now. Kicking off the dates here was particularly meaningful for Jun, who points to Incheon as the place he landed when he first arrived in Korea from his native China. “I was super excited and felt butterflies in my stomach [but] that [association] bumped up the excitement even more,” he smiles.
Both nights featured a pretty drone show, the devices creating shapes in the sky that reflected elements of the boyband’s story, lit up in their official colours, rose quartz and serenity. “The drone show was exceptional – it captured the journey that we can CARATs shared together,” Jun recalls before focusing on the show as a whole. “I think it became a very important, precious chapter in our history.”
Those Incheon concerts were also the first in over 10 months that all 13 members had performed on stage together, after Seungkwan, S.Coups and Jeonghan took hiatuses for health issues. “We feel more weight on our shoulders because there’s a huge difference – even if we’re missing one single person,” Dino explains. “We feel like we have to exude more energy to make up for their absence.” Though, now that they’re back as a full group, the singer adds that it “creates more synergy and makes the stage even more complete, so we could feel more comfortable and be more confident in our performance”.
The last of those stadium shows (for now) landed on the boyband’s ninth anniversary and took them to the dizzy heights of a second sold-out night at Yokohama’s Nissan Stadium, the biggest performance venue in Japan. “Venues definitely have significance when it’s so large-scale, and it was definitely a surreal experience,” Seungkwan nods. “We felt so honoured and grateful and blessed to receive so much love and support.”
Over their nine years together, SEVENTEEN have gathered many moments to be proud of, but for Dino, the thing that sticks out the most isn’t the records they’ve broken or the grand stages they’ve performed on. “There are so many things that we’re proud of, I can go on and on,” he says, repeating snatches of the English translations with playful gestures as an interpreter conveys them to NME. “But I would have to say the most memorable or meaningful thing to us is that all 13 members have stayed together. And we didn’t become superstars overnight – we worked our way up, one by one.”
Despite all the group have achieved so far, going into their 10th year, it still doesn’t feel like they’ve hit their peak. Instead, they continue to grow and progress, level up and add new facets to their artistry – a rare feat this deep into a career. Aside from the motivation they’ve received from their fans, Seungkwan says the reason behind this is quite humble: “We just try to do our best every single day, encouraging and prodding each other along as we go.” He adds a cheeky but fair caveat to his point: “I don’t really know what the secret behind our success is – if we knew that, we would have become successful much earlier.”
Regardless of how they assess their triumphs so far, what is certain is, moving forward, SEVENTEEN will continue to push themselves even further. They’ll release another album later this year but are tight-lipped on where they’ll take things from here. “We’re also excited to see what new challenges we will be taking on later this year, but one thing I’m sure of is that CARATs and all of the audience out there are going to be blown away once again by the breathtaking piece of music that we will be putting out,” Seungkwan teases confidently. “We will put our heart and soul into the new album, as we have been doing up until now.”
So far, that tactic hasn’t steered them wrong, guiding them to the kind of global success a lot of artists only dream of. It’s taken them to the tops of charts and into sold-out stadiums and, now, to making history on one of the most legendary festival stages in the world. As rapper Mingyu says in ‘LALALI’, the latest track from SEVENTEEN’s hip-hop unit, “SVT, can’t stop it”. With that heart and soul by their side, that line seems undisputedly true.
SEVENTEEN will perform at Glastonbury 2024 on June 28 on the Pyramid Stage from 2:45pm to 3:45pm BST
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Rhian Daly
NME
